Come About: U.S. Navy Destroyer Ships And Shields Face Major Course Correction

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1 SPECIAL AWIN REPORT Special Exclusive Series Reprint: Come About U.S. Navy Destroyer Fleets and Radar Suites Face Course Changes Initial Publication Dates: Dec , 2011 By Michael Fabey Come About: U.S. Navy Destroyer Ships And Shields Face Major Course Correction An Aviation Week Intelligence Network investigation into the U.S. Navy destroyer fleet and its accompanying combat systems strongly suggests the service will have to upend its plans for their development, effectively solidifying the grip of incumbent contractors Cruiser deals accounted for a total of $359.6 million over the ten-year period, while cruiser and destroyer combined spending averaged about $1.3 billion a year. Destroyer and cruiser expenses dipped in 2010 to about $325.3 million, but on the work at the very time the service is trying The Navy has to go through to break such monopolies. something like the 12-step There is precious little in the U.S. Navy s arsenal program on Aegis. more vital to the service, John Gresham or potentially more lucrative to contractors, than destroyers, cruisers and other surface combatants, which can make up about a third of the Navy s total fleet. The current combat systems for the destroyers and cruisers, industry officials say, can total more than a third of each vessel s overall price tag. Altogether, the proposed acquisition programs for the ships, radars and combat systems could be worth $121.8 billion or more, according to government analysts. Add in the missiles the government plans to buy and that total could rise to as much as $127.3 billion. In , the Navy spent those contract numbers started to climb in 2011 with the restart of the DDG-51 destroyer line, the analysis shows. Between late October and early December of this year, the Pentagon and U.S. Missile Defense Agency spent or obligated up to $928.8 million in contracts or contract modifications for destroyers, combat systems and related programs, such as missiles. These combat systems protect the ships and now the cities and populations of countries other than the U.S. from more numerous, precise and deadly missile attacks. But the Navy s very plan to provide or obligated about $12.9 billion in enhanced ballistic missile contracts and modifications the service s sixth-highest expense for that period for destroyer and cruiser contracts and contract modifications, according to an exclusive Aviation Week Intelligence Network analysis of contracting information aggregated by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. defense (BMD) to the fleet with a revamped and resurrected Aegis Combat System and restarted DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer production line is coming into question even as Lockheed Martin puts Aegis through its toughest tests yet on new hardware to perform both destroyer Ships, p. 2 INTRODUCTION For nearly a year, the Aviation Week Intelligence Network scrutinized the U.S. Navy destroyerfleet plan, combat systems and missile defense programs. At stake is more than $125 billion for ships, radars, missiles and related hardware and software as well as the defense of the U.S. and its allies against ballistic missiles and related threats. The AWIN investigation, reprinted here in this special report with related articles, charts and illustrations, strongly indicates the Navy s plans need to be revisited because of concerns over program development, costs and technological advancements. Stories Included in This AWIN Reprint: n Come About: U.S. Navy Destroyer Plan Battles Budgets And Critics (p. 4) n Come About: Aegis Maintenance Costs Could Threaten AMDR Development (p. 5) n Come About: Questions Target Missile Systems For BMD And Ship Defense (p. 6) n Come About: U.S. Destroyer Fleet, Combat System Plans Warrant More Analysis (p. 7) n Zumwalt Offers Cruiser Capability At A Cost (p. 8) n GAO Recommends U.S. Navy Conduct AOA For Destroyer And Surface Fleet (p.8) n Aegis Faces Delays And Cost Overruns, GAO Says (p. 9) n US Navy Radar Testing Center Goes Dark (p. 10)

2 march 2012 PAGE 2 destroyer Ships, from p. 1 BMD and air defense missions, and contractor teams prepare their proposals for extensive upgrades to the system, due Dec. 15. Now, analysts say, the Navy s combat system plans are in limbo, a victim of budget battles, maintenance miscues and major program disruptions. The Navy s destroyer fleet plan is being questioned as the costs for future DDG-51s grow and the DDG Zumwalt alternative starts to take more defined shape. In the current Aviation Week Intelligence Network Come About: Reduced Signature of DDG-1000 budget environment, it is likely the upgrades in missile defense capabilities on the Burke will be Source: Raytheon slowed, says Loren Thompson, defense analyst for the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank. This would mean the Navy would have to continue to defend its fleet and U.S. allies from missile attacks with ships and combat systems whose core designs date back to the Vietnam War era, despite billions invested thus far in developing other ships and systems for current and future threats. Indeed, analysts question the Navy and Obama administration s ability to meet their timetable and cost estimates for BMD, including the European Phased Adaptive Approach to protecting U.S. allies in Europe from missile attacks. Consider: The Navy has failed miserably to maintain the Aegis combat system over the past decade, according to recent service reports. This has racked up repair bills that could take years and billions of dollars to fix. As a result, analysts say, the Navy has dialed down on its proposed Aegis upgrade requirements. With repair costs mounting, analysts say, the service can ill afford to pay for its proposed Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which is envisioned as the future linchpin of its BMD fleet, especially as the cost for AMDR and the DDG-51 modifications needed to support it remains uncertain. The testing for the Standard Missiles (SMs) supporting the Navy BMD systems as well as the Aegis system itself has come under fire by U.S. government analysts. The Navy has injected greater costs into its destroyer shipbuilding program through its herky-jerky history of starting, stopping and restarting its fleet plans in recent years often with Navy officers providing contradictory and sometimes misleading statements to Congress, depending on which program they needed to justify. As the Congressional Research Service notes, Navy plans for acquisition of surface combatants have experienced multiple shifts since the mid-1990s. The destroyer, cruiser and Littoral Combat Ship fleet changes, CRS says, raise a question as to whether there is adequate stability in Navy planning for acquisition of surface combatants. And, as any shipbuilding executive can attest, instability equals greater costs. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is due to release a report in January that analyzes the Navy s decision to restart the Burke production line. The GAO is seeking to determine the underlying basis for the Navy s DDG 1000 Safe Operating Area Light = Light Blue and Dark Blue DDG 51 Safe Operating Area = Dark Blue 'The Navy has failed miserably to maintain the Aegis combat system over the past decade.' decision to select the DDG-51 as the best hullform for future surface combatants. Requested by the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, the GAO report and Congressional reaction to it could force the Navy to revise its strategy for destroyers and combat systems. Will they decide to go back and buy more DDG-1000s? asks Norman Polmar, naval analyst. There s a very good chance. Polmar and others say the Navy could decide to buy more DDG-1000s for several reasons. When the service chose the DDG-51s over the DDG-1000s soon after destroyer Ships, p. 3

