The Navy is confident it can transition to the next version of the Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyers in the 2016 timeframe now that the service has settled on a new radar and can begin detailed design, the program manager for the ship class recently said.
The Navy plans to begin construction on the flight III DDG-51s in 2016. The key feature on the upgraded versions will be the new Air Missile Defense Radar, a new and more powerful radar for air-theater and ballistic missile defense than the AN/SPY-1 currently operating on the destroyers.
Raytheon [RTN] prevailed in the Navy’s competition to provide the AMDR over Lockheed Martin [LMT], the maker of the SPY-1, and Northrop Grumman [NOC] in a competition held last year. Lockheed Martin dropped its protest of the award in January, allowing the Navy and Raytheon to resume work on the new system.
Capt. Mark Vandroff told an audience at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space exposition earlier this month the service has proceeded with the design for the flight III ships, saying it will have a slightly re-shaped stern to increase buoyancy. Designs are also proceeding to accommodate the larger radar as well as higher power and cooling requirements.
He brushed aside critics who question moving to a new flight in the middle of a multi-year contract, noting that doing so has been done successfully on previous flights. Vandroff also dismissed the notion the service can’t proceed with the design until it has AMDR in hand, saying now that Raytheon’s version has been selected, he knows what it will look like and therefore moving on the detailed design this year is possible.
“The closer we get we don’t need to carry as much margin. We know more,” he said.
Vandroff said the first ship in the flight III configuration is expected to cost about $2.05 billion, a figure that includes all of the one-time re-engineering costs for the AMDR redesign. The average cost of each of the 22 flight III destroyers over 10-11 years will be about $1.7 billion based on the dollar’s current value, Vandroff said. The flight IIA ships currently being built cost about $1.5 billion apiece, he said.
Vandroff said assuming that AMDR will be ready be ready on time, the Navy would have to request engineering change proposals (ECPs) from industry for the flight IIIs “shortly” after March 2016.
“I am quite confident that we can get there assuming no roadblocks happen between now and then,” he said.
General Dynamics [GD] Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] are the two prime contractors for the DDG-51 hulls.