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Critics blast move to end DDG 1000

The Navy’s decision to build at least nine more DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and end the new DDG 1000 Zumwalt class at two ships has drawn hearty applause from some corners. But supporters at the Pentagon and in Congress are insisting the issue is far from over.

The Navy’s leadership signed off on the plan July 22, when Navy Secretary Donald Winter and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead met with Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Pentagon acquisition chief John Young. England approved the Navy’s desire to “truncate” the seven-ship Zumwalt class to two ships and build more Burkes, a line that was to end at 62 ships.

While sources say Defense Secretary Robert Gates has approved the plan, Young did not seem ready to concede the issue. He was the Navy’s acquisition chief earlier in the Bush administration — a time when England was Navy secretary — and fought hard for the Zumwalts. Young issued a statement July 25 indicating the DDG 1000 question remains under consideration.

“There was agreement that the Navy should discuss the new plan with the Congress and industry,” Young said in his statement on the July 22 meeting. The Navy could include the new plan in its fiscal 2010 budget plans, Young said, but “with an understanding that more analysis and discussion was necessary before there would be agreement.”

Capitol Hill reaction to the plan also was mixed. Members of the House Armed Services Committee — where seapower subcommittee chairman Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., has long advocated the Navy’s latest move — were supportive and upbeat. But Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee who recently said he opposed further DDG 51 construction, held his cards close. He declined comment through a spokesman, who said Murtha’s course would be revealed July 30 after the committee’s markup of the 2009 defense bill.

Taylor and his subcommittee, meanwhile, readied plans to hold a July 31 hearing on the destroyer issue.

Senate supporters of the Zumwalt decried the Navy’s move. Led by Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy and Maine Republican Susan Collins, 12 senators signed a July 24 letter to Gates complaining about an “apparent disconnect between more than a decade of Navy testimony and the recent advocacy against the President’s budget.” The Bush administration’s 2009 defense budget request includes $2.55 billion for the third DDG 1000 destroyer.

Why, and why now?

Navy and Pentagon officials insist there is no single reason behind the course change.

“There was not one data point that drove this,” one defense official said. “It’s a culmination of so many things.”

Among those issues are:

* Fears that potential cost growth in the DDG 1000s could threaten other Navy shipbuilding programs. The Navy has forecast the first two ships would cost $3.3 billion apiece, with the price dropping after that. But significant cost analysis from outside the Navy Department has warned the true costs will be far higher, up to $5 billion and more per ship. “It’s clear that Navy leadership doesn’t agree with previous Navy cost estimates,” one congressional source said.

* Faith by Roughead that the DDG 51 is a tried-and-true platform with well-understood cost factors, able to provide the combat capability the service foresees for the immediate future. “We’re making this move in order to avoid a threat-to-capability mismatch,” a service official said.

* The emergence of ballistic missile defense as an accepted Navy mission for destroyers. Navy officials pointed out the dual-band radar being built for DDG 1000 isn’t required to do BMD. Eighteen Aegis ships — 15 Burke destroyers and three cruisers — have been modified to handle the mission.

Navy officials declined to brief the media on why they chose to reverse a decade-long course to cap DDG 51 production and move to the revolutionary DDG 1000. But spokesman Lt. Clay Doss provided some explanation.

“Building [more] DDG 51s enables us to expand both war-fighting capacity and capability, reaching the 313-ship level sooner,” Doss said July 24. “The 313-ship force represents the maximum acceptable risk in meeting the security demands of the 21st century, allowing us to remain a global deterrent and meet combatant commander war-fighting requirements.

“DDG 51 is a proven multimission ship that better meets our needs, particularly integrated air missile defense, ballistic missile defense and anti-submarine warfare.”

The DDG 1000 program also reflects a decade of research and development costing billions of dollars — estimates range from $7 billion to more than $11 billion. That money hasn’t been wasted, the Navy said.

The new program

Navy officials confirmed the new plan to add eight DDG 51-class ships in the years 2010 to 2015 and ask Congress to change the 2009 request from a third DDG 1000 (hull number DDG 1002) to a DDG 51 — which would become DDG 113.

Naval analyst Bob Work, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, offered his take on why the move is happening now.

“It’s an election year and a year before the Quadrennial Defense Review,” Work said. “This move implies that Admiral Roughead thinks he can’t wait, and that he doesn’t want anyone making this decision other than the U.S. Navy.

“In that regard, the CNO deserves credit.”