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| Friday, June 6, 2025 • 67th Year • Volume 306 • No. 47 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Funding Issues Force Coast Guard To Stop Work On Two OPCs; First Ship Likely Delayed The Coast Guard has issued a stop work order to Eastern Shipbuilding Group for the third and fourth Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs) due to funding issues, and the first ship is behind schedule and unlikely to be delivered this year as planned, the acting service commandant and a House member said on Thursday. Moreover, the Coast Guard is assessing whether to have another shipbuilder complete work on OPC hulls three and four, Rep. Mike Ezell (R-Miss.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s panel that oversees the Coast Guard, said. Ezell noted that the OPC program has received “substantial cash infusions,” but that Eastern Shipbuilding “has indicated that they cannot carry out the contract without taking an unabsorbable loss. As a result, the Coast Guard has issued a stop work order for hulls three and four, and has issued a Request for Information, RFI, to determine options to move the Stage One hulls to yet another yard to complete the work.” In September 2016, Eastern Shipbuilding won a potential $2.4 billion contract to design and construct up to nine 360-foot OPCs. However, just over two years later, the Panama City, Fla.-based shipbuilder was slammed by Hurricane Michael, a severe Category 5 storm, forcing the company to seek cost and schedule relief. The Department of Homeland Security in October 2019 granted contract relief but also reopened competition for the OPC program, designating Eastern Shipbuilding’s portion Stage 1 and the new effort Stage 2. The Coast Guard in June 2022 awarded Austal USA a potential $3.3 billion contract to design and build up to 11 OPCs in Stage 2, which starts with the fifth ship. The contract relief granted Eastern Shipbuilding was spread across the four OPCs, all of which have begun construction. Eastern Shipbuilding, as with so many businesses, including government shipbuilders, also suffered workforce and supplier blows related to the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, construction of the first OPC was beset by an improperly designed main drive shaft supplied by Rolls-Royce that did not fit and was removed (Defense Daily, Oct. 21, 2022). The first OPC, the Argus, was originally slated for delivery in 2021 (Defense Daily, Sept. 28, 2018). The new delivery date is in 2025, but acting Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday told the House panel that the ship is only 72 percent complete and that delivery by the end of the year “is in doubt.” Eastern Shipbuilding said it is in discussions with the Coast Guard on OPC deliveries. “We share a common goal with the U.S. Coast Guard—to deliver the Offshore Patrol Cutters as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Joey D’Isernia, CEO of the shipbuilder, said in a statement. “We are actively working to reach an agreement that ensures the program is properly funded and can move forward without further delay. System light-offs on Hull 1 are currently underway, and despite the unprecedented challenges we’ve face, we remain confident that our incredible workforce represents the most capable and reliable team to complete these vital national security assets.” The RFI mentioned by Ezell during the hearing was actually issued by the Department of Homeland Security, which the Coast Guard is part of. The May 28 notice, essentially a market survey, does not mention the OPC but seeks feedback on towing, transportation, and completion services, and pricing for vessels between 300 and 400 feet long, a beam of 50 to 60 feet, and 17-foot draft. The OPC has a 54-foot beam and 17-foot draft. The estimated tow date is between September 2025 and October 2026. The RFI does mention President Trump’s Executive Order 14271 that calls for agencies to purchase “commercially available products and services.” The market survey says “Highly capable commercial and non-commercial domestic contractors with substantial facilities that possess the near-term capacity and capability are encouraged to respond.” The Coast Guard’s program of record is for 25 OPCs, which the service says form the backbone of its cutter fleet. Austal in August 2024 began construction of OPC 5, and Lunday said “they are making strong progress on delivery,” which is scheduled for 2028. The OPCs will replace a contingent of aging 270-foot and 210-foot medium endurance cutters, that fill a gap between the Coast Guard’s high-endurance fleet of 418-foot ocean going National Security Cutters (NSCs) and 154-foot Fast Response Cutters, which typically patrol for three to five days in the littorals. The NSC program, which is seen by the Coast Guard as a successful program, is having its issues. HII [HII] was under contract to deliver 11 of the ships but a contract dispute led DHS and the shipbuilder to agree to end the program after 10 vessels, all of which have been delivered. Construction of the 11th, and final, ship was underway before being halted last fall (Defense Daily, March 10). HII and the Coast Guard agreed to modify NSC contract to sunset the program and focus on readiness of the first 10 ships. Lunday, who is Trump’s nominee to become commandant, has warned Congress that sustained underinvestment in his service has led to a “severe readiness crisis.” He said, “there is an urgency” to recapitalize the Coast Guard’s aging assets “that are increasingly harder to maintain and increasingly not available for operations.”