3 march 2012 PAGE 3 Aviation Week Intelligence Network Exclusive U.S. Navy Funding For Cruisers And Destroyers, ($ In Thousands) Year Cruisers Destroyers Total 1999 $67,708 $1,273,569 $1,341, $36,099 $1,166,323 $1,202, $33,462 $737,760 $771, $10,119 $1,973,367 $1,983, $43,424 $1,305,814 $1,349, $14,429 $1,689,178 $1,703, $25,897 $1,870,418 $1,896, $51,008 $204,111 $255, $15,808 $1,280,994 $1,296, $61,652 $993,866 $1,055,519 Totals $359,607 $12,495,400 $12,855,008 Source: Aviation Week Intelligence Network Analysis destroyer Ships, from p. 2 Adm. Gary Roughead became chief of naval operations (CNO) in the latter half of the last decade much of the Zumwalt program was little more than a slide presentation. The Navy justified its decision to truncate the DDG program with a still-classified hull-radar study that was much too narrow in scope, say analysts and others connected to the review say. Now, though, with new CNO Adm. Jonathan Greenert taking charge, the DDG-1000 is about half complete, its major systems have passed their main testing milestones thus far, and the keel was laid Nov. 17. There is concrete evidence, analysts say, that the Zumwalt will be able to deliver on its technological promises reduced manning, hybrid drive, unsurpassed stealth and ferocious firepower that should make it possible to operate the three-ship fleet for a third of the hourly cost of Arleigh Burkes in areas the DDG-51 could never dare to go, attacking coastal areas with weapons unavailable today. The DDG-1000 might be closer to a guided missile guncruiser than a DDG, the CRS notes. That could factor into a future shipbuilding decision as the Navy starts to hedge on some of its modernization plans, according to industry sources, for its current cruiser fleet because of budgetary concerns. Further, Polmar says, unlike the current Burke destroyers, the Zumwalts will be able to accommodate larger missiles now in development. Despite public claims and Congressional testimony by Navy officials, the Zumwalts are designed to carry surface-to-air missiles. The ships also are already designed, Raytheon officials say, to handle AMDR. While Navy officials had publicly called the Zumwalt a testbed ship, the service s own program manager disputes that label. The DDG-1000 is fully deployable and will patrol the Pacific Ocean, program officials say. With its technological advances, cheaper operations, better lifecycle costs and potential for growth, the Zumwalts should fare better than the Burkes in any new review, according to Polmar. But critics point out that no Zumwalt hull has actually touched water, while also questioning the safety and seaworthiness of some of the ship s design. The biggest question mark, Polmar says, is whether the Pentagon will support any big-dollar items, no matter what the return on investment. The follow-on Flight III Burke-class destroyers now estimated to cost at least $2.7-3 billion per ship are approaching the DDG-1000s sticker price of approximately $3 billion, he points out. And the Zumwalts could prove cheaper over the long haul, with the reduced manning and other lifecycle costs. In the end, though, the large Aegis and Burke maintenance bills and the Pentagon s budget bashing could force the Navy to buy the current DDG-51 designs, forego any advanced ships and push AMDR way out to the future, analysts say. The Navy has to go through something like the 12-step program on Aegis, says military analyst John Gresham. First, it has to recognize the full range of problems out in the fleet. Then the Navy has to fix it the ships, the radar and especially the software. Aviation Week Intelligence Network Exclusive Comparison Of Future Destroyer Fleet Procurement Costs ($ In Thousands) Total Navy Estimate Total Cbo Estimate Ddg-1000 (For Comparable Number Of Proposed Ships) Total Ddg-1000 Fleet Cost With Lifecycle Cost Differential Ddg-51 Flight Iii $50,600 $46,200 $68,200 $55,000 Ddg(X) $44,100 $75,600 $65,100 $52,500 Total For Future Destroyers $94,700 $121,800 $161,200 $107,500 Source: U.S. Navy, Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

4 march 2012 PAGE 4 Come About: U.S. Navy Destroyer Plan Battles Budgets And Critics The U.S. Navy destroyer program is at a crossroads. The course that the service embarked on just a few short years ago truncating its futuristic DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyers, scuttling its proposed new cruisers and resurrecting and revamping its DDG-51 Arleigh Burke line for enhanced ballistic missile defense (BMD) with a toobe-developed new radar system appears to many to be unaffordable and unsupportable. The Navy is facing a huge maintenance bill to cover all of the repairs the current DDG-51s need after nearly a decade of neglect. How much? No one knows for certain. Industry sources say it could be as much as the cost of a new destroyer and analysts say it could be much more enough to beach the Navy s proposed destroyer plans. Meanwhile, the Navy also is in the crosshairs of a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation into the service s destroyer-fleet choices. If there s any money left from fixing the current fleet, analysts say, the Navy will likely have to reconsider its fleet plans once GAO releases its report, scheduled for early next year. Analysts expect the GAO to question the Navy s Burke restart decision and steer the service toward buying more Zumwalts and fewer Burkes because the DDG- 1000s will likely be much cheaper to operate and maintain over the short and long haul and offer a much better platform for growth. At the very least, analysts say, GAO should recommend a true destroyer analysis of alternatives (AOA). The Navy, analysts note, should be able to operate the Zumwalts with fewer people and less fuel while patrolling in more hostile waters with greater firepower than the Burkes. Littoral Superiority The Zumwalts promise greater radar protection against most missile threats and more capability to launch Special Operations Forces and helicopters and a much greater ability to operate and survive in the littorals, where the Navy says most of its future missions will be. The DDG-1000 design features a stronger emphasis on land-attack operations and operations in littoral waters, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes. The DDG-51 design is more oriented toward blue-water operations. The Zumwalt, analysts and Navy experts say, will be able to perform cruiser-like missions, like being a command ship, something the Burke-class was not designed to do. DDG-51s have embarked warfare commanders as well as performed warfare commander duties and responsibilities, Navsea contends in an ed statement. There is also the question of price. The Zumwalts now cost a bit more than $3 billion apiece, about 50% more than a Burke on the restarted line and a third more than later ships, according to Navy estimates. But the Zumwalts cost a bit less than the proposed DDG(X) next-generation ships the Navy has in mind for the latter half of this century, which are still based on the Burke design, according to analysts. Although Zumwalt was more capable for next-generation missile defense, we couldn t afford to buy a large number of ships, says Loren Thompson, defense analyst for the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank. Rating the ships The Navy should be able to operate the Zumwalts with fewer people and less fuel. But Zumwalt lifecycle cost savings should more than make up and probably surpass any Burke acquisition savings, other analysts say. Even Navy officials have acknowledged it would costs millions less annually to operate the Zumwalt. Here s how the ships stack up. DDG-51 The Navy started designing DDG-51s in the late 1970s and buying the ships in fiscal Since then, The service has procured more than five dozen of the vessels including the current Burke version, which was deployed in the mid-1990s through fiscal 2011 with plans to buy at least half dozen more. Thanks to the Arleigh Burke production line restart, the Navy s destroyer program grew to about $94.3 billion in 2010, GAO says, from about $77.4 billion in Two DDG-51s being procured in fiscal 2011 will cost the Navy about $3.5 billion. The 2012 budget also includes $2 billion for Burke work. What s driving the Burke resurrection is the Navy s increased focus on BMD. The service is now so enamored of its BMD-equipped DDG-51s that it intends to extend the service lives of its later-model vessels by five years to 40. But that may prove a bit difficult as the Navy continues to have problems caring for the existing destroyer fleet. Recent Navy reports and memos note deep-maintenance corrosion problems, drainage issues, repair funding shortfalls and shortchanged yard time for surface ships, including destroyers. The maintenance issues are so bad that U.S. Fleet Forces Command started a new Aegis radar and ship maintenance reporting system in November to make sure repairs destroyer budget, p. 11

