By Geoff Fein
The Navy should build 11 new Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to both replace the aging Ticonderoga-class ships and boost the number of surface combatants, according to an influential defense analyst.
Robert Work, who has been rumored to fill a number of top Navy posts, told attendees at the Surface Navy Association luncheon in Arlington, Va. yesterday, that the Navy made the right decision on DDG-1000 and the service should begin looking at a new design ship, with the goal of reaching 88 surface combatants.
DDG-1000 suffered from two things, Work, a member of President Obama’s transition team at the Pentagon, said. “It is a tremendous ship. If I had an unlimited budget I’d buy it, but the mission it was originally designed for has gone away.”
Work, who is the vice president strategic studies for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), noted the Navy is going to have to fight from longer ranges in the future. “Therefore [DDG-1000], is not as important as we once thought it was.”
The cost uncertainty on DDG-1000 is “extremely high,” Work added. Therefore, the Navy couldn’t risk putting the ship into the program because it could unravel the entire force.
Instead, Work recommended building 11 more DDG-51s to both replace the seven Ticonderoga-class ships as well as adding to the goal of 88 combatants. Those 11 ships would have to be built to a common battle network standard, all with open architecture, all with similar capabilities to enable them all to be totally interchangeable, he said.
Additionally, he added that the 88 combatants should all have some form of Ballistic Missile Defense.
“In the mean time, I’d be designing a new ship,” he told the attendees. “I don’t believe you’ll be able to afford a nuclear powered cruiser. I don’t believe you are going to be able to afford any new ship that is going to cost more than $2.5 billion apiece.”
As for the Navy’s efforts to build the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), what Work referred to as a small network combatant, he said the Navy is on the right track.
“The idea of a modular, small battle network combatant which can contribute from the low- to the high-end, is exactly the right thing,” he said. “The Navy is taking a lot of grief, but in my view, after looking at this program, the Navy got the ship they designed.”
But not at the cost they had estimated, Work added.
LCS will be about a $500 million once the service gets into full-rate production. Work pointed out that the Navy originally said the total system, which includes the mission package system, was to cost $400 million. “[The Navy] grossly underestimated the cost of the sea frame.”
“Once you get into full-rate production, [the cost] will actually come down,” he added.
Additionally, once shipbuilders get a stable design with no changes or new requirements added on, that should help bring LCS’ cost down too, Work said.
“No one else is better than U.S. shipbuilders at driving cost out,” he added.
With the Navy’s plan to buy 55 LCS, the service is essentially replacing 56 vessels–which includes 26 mine warfare vessels, Work noted.
“It’s not supposed to be perfect. It’s supposed to be a small battle network combatant that will rely on off-board and unmanned systems, which are essential in the littorals,” he said. “I believe the LCS program is central to the future of the Navy. [I] don’t believe it is overpriced.”
Work said the LCS acquisition, which calls for building 55 ships then stopping for 12 years, doesn’t make a lot of sense to the industrial base.
“I recommend building four a year. [I have] no judgment if we go to one or two hulls,” Work said.
When the Navy reaches the goal of 55 ships, they should continue to build at a rate of four per year to begin replacing the older LCS hulls, he added.
Additionally, he proposed offering the sea frame free to our international partners with the caveat that they pay for the mission packages they want. Not only would it keep production lines for the ship operating, but it would build partnership capacity, Work added.