(Navy Times) Editorial: Security before shipyards

[unhappycamper]

Editorial: Security before shipyards

Tracking all the changes to the DDG 1000 destroyer program can give you whiplash these days.

For 13 years, the Navy pushed development of the Zumwalt-class destroyers as its next-generation surface combat vessel; as recently as this spring, the service planned to buy at least seven. Then in late July, top shipbuilding officials suddenly reversed course and testified to Congress that the service should stop the ship class at two hulls and build more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Among their reasons: Zumwalts aren’t built to shoot down ballistic missiles, and Burkes are.

It was jarring to see Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, a deputy chief of naval operations, talking down a program the Navy had built up for so long. But the message was clear: These costly ships cannot meet the most urgent threat facing today’s surface warships.

Lawmakers who supported DDG 1000, especially Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, were up in arms, saying the move would hurt Maine’s Bath Iron Works. But in an Aug. 18 letter, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England assured her that the program wasn’t over with. He wrote that the Navy “has been directed” to “conform” to the earlier plan of buying a third Zumwalt in the fiscal 2009 budget.


Rest of article about these $5.3+ (or $10.3+) billion wizzbangs at: http://www.navytimes.com/community/opinion/navy_editorial_security_090108/%2e