5 march 2012 PAGE 5 Come About: Aegis Maintenance Costs Could Threaten AMDR Development If there is one group of U.S. defense programs protected from the budget reaper, it is those dedicated to ballistic missile defense (BMD). The Pentagon and successive White House administrations have whipped up such concern about the proliferation of missiles and other weapons to dangerous states or groups that it would be political suicide to retreat from a strong BMD line. For the U.S. Navy and European allies to be protected by the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) current BMD salvation comes from Lockheed Martin s Aegis combat system and the erstwhile SPY-1 radar. Lockheed Martin notes that the EPAA is integral to the layered missile defense strategy for Europe. The Navy also has big and expensive plans to develop the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which the service says will increase missile protection exponentially. But now those BMD plans are being threatened. Cracks in the shields There is growing concern that AMDR may prove too risky. Despite contractors contentions to the contrary, there is growing concern that AMDR may prove too risky and costly to deploy later this decade as planned. Part of the cost driver may be the testing delays now being suffered by the Dual-Band Radar (DBR) which Navy officials saw as a steppingstone to AMDR following the service s decision to truncate the planned DDG-1000 destroyer fleet and cancel the DBR on that ship a couple of years ago. And now the stalwart Aegis shield is starting to show cracks as well. The Navy s ship-board Aegis systems are a maintenance mess and it is going to take billions of dollars to get them and their vessels shipshape. Government reports show Aegis-care issues dating back decades. While the Navy is trying to fix its Aegis radars and ships, the service also is attempting to re-engineer the system s underlying software and related components to open up Aegis to modern technology and break the decades-long perceived monopoly that Lockheed has enjoyed with the program. Lockheed, Raytheon and Boeing all acknowledge they have submitted bids for the latest Aegis upgrade work by the Dec. 15 request-for-proposal deadline. Indeed the Aegis program has been lorded over by what is known by some in the industry and Navy as the Aegis Mafia, which, naval radar experts say, has prevented other contractors from breaking into naval combat systems and ship missile defense. For their part, Lockheed officials say the long history and development of Aegis is a plus, leading to an esprit de corps and pride in the system that drives development, "The Aegis program has been lorded over by what is known by some in the industry and Navy as the Aegis Mafia. especially at the Moorestown, N.J., central location for the program. Lockheed Martin has been designing, developing, integrating and producing Aegis combat system components for more than 40 years, the company notes in a statement. The team has successfully delivered 15 technological evolutions to the U.S. and allied navies. We have a well-documented and longstanding history of success with the U.S. Navy over the past forty years as we ve evolved the Aegis Combat System to keep pace with a wide array of dynamically evolving threats. Since the first Aegis ship was commissioned in 1983, the government and industry have invested in a continuous process of technology upgrades in order to keep pace. Aegis pedigree Lockheed describes its relationship with its naval partner as one of collaboration and partnership. There is a personal connection, too. There was a legacy of Korean War veterans that was the initial bulwark of guys who created Aegis, says Brad Hicks, vice president of business development for Mission Systems & Sensors Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors and who, until October, was vice president of naval surface radar programs. There are South Jersey boys. There are Philly boys, who have a strong attachment to this place... a commitment. It has been that way since the late 60s when this started here at RCA. It s the sense of what it takes to pull together something that s so complex. But critics say the Aegis stronghold has made upgrades, improvements and changes to the combat system difficult and costly. Overall program costs for Aegis vary. Some put its development at about $30 billion, or more than $80 billion if aegis, p. 16

6 march 2012 PAGE 6 Come About: Questions Target Missile Systems For BMD And Ship Defense Just as a great archer can be rendered nearly useless by a shoddy arrow, the best ships and combat systems on the seas mean nothing if their missiles fail to intercept their targets. Missile development and testing have taken on even greater importance with the emergence of ballistic missile defense (BMD) as a national and naval imperative. The U.S. Navy and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) are sparing no pains or expense in building and deploying the best missiles possible, especially through the middle part of this decade as the two augment the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer fleet to tackle more BMD missions with Raytheon s Standard Missile (SM)-3. The cumulative number of SM-3 Aegis BMD interceptor missiles delivered to the Navy, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes, is scheduled to grow from 111 at the end of fiscal 2011 to 341 at the end of fiscal Aegis-equipped cruisers have 122 vertical launch system missile tubes and destroyers with the shields have 90 or 96, depending on the ship variant. The issue. analysts say, is finding the missiles to fill the tubes. That s one of the problems, military analyst and author John Gresham notes. There are not enough missiles to complete the planned testing and begin initial deployments of SM-3s to the fleet. The MDA disagrees. There are enough interceptors to complete planned testing, the agency says, adding 81 SM-3 Block IA interceptors have been delivered. SM-3 Block 1A interceptors are already deployed aboard Navy cruisers and destroyers in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, the agency says. All BMD capability enhancements are funded through MDA, says Lisa Callahan, now Lockheed Martin vice president of MS2 Undersea Systems, the prime contractor for Aegis. Until August, she was vice president of Lockheed s Systems & Sensors ballistic missile defense. MDA is responsible for the BMD capability enhancements and the Navy is required to support those ships, she says. But the Navy s shipbuilding plans for the added BMD missions are coming into question as the potential cost grows for upgraded Aegis Combat Systems, their enhanced radar systems and the Burkes to accommodate them. Questions also still haunt the Navy for its decision to use the Burkes instead of the newer, bigger and more advanced DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers, which have more potential for future missile deployments, some analysts say. Indeed, GAO is investigating the Navy s decision to choose the Burke over the Zumwalt and restart the Burke production line for BMD missions. Navy officials have told Congress and the press that Zumwalts cannot handle SMs even though service documents show the ship is designed for those missiles and the Navy has annually been requesting budget funding to make sure SM-2s work with the ship 'The Navy s shipbuilding plans for the added BMD missions are coming into question as the potential cost grows.' And while the publicity surrounding Aegis-missile testing has been mostly positive there certainly have been many more hits than misses there still remains some uncertainty about those tests and the missile systems in general. The Aegis system passed one of its biggest tests on April 15 with its first launch-on-remote intercept of an intermediate-range warhead separating from its booster missile. During the Flight Test Mission (FTM)-15 mission, an Aegis-equipped ship fired an SM-3 Block IA missile using remote sensor data provided by an AN/TPY-2 radar. Counting that test, program supporters note, there have been 22 Aegis hits in 25 shots including 19 for 22 with the SM-3 missile since January That s important, GAO says, because the tests help confirm the U.S. ability to perform BMD for its allies under the so-called European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA). Earlier, a BMD-capable Aegis cruiser operating northwest of Hawaii used a modified version of the Aegis BMD system on Feb. 20, 2008, to shoot down an inoperable U.S. surveillance satellite in a deteriorating orbit one of the most spectacular examples of a successful Aegis operation. The same system that was originally created to defend against simple missiles has evolved into the system that literally shot an errant satellite from the sky in 2008, Lockheed says. But, GAO notes in a March 2011 report on BMD programs, Aegis BMD did not conduct any developmental intercept flight tests in fiscal year 2010, although it did participate in several other flight and ground tests to assess BMD functionality and interoperability with the BMD (system). And the Pentagon s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) notes that earlier-version Aegis with SM-3 IB was executed more slowly than expected in fiscal Progress toward verifying the SM-3 IB engagement capability required action, and 6 of the 14 development phase exit criteria tracking program execution were assessed as not on track, including those related to missile systems, p. 23

