The Navy awarded HII’s [HII] Ingalls Shipbuilding a $1.3 billion modification for the detail design and construction (DD&C) of the third San Antonio
-class Flight II amphibious transport dock ship, LPD-32.
This is the last LPD currently on the Navy’s schedule, with the recently released fiscal year 2024 budget request seeking no funds for future LPDs (Defense Daily, March 13, 2023).
During the McAleese FY 2024 Defense Programs Conference in March, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday confirmed the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) directed another LPD study to determine how to proceed forward on LPD-like ships due to increasing costs (Defense Daily, March 15).
Gilday said the LPD Flight II ships have been increasing in cost from $1.47 billion for the future USS Harrisburg (LPD-30) to $1.5 billion for the future USS Pittsburgh (LPD-31) and LPD-32 will “probably going to be between $1.9 and $2 billion. So that increase will be somewhere between 21 and 25 percent.”
However, Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger argued when using base dollars that do not count inflation the LPDs have decreased in cost from the Flight I ships through the transition vessels LPD-28 and 29 into LPD-30. Berger also said the CNO’s LPD-32 estimate was just an opinion before the contract award was finalized.
Congress added $250 million in advanced procurement funds for LPD-33 to the FY ‘23 defense appropriations bill after it was listed as the Marine Corps’ top unfunded requirement.
Previously, last July the Navy awarded HII a $240 million modification for long-lead-time material and advance procurement work for LPD-32. That announcement said once DD&C was added the contract value could rise to $1.56 billion (Defense Daily, June 17, 2022).
That modification plus the latest award means LPD-32 is expected to cost about $1.535 billion.
Most of the LPD-32 work under the latest award will occur at HII’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., and is expected to be finished by September 2029.
The Marine Corps set LPD-33 for $1.71 billion as the service’s top item on its annual unfunded priorities list (Defense Daily, March 21).
Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN-RDA) Jay Stefany has argued since LPD-32 is being procured in FY ‘23 and the ideal procurement pace for the production line is every two years, the Navy has until FY ‘25 to buy LPD-33 or another similar ship (Defense Daily, April 22, 2022).
More recently, Berger said he added LPD-33 to the unfunded list because the Navy’s five-year plans do not include any more amphibious transport dock ships pending the study completion (Defense Daily, March 29).
Also at the McAleese conference, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said he hoped the amphibious study would be finished by June or September and there will be a final answer to lower the cost of LPD Flight IIs.