By Geoff Fein
Any plan to sacrifice a DDG-1000 to buy other ships could impact the Navy’s surface combatant lines as the service begins developing new classes of ships, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) said.
“I am very concerned we do not disrupt our combatant lines,” CNO Adm. Gary Roughead told lawmakers yesterday. “Right now we are developing a new fleet of ships. If you look across from submarines to combatants to amphibious ships, we are introducing all new classes.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), raised the issue at the Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) Navy posture hearing Thursday. She was concerned about reports that some House members are suggesting the diversion of funds from DDG-1000 to buy T-AKEs.
General Dynamics‘ [GD] Bath Iron Works, which was awarded the construction contract for DDG-1000 earlier this month, is located in Collins’ home state.
Northrop Grumman [NOC] Shipbuilding was awarded the contract to build DDG-1001.
On Wednesday, members of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, questioned Navy officials whether it made sense to give up a future DDG-1000 in order to buy more ships, including a 10th LPD-17 (Defense Daily, Feb. 28).
“We really need to allow our combatant-build programs to take root, grow, and stabilize, and move us into the future,” Roughead said.
Following the SASC hearing, Roughead reiterated to reporters his position on paying for more ships by dropping ships.
“As I mentioned, it is important to me in the area of combatants, where we are breaking new ground, that now is not the time to go there and disrupt it for other programs,” he said. “So preserving our combatant path is very very important to me.”
Collins also said it is important the Navy make sure the plan to modernize the DDG-51-class of destroyers is managed appropriately in order to avoid a gap in work between the DDG-51 modernization and when work on DDG-1000 begins.
“I want to encourage you to both examine the cost and schedule advantages of doing that modernization at the building yard rather than at the homeport,” Collins said.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), questioned Roughead about plans for the follow-on to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
“The Navy has a requirement to start detailed design of the next class of ballistic missile submarines, in fact we have to start doing that pretty soon since 2019 is time to start construction,” Reed said.
“As you know, we have to start looking at that. We are beginning to move forward with initiatives to work that design process and work more cooperatively with the U.K. government which has a more urgent need than we do,” Roughead replied. “So we are moving forward.”