Independent Review Team on SDA Submits Report to Pentagon
On the docket for newly installed Pentagon acquisition chief, Michael Duffey, will be his review and implementation of the closely held recommendations of the DoD Independent Review Team (IRT) for the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). The IRT report is also in the hands of Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman. Chaired by former House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), IRT members have included Tina Harrington, who has worked as the signals intelligence director for the National Reconnaissance Office; Randall Walden, a consultant who headed the Department of the Air Force’s rapid capabilities office (RCO), which had signature programs, such as the B-21 Raider, under the RCO purview; and Sarah Mineiro, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Aerospace Security Project and Thornberry’s former staffer on military space (Defense Daily, March 10). Mineiro also worked as the senior director of space strategy at Anduril Industries. Originally to start launch last September, SDA’s Tranche 1 satellites–the first to connect military forces in the field–are to begin orbiting late this summer, as SDA works to integrate them with ground systems. Earlier this year, DoD said that SDA has met the “minimum viable product” (MVP) standard for the PWSA Tranche 0 Transport Layer communications satellites and Tracking Layer missile warning satellites, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in February said that four evaluated contractors for the Tranche 0 satellites have only met standards four times out of 32 in eight optical communications terminal (OCT) categories (Defense Daily, Feb. 27). SpaceX hit the mark three times–in the category of Tracking Layer space-to-space laser links among SpaceX satellites in the same orbital plane, Tracking Layer space-to-space data transmission among SpaceX satellites in the same orbital plane, and Tracking Layer space-to-ground laser links. York Space Systems passed muster in the Transport Layer space-to-space laser links among York satellites, while Lockheed Martin [LMT] and L3Harris Technologies [LHX] did not hit any of the marks, according to the GAO report, Laser Communications: Space Development Agency Should Create Links Between Development Phases (GAO 25-106838). GAO said that an example of MVC would be the amount of global coverage expected for a satellite constellation, while MVP would be the number of satellites required to provide such coverage. OCT laser links among satellites built by different companies has been a point of concern and one that DoD has sought to alleviate with the Enterprise Management and Control effort (Defense Daily, March 19, 2024). SDA developed an OCT standard of 2.5 gigabits per second data transmission–“relatively lower than some commercial technologies that transmit data at 100 gigabits per second,” according to GAO. SDA said that its Tranche 0 satellites were not meant to be operationally tested and that it is working with industry and the DoD Directorate of Operational Test and Evaluation to test the Tranche 1 satellites. “We appreciate that GAO included SDA among their reviews; we are considering their recommendations and will determine how we comply with the spirit of the report,” SDA wrote in an email in response to questions on GAO’s February report. “However, the primary recommendation made in the report about our work disregards SDA’s spiral development model, which is applied specifically to accelerate delivery of capabilities to the warfighter. Spiral development relies upon advances in the commercial market to make iterative improvements to technology in future generations of the architecture.” Implementation of the IRT recommendations may begin soon. Before Duffey came to the helm, acting DoD acquisition chief Steve Morani gave the go ahead for U.S. Space Force to implement them. Duffey, nominated by President Trump for the DoD acquisition chief position last Dec. 22, served as the associate director for national security programs in the White House Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term. Duffey also served in DoD for 14 years and led transition efforts at the Pentagon after last November’s elections. Before the Senate approval of Duffey on a 51 to 46 vote on Tuesday to lead the DoD acquisition office, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday that he has “serious doubts about Mr. Duffey’s ability to run this critical function of our government.” “Furthermore, in 2019, Mr. Duffey played a key role in the scandal that led to President Trump’s first impeachment: withholding military aid from Ukraine to extort information on Mr. Trump’s political opponents,” Reed said. “While serving as a top official in the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Duffey directed the Pentagon to withhold $250 million from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative while Mr. Trump simultaneously demanded that President Zelenskyy hand over any information he had about Mr. Biden’s family.” Reed continued that Duffey “coauthored a chapter for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that suggested federal procurement policy should be used to attack so-called woke policies in corporate America.” “It is not hard to imagine how Mr. Duffey could use his position as the head of the largest acquisition organization in the world to weaponize federal funding against private corporations that he and President Trump disagree with politically,” Reed said.
