The Congressman (D-MS) has released a statement that takes the LCS and DDG 1000 to the woodshed, yet, somehow, the LPD-17 and the NSC Cutter–both festering shipbuilding problems themselves–get promoted. The Congressman, doing his duty to his local Northrop Grumman shipyard, boils his action plan down to a handful of points. Let’s take a look:
• Restructure the LCS program with common combat and propulsion systems between the two variants of ships. Divorce from the use of the defense firms as Lead Systems Integrators and bid a fixed price contract directly on a “build to print” basis with any shipyard that possesses the industrial capability to build the vessels.
• Truncate the DDG 1000 program. The ship is unaffordable.
• Restart the DDG 51 program. Not only is it the finest destroyer in the world but it possesses the capability for strategic missile defense, area air defense, and highly capable anti-submarine defense. Build these ships in quantity. If it improves efficiency to computerize the ship’s design into a 3-D modern ship design tool, then Navy should request that non-recurring engineering funding.
• Build combatant amphibious assault vessels, vice the non-combatant versions of the proposed Maritime Pre-Positioning Force (Future) or MPF(F). Use the basic LPD or LHD hull form for any other future large ship, including the next generation cruiser, instead of designing a new hull.
• Build a frigate on the common hull of the Coast Guard National Security Cutter. This is an affordable ship (without Navy making wholesale changes in the design) which is exactly the type of vessel necessary for 80% of the Navy’s core missions, including anti-piracy and homeland defense
Congress needs a naval shipbuilding advocate. Gene Taylor is angling for that role, but, to me, his proposals are far too parochial. A strategy based upon the tenet of “If the ship isn’t built in my district, the nation doesn’t need it” is no basis for good naval policy.
A real naval advocate, in my mind, will fight for good programs that, at times don’t directly benefit his district. Gene Talyor has yet to do that. If he took that road, he’d be a far more credible voice for naval shipbuilding–and both he and Northrop Grumman would benefit.
