The chairman of the Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition (AWIBC) said that an $800 million addition to the House Armed Services Committee’s defense bill is a good start in its quest to build a 12th amphibious transport dock but acknowledged that there’s still a tough road to actually receiving that money.
“The nation needs this ship. The Marine Corps needs this ship. And this ship really answers a very current and a very direct need by our combatant commanders…This ship has a place” in the fleet the military ought to have, AWIBC chairman Brian Schires told reporters in a Thursday afternoon phone conference. HASC passed its Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act just after midnight Thursday that allows the Navy to buy LPD-28 incrementally and authorizes $800 million in FY ’15, to supplement $263 million in FY ’13 funds the Navy already has but has not yet spent.
“We feel like we can now count on an additional ship, which provides stability, predictability–and as many of you know, when you have stability and predictability, that allows you to keep your cost down, quality up and deliver parts and products on time,” he said.
As for not having the full amount of funding–past LPDs have cost about $2 billion but Schires said building an extra ship would lower costs–he said industry is taking the existence of any funding as a positive sign.
“The good news is, we all have been working on LPD-17 for several years now, so we kind of have a good feel for what some of the requirements are to buy long lead materials,” he said. Having about half the money now “gives us some incentive to know that we’ve got this 12th ship and…that we can almost count on, with some assurances, that there is a priority to build this. Is it all of the funding that we need? No, it’s incremental funding, but it’s a positive sign.”
Schires added that the Navy’s shipbuilding account has lowered its funding for the ship class over the past few years, which has forced the industrial base to drop its costs, but this additional ship creates the same effect through positive encouragement rather than pressure.
He acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to do–three other committees must authorize and appropriate money for the ship.
“I have no reason to think it’s going to be an easy battle going forward, it never is an easy battle, especially in shipbuilding…but we’ll take it one step at a time,” he said.