RTX, Northrop Details Successful Rocket Motor Tests For Stinger Replacement Offering
RTX’s Raytheon [RTX] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] said Thursday they’ve completed four successful tests of the rocket motor used for its Stinger missile replacement offering, to include a ballistic flight demonstration. Raytheon said additional tests of the Highly Loaded Grain (HLG) solid rocket motors are planned in the coming months as it works toward a full flight test of its Next Generation Short Range Interceptor (NGSRI) solution. “We will have an additional ballistic flight demonstration, followed by controlled and guided flight tests in preparation for the system tech demonstration later this year,” Joe DeAntona, Raytheon’s vice president for land and air defense requirements and capabilities, told Defense Daily. The Army in March 2023 confirmed it had selected RTX and Lockheed Martin [LMT] for the NGSRI competitive effort to develop a replacement for the Stinger missile, which has been manufactured by RTX (Defense Daily, March 28, 2023). After two years of development work, the Army has stated plans to hold a “shoot-off” in the near future to inform next steps in the program and as it eyes a Milestone C decision around the second quarter of fiscal year 2028 to move the Stinger replacement effort into production (Defense Daily, June 25 2024). “Then, based on affordability aspects that have yet to be determined, we may continue to carry two vendors or we may downselect to one and then go into a three-year, very intense, aggressive developmental effort to try to get to a material solution that I can transition into potentially a major acquisition pathway,” Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army’s program executive officer for missiles and space, told reporters previously. The Army has previously said it’s seeking a replacement missile for the Stinger “to meet increasing demand and growing threat capability,” noting the Stinger-Reprogrammable Microprocessor will become obsolete in FY ‘23 and that the “current Stinger inventory is in decline.” Earlier this year, Raytheon said it had completed a series of successful subsystem tests with its NGSRI offering, to include testing the capability’s seeker, flight rocket motor, warhead assembly and more. The recent testing with the HLG solid rocket motor occurred between the end of 2024 and start of 2025, according to DeAntona, and included three static firings and the ballistic flight demo. “These tests demonstrate our ability to rapidly develop this transformational air defense capability, which can defeat a variety of airborne threats at far greater ranges than legacy systems,” Tom LaLiberty, Raytheon’s president of land and air defense systems, said in a statement. Raytheon said it leveraged collaborative research work out of the Northrop Grumman Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in West Virginia “to rapidly develop the new extended-range motor design, transitioning from proof of concept to first flight in a record time of less than six months.” “Developed and demonstrated in five months, this innovative HLG motor provides increased speed, range, effectiveness and mission flexibility in a very small package,” Frank DeMauro, Northrop Grumman’s vice president and general manager for weapon systems, said in a statement. DeAntona said “at this time” he couldn’t provide specifics quantifying how much farther of an extended range the HLG solid rocket motor capability provides the system.
