Cuts To Zumwalt Destroyer Won’t Save Much

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/09/no-cuts-to-zumwalt-destroyer-do-the-math/



The $5,600,000,000 Billion) USS Zumwalt

Cuts To Zumwalt Destroyer Won’t Save Much
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on September 21, 2015 at 3:14 PM

WASHINGTON: Under intense budget pressure, a Pentagon cost-cutting team is pushing the Navy to cancel its third and last Zumwalt-class destroyer, the Lyndon Johnson (DDG-1002). But two sources familiar with the program say this cost-cutting measure just doesn’t add up.

The DDG-1000 Zumwalts are expensive; three ships will cost almost $13 billion. About $9 billion of that was spent on research and development alone. As a result, they’re the most sophisticated surface combatants in the Navy, with a radar-baffling hull and enough electrical power to run high-tech weapons like lasers and rail guns. To pack in all that technology, they’re also 60 percent larger than the standard Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) design. Originally intended as the follow-on to the Burkes, they grew so expensive that, in a classic death spiral, the Navy cut the production run repeatedly: from 32 to 24 to 16 to seven to three.

Now, according to a Pentagon memo, first reported by Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio, the Defense Department’s independent Cost Assessment & Program Evaluation office (CAPE) is considering cutting the third ship — which is in large part already built and paid for.

--

I was up in Maine last weekend for our annual Veterans get together. I spoke with one of the Maine VFPers and he told me one's floating, one's still being worked on, and they were trying to find money to build number 3.

And these assholes are still bitching about Sequestration.