7 march 2012 PAGE 7 Come About: U.S. Destroyer Plans Warrant More Analysis It is far too simplistic to say the U.S. Navy could save up to $14.3 billion according to some government estimates of procurement and lifecycle costs if the service bought DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers in the coming decades instead of newly designed variants of the venerable DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class, even though that is what the first-blush analysis shows. But straight cost estimates like that never take into account how ships may or may not meet the needs of the Navy in the immediate, near or far future. Such a basic analysis fails to include the necessary ship mix for the service, or even the more basic concern of what the Navy can afford. Still, such a potential overall cost disparity revealed during the recent Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) Come About series certainly warrants attention and further analysis. Come About details the Navy s miscues in building its destroyer fleet and developing an accompanying shipboard combat system for a combined effort worth up to $121.8 billion. Part of the reason for the high price tag, analysts note, are the starts, stops and sudden shifts in destroyer fleet plans in recent years. Further feeding that need for greater scrutiny are questions surrounding the Navy s decision in the latter half of the past decade to truncate the Zumwalt fleet to three ships and restart the Arleigh Burke line concerns that have prompted a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation that is due to deliver a report in January. Some analysts speculate that GAO will recommend the Navy ditch its current plan to buy more Burkes including redesigned models in years to come and build more Zumwalts instead because the DDG-1000s will offer greater growth potential for more weapons and will likely save the Navy more money in the long run because of lower lifecycle costs. What is not speculation, though, is that Navy officials have provided contradictory and often misleading public statements about what destroyers they need and why. In the early part of the preceding decades, the Navy maintained it needed all of the firepower, stealth and new technology aboard the Zumwalt, which includes so many cruiser attributes that analysts say the ship is a hybrid not a bad thing as the service has no cruiser replacement program of record. 'Navy officials have provided contradictory and often misleading public statements about what destroyers they need and why.' But as the decade ended, the Navy leadership changed and so did the service s course for destroyers. Rather than pursue the Zumwalt, the service decided to resurrect the DDG-51 because it said it could buy more destroyers more quickly to deploy for its new ballistic missile defense (BMD) role. Neither Burkes nor Zumwalts were designed specifically for BMD, but the Navy brass has contended the DDG- 1000s could not accommodate standard missiles a contention that is untrue, according to Navy documents, analysts and industry sources. Another indisputable fact is that the current fleet of destroyers and their Aegis Combat Systems needed for missile defense are a maintenance mess. It could cost the price of a whole new destroyer or more just to get the vessels and systems shipshape, and an additional untold sum of money to keep the Burkes and their radar systems in good working order through the coming decades. With this huge repair bill, mounting maintenance costs and the budgetary battles being waged on Capitol Hill, top naval analysts think it is unlikely the Navy will be able to afford newly designed Burkes, wholesale new changes to their Aegis shields or the proposed Air and Missile Defense Radar, the supposed linchpin for future BMD, as the AWIN series suggests. The more likely scenario, analysts say, is that the Navy will have to settle for more of the current Burkes with as many Aegis improvements as the service can afford. But analysts say a better course would be if the Navy would buy more Zumwalts to take advantage of the production costs of the cutting-edge technology included in the ship technologies the Navy says it needs through the rest of the century. Anchored by such a shipbuilding plan, the Navy could then embark on a true analysis of alternatives to determine what kind of destroyer the Navy really wants, or can afford, and whether the Burke, Zumwalt or an entirely new destroyer design would be best for the job. This would mean the Navy would likely have to delay some of its plans to break the monopoly that combat system contractors have enjoyed during the rise, rule and resurrection of Aegis, but that may be the price to pay for a true review of a ship class that anchors the surface fleet. Any program that has the potential to be worth $121.8 billion nearly a decade s worth of total U.S. naval shipbuilding funding deserves that kind of careful evaluation. [Author s Note on Sources And Methods: The Come About series concerning the U.S. Navy s plans for its de- us navy, p. 25