Sentinel Restructuring an Early Focus for Meink
U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said on Thursday that the Northrop Grumman [NOC] LGM-35A Sentinel future ICBM has consumed the most time he has spent on any program thus far in his two and a half weeks on the job, as the Air Force restructures the program after a Nunn-McCurdy cost breach announced in January last year. Legislators have pointed to conflicting signals from the White House and the Air Force on nuclear deterrence, including $1.2 billion that the Air Force has shifted in fiscal 2025 funds from Sentinel–the majority to classified programs. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said at the start of a Thursday committee hearing on the Department of the Air Force budget that “the Air Force has taken $1.2 billion out of Sentinel funds and used them instead to meet other priorities in FY25.” “I want to be very clear,” Rogers said. “The Sentinel program is vital to modernizing our triad and ensuring nuclear deterrence. Senior Air Force leaders have made frequent statements agreeing that the service must prioritize nuclear deterrence. It’s time to start walking the walk.” Top defense officials have kept up the decades-long drumbeat of the need for a nuclear triad, but President Trump said in February he planned to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that would focus on reducing their conventional and nuclear arsenals, as the U.S. has “no need” to build new nuclear weapons (Defense Daily, Feb. 14). On the air leg of the triad, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said that he is to meet with Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, next Tuesday–in part to review a production rate increase for the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber to permit the Air Force to go beyond the 100 B-21s planned, possibly up to 145. While the White House is not to release the full federal government fiscal 2026 budget request until late this month, the fiscal 2026 Air Force request looks to be slightly above the fiscal 2025 budget, while the Space Force request is about $26.3 billion–$3.2 billion below last year’s ask, according to figures in a May 30 White House Office of Management and Budget appendix–about $15.5 billion for Space Force research and development, $3.4 billion in procurement, $5.9 billion for operations and maintenance, and $1.5 billion for personnel. Of presidential transition year budgets dating back to 1977, the fiscal 2026 budget is the tardiest. The runner up in the late category is Biden’s fiscal 2022 submission on May 28, 2021. During Thursday’s hearing, Rep. Seth Moulton (R-Mass.) referenced a Congressional Budget Office report last month that said it could cost $542 billion over 20 years for the deployment and operation of 2,000 space based interceptors for Trump’s planned Golden Dome. In light of Chinese advances in space, “why are you cutting our space budget?” Moulton asked Meink. “What we know right now is the space budget is gonna be cut. So you have no theory for how Golden Dome is gonna work, but we’re doing it because China is increasing in space, and you plan to cut the space budget. That doesn’t sound like a good plan, Mr. Secretary.” “I think we have some pretty good ideas of how Golden Dome would be developed,” Meink replied. “We’d like to hear those ideas, Mr. Secretary,” Moulton said.
SASC Presses Army On Plans To Potentially Close Some Weapons Depots
The Army on Thursday confirmed its considering significant changes to its weapons depots as part of its new transformation plan, with the Senate Armed Services Committee pressing the service’s leaders for details on potential facility closures. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the SASC chair, specifically asked whether the Army intends to shutter Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas, Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky and the Red River Army Depot in Texas. “I think you’ll find Congress [as] a very willing partner when presented with convincing analysis that justifies investment changes. In particular, those changes should help American soldiers deter war and, if necessary, win in a convincing fashion. Where we do disagree will likely be in effects on the industrial base. Our defense industrial base is brittle. We cannot afford to let sites close or we will lose the defense expertise of many skilled workers. We need investment strategies that recognize this,” Wicker said. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll acknowledged the service is assessing potential adjustments to its weapons ammunition plants, depots and arsenals as it moves out on the new Army Transformation Initiative (ATI), adding the current state of the organic industrial base (OIB) “is not sufficient for the threats today or in the future.” “We are creating a plan to look at what we can do with them, with shifting work from them as one of the options,” Driscoll said. “I think spending is constrained, as it should be. We owe that to the American taxpayer. We are working on plans that could use those facilities for other purposes. But if the funding does not come, and it has to come from the rest of the budget, I think our current belief is that those dollars at our current budgeted level would be best suited somewhere else.” The new ATI plan, first detailed last month, has so far included cutting “obsolete” programs such as the AH-64D Apache helicopter, Gray Eagle drones, Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, Humvees and the M10 Booker combat vehicle, and potentially ending development of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), Future Tactical UAS and the Robotic Combat Vehicle (Defense Daily, May 1). At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday lawmakers pressed the Army leaders to provide more details on the initiative’s planned program cuts (Defense Daily, June 4). The new ATI plan was informed by a recent memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which included directing the Army to review and consolidate its operations “across select depots, arsenals and installations and look for leasing opportunities with commercial entities seeking to expand into the defense industrial base.