Okay, let's see if I've got this right.
The Navy has pretty much ended their much-touted Littoral Combat Ship programme at two hulls, because Congress blanched at the massive cost overruns for the ostensibly "cheap" ship . . . not to mention that the platform, as designed, was incapable of meeting its minimum endurance requirements. Just recently, the Navy also announced, before Congress, that it was terminating the DD(X) programme at just two hulls - Zumwalt and her sister - citing ballooning costs in the programme and "emerging threats," which they conveniently don't expound upon. Hmm. The very same programme that originally called for thirty-two hulls, which was subsequently cut to seven hulls because of rising costs, and which has now been cut to just two hulls . . . because of costs. I seem to remember writing something about this a while ago . . . damn, I'm good.
Now, if the $3.2 billion dollar DD(X) is dead in the water, so to speak, I'm guessing that we can assume CG(X) is likewise dead, since that platform is only a larger and hideously more expensive DD(X). Which means that we now have no follow-on destroyer or cruiser design. But what the hell, we don't have any follow-ons to the various frigate classes we've already retired, and the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates we're already well into retiring. And the SSN community has already been decimated. Pretty soon, all we'll have left are the CVNs, the Burke-class DDGs, and a handful of Virginia-class SSNs, what with the Los Angeles-class SSNs leaving that community.
On the bright side, however, the Navy is going to take the funds already procured for the DD(X) programme and reopen production for the Burkes. Great, they killed the $3.2 billion dollar ship so they could buy a few more $3 billion dollar ships. The very same ships they claimed needed to be replaced because they were "1980s" technology rapidly being overtaken by emerging technologies and threats.
Anyone else see the contradiction there?
Look, I've always said that DD(X) was too expensive to procure in the numbers needed to adequately replace retiring platforms and keep the Fleet at a strength where it can do all the things we expect it to do. But cost wasn't the only thing that killed that programme. Unproven propulsion and machinery concepts, an inherently unstable and inefficient hull design that was abandoned prior to the First World War, and the blind insistence that the very latest, bleeding-edge electronics technology - technology that obsolesces itself every 18 months, by the way - is what really killed that programme.
Also, one can't help wondering just what these "emerging threats" are that so suddenly rendered DD(X) and, by implication, CG(X), an untenable proposition. Remember, folks, DD(X) was trumpeted as the do-all ship for any combat environment, faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall waves at a single bound . . .
There's an implication in there, too, which is that the senior leadership in DoD, both uniformed and civilian, have lost focus on just what it is they're supposed to be doing. What we need are ships that are capable of executing their missions and controlling the seas; what we don't need are horrifically expensive technology demonstrators.
But comfort yourselves with this fact: CVN-21 is still steaming full speed ahead and, by the time the first hull of that $8.2 billion dollar ship hits the outfitting pier, I'm quite confident that the end-cost will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12 billion dollars, if not more.
Not so important, I guess, save for the fact that we still seem to be rushing headlong down the path to where the Navy, because of costs and a blind belief that new technology can solve all our problems, will rapidly devolve into a force incapable of even basic coastal defence. We're already well on the way to that.
We're a maritime nation, folks. The economy and the way you live depend, to a not insignificant degree, on the Navy's ability to control the seas and keep them open for commerce - a mission it performs not just for us, but for everybody who conducts trade using the sea.
As one of my least favourite Congressmen used to say, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money," this is your money that's getting tossed around here like so many Monopoly bills, people. Do something about it.
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