8 march 2012 PAGE 8 Zumwalt Offers Cruiser Capability At A Cost With last month s keel-laying and the anticipated U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on recent U.S. Navy destroyer fleet decisions expected to be released in January, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class is receiving greater attention. The Navy needs to decide soon, defense analysts say, whether it can afford to stick to its current plans that call for a small Zumwalt force and a larger, more advanced DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer fleet. That decision will depend on cost and desired capability. Does the Navy want more of a purebred destroyer, or a vessel that can handle more cruiser missions as well? From its inception, the Zumwalt has been tied to the proposed CG(X) future cruiser. Indeed, many consider the DDG-1000 to be a bit of a hybrid between a destroyer and cruiser, with command ship capability and other attributes normally associated with a cruiser. With this in mind, the Navy has often included cruiser development funding as a program element expense with the DDG-1000 budget request. Raytheon officials working on the Zumwalt say this has helped the program get the money it needed, but analysts say that once the Navy canceled the future cruiser plan, the DDG-1000 was more vulnerable to fleet cuts or cancellation. While the Zumwalt helped defray development costs for the CG(X), the Littoral Combat Ship, aircraft carrier combat systems and a host of other programs because of the advanced technology developed for it, those expenses made the ship costlier and only added fodder for those who considered it to be only a testbed. Cruiser cash Now, though, analysts wonder whether the Navy plans to fulfill long-term future cruiser needs especially now that, industry sources say, the service is going to delay or cancel plans to modernize some of its current cruisers or how it plans to fund some of the technology development the service has been exploring on the DDG-1000 once the ship is no longer being built. It is interesting to note that the first BMD-equipped ship to deploy for the new U.S. mission to protect European allies from missile attack was a cruiser. Between fiscal 2006 and 2013 the Navy has spent or requested a budget to spend up to $1.4 billion for CG(X) design and other expenses out of the DDG-1000 program element account, according to Pentagon budget documents. That included about $10 million to work on CG(X) missile seeker preliminary design studies and analysis to support missile and total ship system requirements, those documents show. The DDG-1000 also has received about $100 million in congressional plus-ups since 2006 for a variety of different programs and capabilities, including water mist fire protection, advanced surface combatant construction materials research and a carrier strike group forward sensor network. Some of those are directly related to the ship s development, like the water mist fire protection or advanced combatant materials research. Another, the Floating Area Network funding for which has continued up to the current request helps enable a direct, line-of-sight wireless network among intra-battlegroup ships, which would be a plus for a command ship. Unclear, though, is the direct link to the DDG-1000 or the nearly $1 million in the fiscal 2007 request for new ropes to test and develop a stronger, more reliable and more efficient means for lifting, mooring and rigging of ships, barges and aircraft during salvage search, recovery and towing operations. GAO Recommends U.S. Navy Conduct AOA For Destroyer And Surface Fleet The U.S. Navy should do a thorough analyses of alternatives (AOA) for its future surface combatant program, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended in a report released Jan. 24. GAO also found the Navy analysis used to restart the service s DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer line and scuttle Navy plans for a larger, more modern DDG-1000 Zumwalt class fleet fails to justify the service s decision. Further, GAO s report Arleigh Burke Destroyers, Additional Analysis and Oversight Required to Support the Navy s Future Surface Combatant Plans questions the affordability of the Navy s future destroyer and radar system programs. The report echoes the concerns, analysis and recommendations provided in a recent exclusive series published in December by the Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN). As AWIN notes in its Come About series, the Navy based its DDG-51 restart decision on a still-classified hullradar study that according to those involved in the study or who had read it was narrowly focused and skewed toward the restart decision. Those concerns resound in GAO s report. The Navy relied on its 2009 Radar/Hull Study as the basis to select DDG-51 over DDG-1000 to carry the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) as its preferred future surface combatant a decision that may result in a procurement of up to 43 destroyers and cost up to $80 billion over the next several decades, GAO notes. GAO REcommendations, p. 9

9 march 2012 PAGE 9 GAO REcommendations, from p. 8 But, GAO contends, The Radar/Hull Study may not provide a sufficient analytical basis for a decision of this magnitude. GAO cites several concerns with the Radar/Hull Study. It focuses on the capability of the radars it evaluated, but does not fully evaluate the capabilities of different shipboard combat systems and ship options under consideration. Shortsighted analyses The study does not include a thorough trade-off analysis that would compare the relative costs and benefits of different solutions under consideration or provide robust insight into all cost alternatives, auditors say. The study also assumes a significantly reduced threat environment from other Navy analyses, which allowed radar performance to seem more effective than it may actually be against more sophisticated threats, according to the report. GAO also cites other concerns with the restart program. The Navy s planned production schedules of the restart DDG-51 ships are comparable with past performance and officials told us that hull and mechanical systems changes are modest, the report says. But these ships will cost more than previous DDG-51s. A major upgrade to the ship s combat system software also brings several challenges that could affect the restart ships, due in part to a key component of this upgrade that has already faced delays. Also, GAO says, The Navy faces significant technical risks with its new Flight III DDG-51 ships, and the current level of oversight may not be sufficient given these risks. The Navy is pursuing a reasonable risk mitigation approach to AMDR development, but it will be technically challenging. According to Navy analysis, GAO says, selecting the DDG-51 hullform to carry AMDR requires significant redesign and reduces the ability of these ships to accommodate future systems. This decision also limits the radar size to one that will be at best marginally effective and incapable of meeting the Navy s desired capabilities. The Navy may have underestimated the cost of Flight III. Aegis Faces Delays And Cost Overruns, GAO Says Recent Lockheed Martin Aegis combat system upgrades the Advanced Capability Build (ACB)-12 and its accompanying multi-mission signal processor (MMSP) for ballistic mission defense (BMD) enhancements are running behind schedule and over cost projections, a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says. The delays could affect the U.S. Navy s DDG destroyer programs, the congressional auditors note. While the Navy has made significant progress in developing the components of ACB-12, MMSP is proving more difficult than estimated and is currently four months behind schedule, with $10 million in cost growth realized and an additional $5 million projected, GAO says in its January report. According to the Navy, The contractor underestimated the time and effort required to develop and integrate the MMSP software, the report says. In December 2010, GAO notes, MMSP was unable to demonstrate planned functionality for a radar test event due to integration difficulties, and MMSP more recently experienced software problems during radar integration, which resulted in schedule delays. In response, GAO says, the contractor implemented a recovery plan, which included scheduling additional tests and replanning the remaining work to improve system stability. In reference to the findings in the GAO report, which cites past issues, all U.S. Navy requirements are being met, Lockheed Martin said in a statement to the Aviation Week Intelligence Network. Risky timeline GAO cautions that the recovery plan compresses the time allocated for integrating MMSP with the rest of the combat system to six from 10 months. In order to meet schedule goals and mitigate software development risk in the near-term, the contractor also moved some development of MMSP capability to future builds, GAO says. This adds pressure to future development efforts and increases the probability of defects and integration challenges being realized late in the program. The contractor already anticipates a 126 percent increase in the number of software defects that it will have to correct over the next year, indicating the significant level of effort and resources required for the remaining development. According to the program office, GAO says, the high level of defects projected is due to the complexities of integrating and testing with Aegis. Each defect takes time to identify and correct, so a high level of defects could result in significant additional work and potentially further delays if the contractor cannot resolve the defects as planned, GAO says. The Navy believes the schedule risk associated with this increase is understood and anticipates no further schedule impacts, GAO notes. However, GAO says, The Defense Contract Management Agency, which is monitoring the combat system development for the Navy, has characterized the MMSP schedule as high risk. The delivery schedule for the first Arleigh Burke-class restart destroyer, DDG-113, may be challenging because of a significant upgrade in the Aegis combat system, GAO notes, where major software development efforts are under way and a critical component has faced delays.