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said the U.S. is facing a “munitions crisis” and noted that during Driscoll’s confirmation hearing he referenced production challenges and a need to get weapons stockpiles back to “where they need to be.” “I think expanding munitions production, especially for necessary materials like nitrocellulose and RDX that are already currently chokepoints in the munitions supply chain, will require us to leverage the inherent advantages of the facilities that you own, that the Army owns, those organic industrial base facilities, like Pine Bluff Arsenal,” Cotton said. “There are other members of this committee…who have long pushed the Army to strengthen its organic industrial base, that includes updating [and] expanding operations at facilities like Pine Bluff Arsenal in my state, McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma, Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. All these facilities, like all of them across the organic industrial base, are underused and we have thought for some time the Army should be expanding them to meet urgent national security needs. And while I agree with you that the commercial industry will play an important role in solving the [munitions] crisis, I think we all know that industry alone can’t do it all,” Cotton added. Driscoll responded that addressing munitions challenges is “absolutely” still a priority and said “after 100 days of seeing it, it is worse than I thought in my confirmation hearing.” As the Army considers potentially shifting more of its OIB work to the private sector, Cotton pushed back on the feasibility of such a plan. “First, I’m doubtful that private businesses are going to take up work like smoke grenades or other niche capabilities required by the military. For instance, I’m skeptical that it’s profitable for a business to stand up new production of white phosphorus ammunition, which is only produced in Pine Bluff, when the customer base is limited to the U.S. military and the costs of production are so high,” Cotton said. “Second, I think we’ve also learned pretty definitively over the last three years of the Ukraine war that our commercial industrial base, while vital, simply doesn’t have the capacity to produce all the munitions that our nation needs and that our allies need, much less what we would need in a major conflict.” “All these [OIB facilities] have highly trained workforces. They’ve already gone through onerous environmental permitting. They can handle munitions. They have the infrastructure that would only be replicated at a very high cost over many periods of years. Standing up munitions factories from scratch would cost millions and millions of dollars while expanding operations at these existing facilities facilities that we already own is much less costly and more efficient,” Cotton added. Driscoll said the Army has assessed that upgrading and expanding some of the existing facilities would come at a higher cost than potentially look at new opportunities to build up that production capacity. “We absolutely want to work with this committee. And this is not intended to be a cop out answer. As we look at our budget, one of the fundamental problems that we have is our military construction costs…are 68.5 percent more expensive than if we just build something right on the other side of our fenceline. And a lot of that is statutorily-driven. There are some inefficiencies from government doing it. But generally speaking, there are so many constraints on us that when we try to work within our budget to expand our munitions supplies and we look at the math, the math oftentimes says we’re too expensive for ourselves,” Driscoll said. Wicker offered that SASC can work with the Army to “help alleviate some of the constraints” related to facility upgrade efforts. Hegseth’s memo also directed the Army to consolidate its headquarters within Army Materiel Command, to include integrating Joint Munitions Command and Army Sustainment Command, both currently based at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said the proposed changes at Rock Island Arsenal “are confusing and troubling,” and pressed Driscoll on a timeline for the adjustment and how many personnel would be impacted. Driscoll responded the Army is currently working on its plan as it relates to consolidating efforts at Rock Island. “When we were looking at it, basically, the headquarters existed so closely together, we thought we could have efficiencies without actually impacting the outputs by combining [them]. The intent is not to slow down production in any sort of way,” Driscoll said. “I would actually hypothesize there would be growth on Rock Island on a net basis. But [for] combining those units, they’re working on the plans right now. We’ll provide them the moment they’re available.”
Driscoll: Army On Track To Field Hypersonic Weapon By End Of FY ‘25, Exploring Cheaper Version
The Army still anticipates fielding its first Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) battery by the end of fiscal year 2025, according to the service’s civilian leader, and is exploring a cheaper version that’s “one-tenth the cost.” “One of the things we’re also excited about is we’re testing a new version of it that is one-tenth the cost and we think has even better attributes. It would be early to know whether it would work, but we’re optimistic,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Driscoll did not provide additional details on the potential for a new or additional hypersonic weapon round. The update on the LRHW fielding plan came in response to a question from Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who asked Driscoll about the latest on the Army hypersonic weapon, dubbed Dark Eagle. “We saw a Long Range Hypersonic Weapon test in June and December of last year. And I was encouraged by the success of those tests,” Fischer said. The latest event in December was a successful Army and Navy end-to-end flight test of their jointly-developed common hypersonic glide body, deemed a key step toward fielding of hypersonic weapons, and was the first time using a battery operations center and a transporter erector launcher for the LRHW (Defense Daily, Dec. 13). The Army’s LRHW, which has been in development for about five years, will share the same all-up missile round and canister, and Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) with the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program. In 2019, the Army chose Lockheed Martin [LMT] to serve as the weapon systems integrator for the LRHW, which will be fired from a truck, while Dynetics [LDOS] is tasked with producing the C-HGB. The Army completed fielding of the ground equipment for its first prototype hypersonic weapon battery, minus the live rounds, in the fall of 2021 to the soldiers from the I Corps’ 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, who have been testing on the equipment since then.
