The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and Virginia-class submarine programs were the biggest victims of cuts made by Congress to the Navy’s shipbuilding request for fiscal 2012.
The Defense appropriations bill passed by Congress last week cut by $47 million from the $1.8 billion request for LCS. The Virginia-class (SSN-774) faced reductions of $11 million for construction but by $63 million for advanced purchases of long lead items.
The cuts to the attack submarine program could impact the Navy’s desire to maintain a two per- year build-rate, which was achieved for the first time in more than two decades in fiscal 2011.
The Pentagon has been facing broad spending reductions because of the ballooning national debt. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in October the constrained budget environment would likely jeopardize the goal of building two of the subs annually (Defense Daily, Oct. 17, 2011).
“We’ve been working to get to the point where we can build two submarines a year and that probably will suffer,” McKeon said at the time.
The LCS program has been hit by cost overruns and delays, prompting congressional criticism. The Navy has defended the ship’s multi-role capabilities and modular design, and said it has been reining in costs.
Rear Adm. James Murdoch, the LCS’s program executive officer, said in October he expected the third copy of the ship, the USS Fort Worth (LCS-3), to come in at cost and on schedule. (Defense Daily, Oct. 23, 2011) The Fort Worth and USS Coronado (LCS-4) are expected to be delivered in the next year.
The Navy is buying different designs of the ship from Austal USA and from a Lockheed Martin [LMT]-Marinette Marine team.
Lockheed Martin is behind the USS Freedom (LCS-1) variant while the Austal USA variant is the USS Independence (LCS-2). The two separate designs for the ship have also generated criticism.
The appropriations bill also slashed $19 million from the Navy’s request of $2 billion for the LHA replacement program.
The $1.98-billion funding request for Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyers and the $453 request for the Zumwalt-class (DDG-1000) destroyer program was unchanged.