Navy to delay $4 billion contract for next carrier

[unhappycamper]

http://hamptonroads.com/2013/09/navy-delay-4-billion-contract-next-carrier

Navy to delay $4 billion contract for next carrier
By Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News
© September 14, 2013

WASHINGTON

The Navy will delay by as much as a year awarding Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. a contract for at least $4 billion to start construction on the second vessel in a new class of aircraft carriers, according to U.S. officials.

Award of the "detail design and construction" contract for the John F. Kennedy, designated CVN-79, was planned for this month until recently, said the officials, who asked not to be identified because the postponement hasn't been announced.

The ship would be built at Huntington Ingalls' Newport News Shipbuilding facility, the only place in the country that builds nuclear-powered carriers.

The Navy is grappling in a time of budget cuts with how to pay for a shipbuilding plan that anticipates spending$43 billion for three carriers in the new class, as well as $34 billion for 52 littoral combat ships and the costs, not yet estimated, for a 12-vessel nuclear submarine fleet to replace the Ohio-class subs.



unhappycamper comment: You folks are delusional if you think that we can buy three of these things for only $43 billion dollars. The USS Gerald R Ford will come in around $40 billion.....

[Atman]

1. Yeah, we need these because...

...when you blow people up using the older ones, they don't die as good.

[FBaggins]

4. nope

it's because the old ones don't last forever.

The better question to ask is whether we're paying many billions to make the same mistake that the Navy has made for centuries... planning to fight the last war when the next is very different.

[FBaggins]

2. There's no way that it's $40B

If you tack all program costs onto the first unit and include the cost of the air wing... maybe you get close. But neither is appropriate.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. The USS Gerald R Ford is lead ship of her class and a new technology warship...

...so with development costs, her $40B price tag is to be expected. That said, do we REALLY need that many aircraft carriers? There are 10 operational with one (the USS Warren Commission Lackey) to be commissioned in 2016.