A top Navy official Thursday provided lawmakers with updated figures on Constellation-class frigate design progress following significant delays and confirmed the service is still looking into ultimately procuring a new sixth-generation fighter and provided updated figures. During a House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Force subcommittee hearing, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition Brett Seidle said Secretary of the Navy John Phelan visited the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wis., last week while Seidle has visited as well to show leadership is checking progress on the delayed frigate. Design problems were a major part of the projected three-year delay to the first frigate, the future USS Constellation FFG-62. In the past year and a half the Navy surged 60 designers to help with that part of the problem, Seidle reiterated. “We’re at about 83% right now in design completion. Expect to have a functional, capable design, stable design this summer. We also had a red team assessment,” Seidle said. He added the issues in Marinette continue to be workforce, workload and “some infrastructure. There’s been a lot of work that’s gone on, and we have some different opportunity space there to improve it.” Seidle projected optimism as he noted there is new leadership with the project at the shipyard and attrition numbers are “coming the right way. I’m encouraged by some of that, but we have work to do to get to the right place there.” Separately, Seidle confirmed there is still a “strong requirement for a sixth-gen fighter…the Navy position on that is there is a requirement that’s necessary.” Earlier this year, Adm. James Kilby, acting Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and Vice CNO, said the decision on awarding a contract for the F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter was being decided by higher-ups at the Department of Defense and White House after the Air Force awarded Boeing the contract for their version of a next-generation aircraft, dubbed the F-47 (Defense Daily, April 7).
Final Coast Guard National Security Cutter Canceled
After construction was halted on last of 11 National Security Cutters (NSCs) last fall, the Coast Guard and shipbuilder HII [HII] have agreed to end construction after 10 ships and put remaining funds toward those vessels. The decision was considered a potential outcome of negotiations between the Coast Guard over what the service termed “material conformance” issues, a term never uttered by HII (Defense Daily, March 10). Construction of NSC 11 was only 15 percent complete as of late 2024 when it was originally supposed to be delivered. The Coast Guard said HII notified the service in late 2024 that the earliest the ship could be delivered is 2029. “The forecasted delays and setbacks were associated with a contract related dispute,” Kimberly Aguillard, a spokeswoman for HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division, said in a statement. “We worked collaboratively with the Coast Guard to reach a mutually acceptable resolution that supports and aligns with the Coast Guard’s overall cost-saving objectives.” The Washington Examiner on Wednesday first reported the termination of NSC-11, saying the Coast Guard made the decision in March. The report said the cancellation would save more than $260 million but provide $135 million in already delivered parts that can be put toward the current fleet of 10 ships. The Coast Guard referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond to queries about the termination. HII highlighted the support for the existing fleet of 418-foot high-endurance cutters it has already delivered. “In mutual agreement with the USCG, we have signed a contract modification that identifies an alternate strategy related to the sunsetting of the NSC program, which has already exceeded the original acquisition objective of eight ships,” Aguillard said in the statement. “Rather than proceeding with construction of the eleventh ship of the NSC class, we have agreed to execute a plan that maximizes readiness of the existing NSC fleet, by supporting overall operational availability and capability of the first ten NSCs in service. We remain grateful for our partnership with the USCG and are committed to support their mission.” Then Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.), who chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, drove the effort to replace the dozen Hamilton-class high-endurance vessels that the Coast Guard was retiring, but health issues led the genteel Republican to resign from the Senate before seeing his vision through. The Coast Guard’s position while Cochran was adding NSCs to its budget was that the additional ships threatened what was becoming the service’s highest acquisition priority at the time, the medium-endurance Offshore Patrol Cutter. The Legend-class NSCs have been widely praised by the Coast Guard and are the service’s most sophisticated surface asset. The ships can provide crisis C5ISR capabilities anywhere in the world. The fleet of NSC’s conducts a wide range of missions, including freedom of navigation operations in the Western Pacific, drug interdiction and fishery patrols, and have provided a presence in the Arctic. The ships are equipped with a flight deck for helicopter operations, the use of small unmanned aircraft systems, and small boats for boarding other vessels.
