Lawmakers in the House and Senate want to accelerate procurement of the Navy’s next amphibious ship, called LX(R), but that speed might come at a cost, an official from one of the shipbuilders vying to win the contract said.
General Dynamics [GD] NASSCO is ready to start construction whenever the Navy orders, but a faster timeline will leave the company with less time to find cost savings and could result in a more expensive ship, said Steve Eckberg, the company’s director of government programs.
“We can support either the current schedule of record or an accelerated program. I think that the challenge for the Navy will be achieving the same level of cost reductions in a shorter period of time,” he said in a June 5 interview. “The Navy has really taken a serious challenge onboard in trying to drive cost out of those amphibious ships, and to the extent that they accelerate the program, it gives them less time to do those cost reductions.”
The Navy wants to procure 11 LX(R) vessels to replace Whidbey Island- and Harpers Ferry-class dock landing ships, commonly called LSDs. The service requested $46.5 million in the fiscal year 2016 budget for the program’s research and development. Construction of the first LX(R) is planned to start in 2020, but the House and Senate armed services committees think that timeline can be hastened.
In its version of the defense authorization bill, the House committee would direct the service to move up advanced procurement to 2016 and construction to 2018, two years ahead of schedule. It increased R&D funding by $29 million and authorized another $250 million for advanced procurement, including “investment in engineering, design and planning and long lead equipment including propulsion, steering and plants, castings and other items necessary to accelerate construction.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee authorized an additional $29 million for research and development and $51 million for advanced procurement, which could speed up construction of the first ship as much as a year, committee aides said.
“Accelerating the delivery of LX(R)-class ships to the fleet will enable the Navy to meet a greater amount of combatant commander demand for amphibious warships,” the committee’s report on the legislation states.
The Navy announced in 2014 that LX(R) would be based on the San Antonio-class (LPD-17) class amphibious ship, but the service wants the two competitors—NASSCO and Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII]—to drive even more cost out of the LPD hull. Both companies are conducting cost reduction engineering studies to find efficiencies, including optimizing the design of the ship and leveraging less expensive systems and design details, Eckberg said.
However, a faster timeline might mean the Navy will need to adjust their expectations for how expensive the LX(R) class will be, he said.
“They’ve talked about taking nearly half a billion dollars out of…each ship,” he said. “That’s a lot of cost reduction, and it’s going to require a lot of work with industry to do that.”
Bill Glenn, an Ingalls Shipbuilding spokesman, declined to comment on possible effects an accelerated schedule would have on the LX(R) program.
However, the National Defense Authorization Acts working their way through Congress contain good news for the shipbuilder. Both House and Senate authorizers have recommended the full funding of LPD-28, which would be built by HII. Should HII win the LX(R) contract, starting construction in 2018 would allow the company to transition from LPD-28 to LX(R) with no break in production.
“While the legislative process is not complete, Ingalls Shipbuilding and its amphibious warship supplier base are encouraged by congressional support of the President’s budget request for LPD 28,” Glenn said in an emailed statement. “The 12th ship in the San Antonio class (LPD 17) class is key to maintaining a reliable supplier base and hot production line at Ingalls so the LPD production team can be optimally positioned to build this ship and future amphibious ships as affordably as possible.”
A request to the Navy for comment was not returned in time for publication.
HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding is based in Pascagoula, Miss., and NASSCO is based in San Diego, Calif.