10 march 2012 PAGE 10 US Navy Radar Testing Center Goes Dark Even on an island of unique buildings anchoring the premiere U.S. Navy maritime testing grounds for the service s most sophisticated air and ballistic missile defense radar systems, the building that those here call the Taj Mahal stands apart, gleaming eggshell white near the ocean s edge. The building features a full-scale aft-face replica of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer deckhouse, complete with operating radar arrays. The six-story, 46,000-sq.-ft. Taj was designed to berth 45 full-time engineers and 60 visitors, but fewer than a handful of people now occupy it. The Navy considers the Zumwalt dual-band radar (DBR) suite development and demonstration to be a stepping-stone to its proposed Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), the cornerstone of a system to enable future ships to detect and track ballistic missiles. Budget pressures and changing requirements forced the Navy to dramatically scale back the destroyer program, a two-decadelong odyssey to help usher in futuristic technologies. The changes have ended most trials and training at the test center. The Navy says the building is a $19 million facility, but its radar-suite costs alone would dwarf that number, according to defense analysts. A review of contracts indicates the volume search radar (VSR) would cost about $100 million. And the entire VSR system planned for the Zumwalt, which the facility mirrors, costs $300 million, according to government and defense analyst estimates. Cost questions The Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) program office acknowledges the building was funded through the DDG-1000 Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) account, and recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimates put that total effort above $9.3 billion. Industry and former government officials familiar with the testing facility here say more than $1 billion was spent to build, outfit and operate the center through its first year. In fiscal , when a good chunk of the building site preparation and construction was done, the Navy spent about $1.6 billion on Zumwalt-related contracts, according to an analysis of contract data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. Navy officials say the building is worth the cost to guarantee a successful delivery of the Zumwalt, formerly known as the DD(X). They say they hope to use the building to test radar for the Ford-class aircraft carriers, which are getting the DBR suite planned for the Zumwalts. But the CRS, U.S. Government Accountability Office and Pentagon s director of operational testing and evaluation have voiced concerns about the potential impact of the testing hiatus here on the carriers DBR. Larry McMurry, director of the island testing center, says, we are the equivalent of a ship that s been at sea for 24 years. The Aegis building test mast, says a Navsea , has been repainted for corrosion periodically over the years, with structural steel repairs in various places... underway. Research funding certification people are so pressed for test time that trying to do maintenance is quite a challenge. The shiny, relatively new and nearly empty Taj overlooks the Virginia Capes with an oblique face scanning the sea from a pyramid-shaped side fitted with radars and apertures for other Zumwalt-centric sensors. The mast face is crafted from the same expensive composites as the Zumwalt deckhouse. Inside, radar cables spider their way to some of the most advanced computer systems available. Historically, the Navy has paid for such features with military construction funds. But the Navy used RDT&E money on the DDG-1000 facility to speed its building, says Capt. James Downey, DDG-1000 program manager, adding that it is not an uncommon funding method for such projects in the program s early development phases. Such streamlining can have ramifications, though. The Zumwalt testing building appears to lack information security systems required for other similar military installations possibly in part because its unique construction method kept it from being recognized as a proper military testing structure on the network, says Susan Hess, the Radar Testing, p. 11

11 march 2012 PAGE 11 Radar Testing, from p. 10 former chief information officer for the Wallops Navy testing installation. As a result, tests there subjected the entire Wallops facility as well as NASA, which owns the land and has its own test facilities there to potential computer breaches during classified testing, she argues. We ran Jiamdo [Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization] without the appropriate security, she says. Navsea insists Hess s assertions have no basis in fact. She was here for three months. In all cases, security was (and continues to be) rigorously enforced. Hess provided documentation to back up the security concerns, but Navsea says, the DDG 1000 facility was designed, built and operated to meet the appropriate levels of security. Navsea asserts that the functional and security aspects of each [Jiamdo] site were verified in place and ready by the national test manager and on-site test coordinator prior to issuing approval to participate in the event. The more obvious result of the costly replanning came when the Navy truncated the DDG-1000 vessel buy to three. The service had initially planned to buy more than 30 new-class destroyers. Spreading the RDT&E funds across fewer ships caused the per-ship cost to rise considerably, putting the Zumwalt program into a so-called Nunn-McCurdy cost and schedule breach. While the per-vessel sticker price for the ships is a bit more than $3 billion, Downey says, the total program cost is about $20 billion, cranking up the per-ship total cost to nearly $7 billion. To accommodate the rising bill and fleet changes, the Navy cut the proposed radar suite in half and decided to deploy the ship only on the West Coast, although that deployment decision may be under review. Downey says the new program schedule means the Navy is planning sea tests to check X-band radar tweaks on the remaining radar equipment for the Zumwalt to regain some radar capability. The Wallop s DDG-1000 building has completed its planned Zumwalt missions, Downey says. And Navy officials say the building helped demonstrate DBR and Littoral Combat Ship modular operational concepts. In March, the DDG-1000 program decided to move some of the building s testing equipment to a Raytheon facility to develop software for carriers. A battery of IBM Regatta supercomputers stands silently inside the building, unused. Only three people now have their offices in the Zumwalt Taj, poised for new tasks for the destroyer on the beach. destroyer Budget, from p. 4 are made and the equipment is being maintained. The Navy now must overcome years worth of reduced organizational-level, intermediate-level, and deep maintenance, says Adm. J.C. Harvey Jr., commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. To make matters worse, the Navy has opted to resurrect its DDG-51 line just as one of two Burke shipyards Ingalls Shipbuilding is still recovering from the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina. Building Burkes Again The first restarted Burke contract signed earlier this year for DDG-113 includes provisions that take into account a half-decade gap in building the vessel type as well as the long-term effects of Hurricane Katrina on the yard, says Michael Petters, CEO of Ingalls Shipbuilding parent Huntington Ingalls Industries. Katrina recovery may have tripped up the yard s effort to secure recent work Ingalls lost the contract for DDG- 116 to General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. This was the very first competition that we ve had since Katrina happened, Petters told Wall Street analysts. We ve been doing a lot of work over the last three and half years doing the things that we thought were important. We just didn t get all the way to where we need to be. The Navy noted the challenge the yard had to meet its recent delivery deadline for DDG-107 because of Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. Now, though, the Navy is sailing full-steam ahead with its restarted Burke contracts, awarding about $2.8 billion in deals this year to Ingalls and Bath Iron Works. The Navy stuck with the 51 because it saw there was latent capability and BMD potential within the constraints of the existing ship, which they simply upgraded, Thompson says. And the Navy has started to tweak its newest DDG-51s. The DDG-111 Spruance, for example, sports a modernized machinery control system, which leverages open architecture to reduce total ownership costs. The Navy in November also deployed the DDG-53 John Paul Jones the first ship to complete the DDG modernization midlife hull, mechanical, and electrical upgrades. But the real DDG-51 improvements including a possible hybrid electric drive are supposed to come with the Flight III Arleigh Burkes, which will be designed to support the U.S. Navy s proposed Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR). The question for many, though, is whether the ship may prove too expensive. budget destroyer, p. 12