SASC Reconciliation Adds $74 Million to House Bill for Nuclear Deterrence
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) released legislative text to the House-passed reconciliation bill Tuesday that would request $96 million to classified nuclear deterrence programs. The $96 million is a $74 million increase from the House version of the bill, passed in May with a razor-thin majority. It is part of the section on the enhancement of resources for nuclear forces that includes $15 billion for nuclear deterrence as a whole. This includes accelerated modernization of the triad and investments into nuclear weapons manufacturing. The Senate bill also made changes to appropriations for the National Nuclear Security Administration, including a $20 million increase to domestic uranium enrichment centrifuge deployment, a $10 million increase to spent fuel reprocessing technologies, and a $115 million increase to accelerate national security missions through artificial intelligence. “This bill is a landmark down payment toward the modernization of our military and our defense capabilities,” Wicker said in a press release. Chair of the House Armed Services Committee Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) added, “Now that the Senate will soon take up the One Big, Beautiful Bill, I’m eager to continue our forward momentum and get this to the President’s desk as soon as possible.” While the Senate does not yet have a vote scheduled for the reconcilation bill, Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said to reporters Monday he hopes to have the bill on the president’s desk “by the Fourth of July.” He can only afford three Republican no votes if all Democrats vote against it, as expected. Already, a handful of Republicans have expressed dissent for the bill, according to CBS News, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Josh Hawley (Mo.), and Rand Paul (Ky.).
The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) last month awarded six small businesses $5 billion to support procuring integrated weapons system equipment and services on naval vessels, DoD said Thursday. The original May 16 contract covers “various integrated weapons systems equipment and services” to support both Virginia-class submarines generally as well as active surface ships. The original announcement said this Maritime Acquisition Advancement Contract (MAAC) will “expedite the procurement process for high-priority requirements, ensuring the timely delivery of essential resources” to the vessels. The firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity MAAC contract winners are Atlantic Diving Supply Inc., ASRC Federal Facilities Logistics LLC, Culmen International LLC, Fairwinds Technologies LLC, S&K Aerospace LLC and SupplyCore LLC. The companies are sharing the firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract that has a maximum value of $5 billion over five base years through March 2029, but it also includes five one-year option periods valued at $1 billion each, so the total MAAC value could reach up to $10 billion total. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) Land and Maritime detachment in Mechanicsburg, Pa. The MAAC went through a competitive acquisition process over the course of a year that ultimately led to nine total offers before DLA decided on these five winners. On Thursday, DoD elaborated that this contract is designed to accelerate DLA’a procurement of various weapons systems and services, especially helping the Navy reach its desired two Virginia-class submarines per year build rate. “This contract supports a mission that’s a top priority at the highest level,” Elizabeth Allen, DLA Maritime Mechanicsburg detachment’s deputy director, boasted that this multiple award structure is required to handle the large volume requirements for the naval platforms and supports missions that are a top priority at the highest level of the department. “There are significantly long lead times the Navy faces…this contracting vehicle streamlines and reduces our end of the administrative lead time,” leveraging innovative methods to get items into contract more quickly. A DoD announcement quoted contracting officer Brian Stevens arguing this program shows how DLA is working on the Department priority of speed over process. “We created this vehicle to do more with less — we can do larger contracts faster, which coincides perfectly with the Virginia-class initiative. I’m very proud of the work we’ve done,” Stevens said. Timothy McCloskey, acquisition director for DLA Maritime Mechanicsburg, added the contract will not just benefit DLA at the Mechanicsburg location, but it can be a “benefit for any other buying activity that wants to use it.” Allen said the DLA team leading this effort has started engaging with other detachments and naval shipyards, with plans for future roadshows to communicate with other commands that might want to use this contract vehicle. “We’re working together with the Navy — they’re excited about this contract vehicle, and we’re engaged with industry. They’re seeing the benefits. They know the need, they know the criticality of the items and they’re ready to go.” DoD noted DLA Maritime Mechanicsburg is located within Naval Support Activity Mechanicsburg and is responsible for procuring depot-level repairable assets to support Naval Supply Systems Command’s surface, submarine and aircraft carrier operations.
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