Cochran, Collins Guide DD(X) To Calmer Political Waters

With the help of well-placed, influential lawmakers, Congress in December passed two pieces of legislation considered overwhelmingly positive to the Navy’s pivotal DD(X) destroyer program, safeguarding plans to build two of the pricey surface combatants next year.

But despite the congressional support in the last round of budget negotiations, sources tracking the program said DD(X)’s future still hinges largely on the Pentagon’s ability to keep costs at bay, particularly at a time of heightened budget scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers from Mississippi and Maine, home to the two shipyards gearing up to build the DD(X), have been largely credited with overturning language proposed by leery House lawmakers that would have slashed roughly $1 billion from the program and imposed stringent cost caps — a key victory during a particularly crucial year for the program.

The ranks of those two state delegations include powerful Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and moderate Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel.

However, even the political power leveraged by Collins and Cochran could do little to save the DD(X) if costs for the ships far exceed the Navy’s expectations. The first DD(X) is expected to cost $3.3 billion, but top Navy officials have said they eventually could slice the price tag to below $2 billion per ship. Current Navy plans call for seven DD(X) ships.

“What happens with the DD(X), and how many we build, depends in part on cost,” said one congressional staffer.

Robert Work, a Navy analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C., agreed, stating that even the program’s top supporters would have difficulty backing the destroyer if the Navy cannot get the per-ship cost under control. With shipbuilding budgets already stretched thin, high costs for DD(X) would eat into other critical naval areas.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who is against the ship in and of itself,” Work said. But lawmakers have “always been concerned with the costs.”

The Navy’s top acquisition official acknowledged the program’s hefty cost in a recent interview, but stressed that systems developed for the DD(X) will be transferred to other ships.

“Cost is always an issue, and we recognize this is a very expensive ship. But there is a lot of technology on this that [is] going to go onto other ships,” said Delores Etter, Navy assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition. “You can be sure we’re watching costs and doing everything to keep these costs down.”

Vice Adm. Terrance Etnyre, commander, naval surface forces, said the DD(X) is one of the ships to come under the aegis of a new managerial process, the Surface Warfare Enterprise, created to improve the efficiency of acquisition programs and squeeze costs out. Comprised of naval offices that spend money on ships and other hardware, the effort is based on the Navy’s SHIPMAIN project, a reorganization of ship maintenance processes that saved $700 million, chiefly by eliminating redundancies.

During negotiations on the fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill, House lawmakers deferred to Cochran, who successfully thwarted attempts to slash $1 billion from the program, which will be built in part at Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, Senate authorizers, led largely by Collins, revised the House’s recommended cost cap on the program from $1.7 billion per ship to $2.3 billion on the fifth ship, giving the Navy a more attainable goal. Maine’s Bath Iron Works, run by General Dynamics, is tapped to build the second DD(X).

“I believe that’s an endorsement of the program and shows confidence in the Navy shipbuilder team for now, and for the management team going forward,” said Jay Foley, vice president of business development for Northrop Grumman Ship Systems.

Collins also inserted language to ensure Bath and Ingalls would continue to build the DD(X), at least for the time being. Members of the Mississippi and Maine delegations have publicly argued that the country needs two surface combatant shipyards, particularly in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. Ingalls was damaged last summer when Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast.

The two-shipyard language was included in the defense authorization bill over objections by Navy officials, who have said building the seven destroyers at two shipyards would do the very thing Congress fears — increase costs on the program.

“We’re not surprised by it. We fought the battle, and we knew a few months ago that battle was lost,” said a key Navy official. “Politics is making that blow rather than good acquisition policy.”

While two shipyards may not be the most cost-effective way to build the DD(X), the Navy official said the political support from Maine and Mississippi could be beneficial for the program on Capitol Hill.

“It is nice to have two delegations” behind the program, the Navy official said. “It has a double-edged sword.”

But the congressional staffer noted that the language inserted by Collins does not delineate a division of labor between the two shipyards, potentially providing the Navy with a loophole through which it can focus on a single manufacturer after the first two ships are built.

That could benefit Northrop Grumman, the preliminary DD(X) designer widely considered the favorite in a competition for a production contract. Etter acknowledged the Navy may compete the production contract after the first two ships are built, but stressed that the two companies are on a “level playing field for any future competition.”

Etter added that the Navy is leaving its options open on DD(X). The service plans to evaluate the production of the first two ships, as well as future funding for the program, before deciding on a long-term acquisition strategy.

“This is just an extremely important ship for the Navy … and we are very enthusiastic in moving forward with it,” she said. “It is going to be a really important year.”