12 march 2012 PAGE 12 destroyer Budget, from p. 11 As CRS notes, The question of whether to develop Flight III DDG-51 or pursue an alternative path, such as developing a new-design destroyer, could have substantial and long-lasting effects on the Navy. While the Navy does not plan to buy any Flight IIIs until fiscal 2016, CRS notes, budgets starting in fiscal 2011 will increasingly commit the Navy to this path despite other alternatives. The Flight IIIs will require enough probable and possible changes, analysts and industry sources argue, to constitute a new ship design. For example, some say AMDR could make the ship too top-heavy, requiring a redesign to shed weight, perhaps even using composite topside construction. Navsea says such a contention is inaccurate. Analysts note other issues. Improving power generation on Flight III will be important to accommodate the expected increase in power and cooling requirements for this radar, GAO reports, citing Burke program officials. The Navy wants to refit existing DDG-51s with hybrid-drive propulsion systems as well as incorporate the technology in future Flight III versions of the ship to help save on fuel costs, according to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. Requirements grow There also is a growing concern the Flight IIIs may lack enough firepower, and CRS says Congress could decide to lengthen the hull to include 32 additional vertical launch system (VLS) missile cells in the forward part of the ship, which could increase the ship s price. Another possible Flight III requirement that could require a longer DDG-51 hull would be the ability to support the Navy s long-term shipboard laser programs, especially fiber solid-state lasers (SSLs), well above 100 kw in power, and free electron lasers (FELs) in general. 'The question for many, though, is whether the ship may prove too expensive.' Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) officials say some DDG-51 enhancements will be needed to support AMDR and other future needs, but analysts and industry sources warn not to expect too much from a ship designed decades ago with so little margin for growth. Above all else, the ship has to be affordable, says Brad Hicks, vice president of business development for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems & Sensors (MS2) Integrated Warfare Systems & Sensors (IWSS) line of business. Sometimes we get caught up in the glamour of the high technology, Petters says. If you let the radars drive the ships, you might not get any ships built. Congressional committees also have voiced their concerns about ship modifications and associated price increases. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates Flight III modifications will make the ships about 25% more expensive than the restarted Burkes. Navy figures put the price tag for the proposed vessels at $2.3 billion each, and the service wants to buy 22 of them. Future Burkes Navy plans also include the development of the nextgeneration DDG(X) destroyer, which the service wants to 'What s driving the Burke resurrection is the Navy s increased focus on BMD.' base on the hull and design of the DDG-51, but fitted with any technological advancements that might be available in the late 2020s. According to the Navy, it would buy 21 DDG(X)s at an average cost of $2.1 billion, CBO reports, saying it believes the cost will be higher. CBO considers it unlikely that a ship design that originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s will prove robust enough to accommodate changes designed to counter threats at sea until the 2070s and 2080s [when the DDG(X)s would be reaching the end of their notional 40-year service life]. As an example, the Navy has limited ability to improve the stealthiness of the DDG-51 class if it does not redesign the hull and if it does, it will, in effect, have designed an entirely new ship. Under those assumptions, CBO projects the average cost of the DDG(X) at $3.6 billion. That cost would be more than the DDG-1000 Zumwalts. Under the Navy s cost estimates and its proposed plan, it will cost about $94.7 billion to buy dozens of Flight IIIs and next-generation destroyers based on the Arleigh Burke design. Using CBO estimates, the fleets of Flight IIIs and future destroyers will cost a total of about $121.8 billion. The straight procurement costs for the same number of DDG-1000s compared to the Flight IIIs and next-generation destroyers are much higher, with a total fleet cost of about $161.2 billion. But then there are the total ownership cost (TOC) savings that the Navy and GAO say the government will see from reduced manning and other ship features, about $600 million a ship. destroyer budget, p. 13

13 march 2012 PAGE 13 destroyer Budget, from p. 12 To buy the same number of DDG-1000s as the Navy plans to procure for Flight IIIs and next-generation ships would cost about $107.5 billion, including the differential, cheaper than the CBO estimate for the Burke-based-ship If you let the radars drive the ships, you might not get any ships built.' Petters buys. Estimates are of course only predictions. Neither the Flight III nor the next-generation ships have been designed yet, so the price remains very uncertain, while the Zumwalt is close to a production-line run. ZUMWALTS No U.S. Navy program evokes a Jekyll-and-Hyde reaction among the service brass like the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer. Depending on what day it is and which admiral is speaking, the ship is either merely a science-project test bed or one of the most technologically advanced destroyers planned for the seas. Depending on which analyst is talking, the ship is either a maritime abortion or the Navy s most valuable surface warship for the coming decades. In this battle between the purists and the futurists, there are no in-betweeners. Fleet multiplier With the keel being laid last month for the half-built first ship and two contracts awarded in September for the remaining two hulls, the Navy has this to say about the Zumwalt: The mission of the DDG-1000 destroyer is to provide credible independent forward presence and deterrence [as well as] advanced land attack capability in support of the ground campaign and contribute naval, joint, or combined battle-space dominance in littoral operations. That s what might be expected of a program started back in the 1990s for a new state-of-the-art destroyer, a new cruiser as well as a proving program for key Littoral Combat Ship technologies. Indeed, as Adm. Vern Clark put it in 2005, while he was chief of naval operations (CNO), the program known now as DDG-1000 affects a vast number of programs, with half of the Zumwalt s research and development being applied to future carrier and amphibious assault ships. One of the most heralded attributes of the DDG-1000 is the potental cost savings for ship-wide manpower reductions by nearly cutting shipboard personnel in half compared to the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke and hourly operating costs by about a third, according to GAO. And personnel costs are the single largest expense incurred over a ship s life, GAO notes. Lifecycle savings The Navy stood to save about $18 billion over the life of the initial 32-ship class, according to GAO; that s about $600 million per ship in 2002 dollars. A 10-ship Zumwalt fleet, according to other government estimates, would save the Navy about $4.5 billion, when the tally includes things like sailor recruiting, training and benefits. A three-ship fleet would save about $1.8 billion. The ship made manpower reductions a key performance parameter, and even Arleigh Burke supporters in the Navy acknowledge each DDG-1000 could be nearly $3 million cheaper to operate each year. Former CNO Adm. Gary Roughead and other Navy officials contend it will cost more to maintain the ship than can be estimated because there will be more on-shore repairs. But further reduced-staffing designs can make the ships more complicated and more expensive some shipbuilding experts warn. One of the things that s happened over the past decade is that the complexity of these ships has gone way up, HII CEO Petters says. It used to be that the fire main system on a ship was a pump, a pipe, a valve and a sailor. Now the fire main system is a variable speed pump, a remote control valve, with sensors all over There will be problems operating DDG-1000 with that few people. the ship to tell you whether to open or close the valve or turn the pump on or not. We put a lot of money to put sensors on a ship to take sailors off. You ve just tremendously increased the complexity of the ship. Meeting expectations That said, the reduced-staffing operations will work better on DDG-1000s than on previous ships in earlier attempts, some analysts say, although they still foresee issues. We ve tried before with optimal manning, Polmar says. There will be problems operating DDG-1000 with that few people. Still, a March GAO report says of the DDG-1000: all critical technologies had been at the appropriate level of maturity for the program phase, including those for redestroyer budget, p. 14

