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Lawmaker: Third DDG 1000 far from done deal

Even after the Navy made what looked like another about-face and said it supports a third Zumwalt-class destroyer, the fate of the ship known as DDG 1002 was far from clear Tuesday.

After the third Zumwalt-class destroyer apparently disappeared from this year’s shipbuilding plan in July — when Navy officials said they only wanted the two of the proposed seven Zumwalts — the ship seemed to reappear Monday, when top Navy officials sent letters to members of Congress saying that the Navy would continue advocating for the third Zumwalt. In particular, Navy Secretary Donald Winter reassured Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, that the ship would be built at her home state’s Bath Iron Works.

“The Navy’s latest decision will help ensure a more stable workload for BIW,” Collins said in a statement, “and it will enable the continued development of the DDG 1000 advanced technologies that will be used on future ships such as the CG(X).”

Winter told The Politico newspaper on Tuesday that the U.S. shipbuilding base couldn’t recover from a gap in work if it ran out of ships to build.

“We want to be able to continue production of surface combatants, particularly destroyers. We want to avoid any gap, if you will, that would impact the industrial base or the fleet.”

But even as Collins and some of her fellow members of Congress praised the apparent resurrection of the third ship, it was far from clear Tuesday whether DDG 1002 was a done deal. One of the ship’s biggest Capitol Hill opponents, Rep. Gene Taylor — the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Seapower Subcommittee — told Navy Times that nothing was certain.

“All of this is in play,” he said. Taylor’s subcommittee earlier this year “paused” the DDG 1000 program at two copies amid worries that cost overruns on the early ships would devour huge chunks of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget. The full House followed suit, and the third ship does not exist in the House’s version of the bill.

The statements Monday by Collins and other lawmakers acknowledged that House and Senate lawmakers would have to resolve the DDG 1002 question later this year in conference.

Taylor said his position has not changed, and that he still agrees with the Navy’s previous idea to stop the Zumwalt class at two ships. But a spokesman for Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, didn’t rule out that Murtha might add money for DDG 1002 later this year.

Murtha followed Taylor in deleting the third ship earlier this year, but he supports the DDG 1000 program in general; the House version of this year’s defense bill includes $450 million in advance procurement for the two ships Congress has already ordered. Murtha said in July he thinks too much money has already been invested in DDG 1000 — about $13 billion over more than a decade — for the Navy to abandon it.

But Murtha also opposes the Navy’s alternative idea for near-term shipbuilding: re-starting production of eight Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Navy announced in July it would build eight new Burkes after stopping the Zumwalt class at two hulls, partially because combatant commanders wanted area air-defense capability, and the DDG 1000 reportedly can’t use the Standard Missile family of SM-2 or SM-6 of surface-to-air missiles.

In addition to its continued support for a third Zumwalt, the Navy also continues to support building eight Burkes, said Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss. In fact, the service would like to ask Congress after it passes this year’s defense authorization bill to “re-program” money to buy long-lead items for the first ships, which could begin with the as-yet unnamed destroyer DDG 113.

“Our focus remains aligning war-fighting requirements with the future force,” Doss said.

DISCUSS: Two or three: How many are really needed?