With the news this morning that the Navy wants to split the buy for twenty new Littoral Combat Ships through 2015—ten from Lockheed Martin and ten from Austal and General Dynamics—it’s instructive to take a quick look at how we got to such an odd moment in a long and odd acquisition process.
Originally slated to cost $220 million per ship when the program was launched in 2002, the first two ships out of the dock had blown that number apart by time they hit the water. In documents that accompanied the 2010 Navy budget request, it was learned that the Lockheed-built ship, the USS Freedom, wound up clocking in at $637 million, while the General Dynamics/Austal-built USS Independence came in at $704 million. Shocking perhaps, but hardly surprising given the confusion that has marked the program from the beginning, which included cancellation of the LCS 3 and 4 builds in 2007, followed by a quick reversal. An angry Congress got into the game by slapping a cost cap of $480 million per ship beginning this year, a figure the Navy has admitted neither company could meet. While Lockheed is currently reporting that LCS 3 is more than 60% complete, General Dynamics/Austal continues work in silence. A spokesman for the team told DTI that it will have no comment on the LCS 4 build at Austal USA shipyards in Alabama before the Navy issues its contract award....
Shocking perhaps, but hardly surprising
given the confusion that has marked
the program from the beginning.
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