Congress Demands Annual Reports on LCS Modules

Conferees on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill included a provision requiring the Navy to conduct an annual study on the mission modules for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), a sign Congress has its eye on keeping costs down on the modules, which are considered central to the program.

In the study, the Navy secretary must estimate the price tag for the ship’s three mission packages, which are not included in the $220 million cost cap imposed on the LCS program in this year’s authorization measure. Congress also wants estimates on the total number of modules, or mission packages, to be procured.

Lawmakers did not feel comfortable capping the mission packages, preferring instead to give the Navy greater flexibility in design. The packages would be married up with the LCS platform after the ships are fielded.

But the lawmakers were concerned the cost of the mission packages would “grow uncontrollable,” said a House Armed Services Committee staffer.

“We wanted to have some visibility into where [the Navy] was going with them so we could take some action, some intervention” if necessary, the staffer said.

So far, the annual study has not caused any heartburn within the Navy.

“We’re just happy to have the LCS sailing, so if they want us to do a study, fine,” a service official said.

The intent of the modules is to allow the Navy to tailor the multimission LCS for antimine, antisubmarine and surface warfare operations.

[See related story, Page 24]

House Members Create Submarine Caucus

After learning late last year about planned layoffs at Electric Boat headquarters in his district, Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., has decided to create a congressional caucus focused exclusively on subsurface warfare.

Among the primary goals of the caucus is increasing the nation’s submarine fleet, which Simmons argues is shrinking just as the Chinese Navy develops submarines that soon will surpass technologically those built in the United States.

“The submarine industrial base is in jeopardy,” he wrote in a Dec. 15 letter asking colleagues to join the caucus. “Its highly skilled construction and manufacturing work force faces an across-the-board contraction because of an insufficient shipbuilding plan.”

Nine other lawmakers have signed on to the caucus, including co-Chairman Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I. A spokesman for Simmons said the nascent group is separate from a broader shipbuilding caucus formed last year.

Simmons “just felt that the uniqueness of the sub industry warranted its own caucus,” the spokesman said.

A Broader Role For Deep Blue

Deep Blue, an internal Navy think tank founded in the wake of 9/11, is being given a far broader role within the service by Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations (CNO).

Deep Blue’s primary bailiwick was to provide the CNO with ideas about how to better support joint combat operations and advise him on his roles as the Navy’s service chief and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But Mullen has expanded its purview to include short-notice staging of naval and joint force maritime component commanders to provide “deliberate, contingency, crisis and exercise planning.” Top officials of Deep Blue began reaching out months ago to Navy component commanders to support their planning needs and bolster tepid support within some sectors of the Navy. The office now is internally being revamped to handle its broader role under Mullen’s aegis.

Deep Blue’s new role is envisioned as similar to that of Checkmate, the lair of Air Force air and space power strategists that provides the Air Staff and warfighters with options that are logistically supportable and politically feasible. Founded in the mid-1970s, Checkmate provides research, analysis, operational planning and strategic concepts development.

Rear Adm. (Sel.) Philip H. Cullom, Deep Blue director, told Seapower that the office’s “CNO-directed realignment is consistent with its latest portfolio of current projects, which includes operational plan development, introduction of new technology to the fleet, global war on terrorism initiatives, naval operational concept development, the use of advanced analytics in data management and a number of classified efforts.”

Deep Blue’s broader mission includes projects such as real-world planning in the Pacific and maritime security operations in the Arabian Gulf.

ONR, Alaska Builder Combine On E-Craft

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is nurturing the development of a fast, twin-hull ship with a hydraulic center section that can be raised and lowered to take on troops and materiel, including battle tanks.

The unusual vessel is seen as a key element of the Navy’s sea basing concept that envisions future logistical support and troop-staging operations done at sea rather than on land. Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, former ONR director, said the experimental E-Craft is a means “to try and solve the … issue of getting from the prepositioning ship at high speed to and over the beach with M1A1 tanks, and back again to resupply.”

ONR will invest $20 million in the project and has contracted with Alaska Ship & Drydock Inc., Ketchikan, Alaska, to develop the

E-Craft, called Sealifter, in a venture with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough of Ketchikan. Also to serve as an Alaska ferry, the E-Craft has a twin hull design and will be fitted with a barge to be hydraulically lifted and lowered between the two hulls for the at-sea transfer of troops and cargo from a large, prepositioning ship.

“It’s an interesting technology with a reconfigurable hull form,” said a Navy official. The Pentagon’s Defense Science Board wants to determine if a larger version of the E-Craft could be developed to support the Army’s desire to cross the ocean in one hull configuration and then change the configuration to go into a shallow draft area, the official said.

Reporting by Seapower Correspondent Megan Scully. Managing Editor Richard R. Burgess and Assistant Editor David W. Munns contributed to this report.