14 march 2012 PAGE 14 destroyer Budget, from p. 13 duced staffing. The DDG 1000 was already significantly more mature in detail design than was LPD-17 or DDG-51 at the same points in the program, John Young, former Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, told Congress in Unlike DDG-51, LPD-17, and LCS, where the level of concurrent design, development, and construction were critical flaws leading to significant cost increases on the lead ships, the DDG-1000 program benefits from early technology maturation, an experienced design team using a mature design tool, proven production processes, and other factors, Young said. And, Young said, it likely will be cheaper in the long run to buy more Zumwalts. Direct production hours for one DDG 1000 ship are about 2.5 times that of one DDG-51 restart ship, he said. This validates DOD s experience that two to three DDG- 51 destroyers need to be purchased annually to sustain the production workload base for two surface combatant shipyards. That number of DDG-51 ships costs more per year than one DDG-1000 follow ship. The cost per year for modified DDG 51 ships would be even higher. Still, the Navy has often treated the Zumwalt like the fleet s crazy uncle. Part of the problem is the Navy s lack of cultural acceptance of new concepts to optimize crew size and its layers of personnel policies that require consensus from numerous stakeholders to revise, according to GAO. Navy officials explained that The Navy has often treated the Zumwalt like the fleet s crazy uncle." changing policies and procedures is a complex and timeconsuming task, GAO says on the DDG-1000 forerunner program in a 2003 report, because the current way of doing business has been incorporated in instructions at all levels in the Navy, ranging from the Secretary of the Navy to commanders of the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, and across a number of areas, such as recruiting, retention, training, quality of life, and the environment. But the Zumwalt s biggest problem, according to Roughead, is the ship s alleged inability to perform BMD missions as capably as the DDG-51. Roughead says the reason he felt DDG-51s were better than DDG-1000s for BMD is that the Zumwalt missile-launching capabilities were not compatible with the standard missile employed by Aegis for such missions. It would too much of an investment, he said, to make any changes to the Zumwalt. It is an old argument. Vice Adm. Barry McCullough expressed largely the same thing to Congress in 2008, saying the DDG-1000 cannot perform area air defense; specifically, it cannot successfully employ the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2), SM-3 or SM-6. But according to defense analysts and industry sources, the DDG-1000 would not need to be changed to fire the Standard Missile 2 (SM-2) the baseline design has always included an ability to fire the SM-2, with some Navy missile modifications. To fire the SM-3 BMD interceptor, analysts and industry sources say, the Zumwalt s vertical launch system cell would have to be rewired and some combat system software might have to be modified, although it s unclear how costly such modifications would be. Public presentations by the Navy going back to 2006show service program officials touting the Zumwalt s ability to accommodate standard missiles, particularly the SM-2. Navy officials acknowledged that the DDG-1000 design could also be configured to provide these [missile defense] capabilities, CRS reports. Young also called into question whether it would be better to use the DDG-1000 as an AMDR ship. Engineering analysis shows that the existing DDG-1000 hull design can support significantly more capable radar suites than the existing DDG-51 hull design, he told Congress. I suspect that, given the dense and complex nature of the DDG-51 hull, as compared to that of the DDG-1000 hull, the cost of a redesigned DDG-51 very likely will be equal to or greater than that of a DDG destroyer budget, p. 15

15 march 2012 PAGE 15 destroyer Budget, from p. 14 Seeking an AOA "The DDG-1000, it has enormous capacity." Amos Navy officials maintain that the service s hull-radar study supported the plan to truncate the Zumwalt fleet to three ships and restart the DDG-51 line, although that study has been attacked as being too narrow. What is needed, critics say, is a true analysis of alternatives that considers attributes and total costs including life cycle estimates. Zumwalt supporters say the ship will fare very well in such an analysis. The Navy has invested about $20 billion in the DDG- 1000s most of that for R&D and program officials say the production price is about $3.1 billion per ship, with the first ship being on a cost-plus contract and the remaining two ships being fixed price. Many consider the ship expensive, but the DDG-1000 has remained on cost and schedule, even after the the fleet cuts created a Nunn-McCurdy cost breach notice. Many consider that to be a lot of money for ships that Roughead earlier this year told Congress would merely serve as testbeds for advanced technology. But the former CNO is not alone in this opinion. They are floating testbeds, says Stuart Slade, naval analyst for Forecast International. They re such ghastly ships. Those sentiments are echoed by military author and analyst Norman Friedman, who says, The Zumwalt class is an abortion. It s a special-purpose ship and you don t get much for your money. But that s not the way Zumwalt Navy officials see the program at all. This is fully operational worldwide, globally deployable, says program manager Capt. James Downey. It is not acquired to be or perceived to be a test ship. Bill Marcley, DDG-1000 program manager and vice president of Total Ship Mission Systems for Raytheon Integrated Systems, one of the prime contractors for the ship, says, The Navy is looking for 24/7 naval surface fire support. This is the only platform that can deliver that in all-weather conditions. As former CNO Clark testified, the Zumwalt is meant to have a tenfold better capability against anti-ship cruise missiles than the current force, improve strike group defense threefold, and provide a fiftyfold radar cross section reduction compared to current destroyers, covering 10 times the operating area in shallow water regions against mines, and three times the naval surface fires coverage. Stealthy, but deadly If you let the radars drive the ships, you might not get any ships built.' Petters The Zumwalt appears 50 times smaller to radar than a DDG-51 and operates much more freely in the littorals, even in nearly inaccessible areas, Clark and other Navy officials say. This changes the warfighting calculus forever and it gives us a chance to kill enemy platforms before they can engage us, Clark told Congress. That stealthiness is due to such ship attributes as a composite deckhouse and special sound-dampening construction, both of which are also supposed to cut down on maintenance needs. There s more. The Navy states that the DDG-1000 would be able to keep fighting after an attack like the one that disabled the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, CRS notes. The command-and-control and related networking systems on the DDG-1000 would have five times as much bandwidth as those on the DDG-51, CRS notes. The networking capability of the DDG-1000 is equivalent to that on the LHD-8 amphibious assault ship. The range at which the initially planned DDG-1000 dual-band radar can maintain firm tracks on targets is 25% greater for most target types than the firm track range of the DDG-51 s SPY-1 radar, CRS says, and the planned DDG-1000 s combat system would be able to maintain about 10 times as many tracks as the DDG-51 s Aegis system. The DDG-1000 s radar has much more capability for resisting enemy electronic countermeasures and for detecting targets amidst littoral clutter, CRS reports. As a result of the better performance amidst littoral clutter, the Navy believes that ships escorted by the DDG-1000 in defended littoral waters would have three times as much survivability as ships escorted by the DDG-51. The parameters and costs of the modified Zumwalt radar are still unknown. The ship also has more selling points. The DDG-1000, it has enormous capacity, says Gen. James Amos, Marine Corps commandant. We were looking at it for naval surface fire support. Clark said it will provide persistent and long-range destroyer budget, p. 16

16 march 2012 PAGE 16 destroyer Budget, from p. 15 power projection to the fight without a permission slip, with launch capability not just for today s tactical Tomahawks but tomorrow s hypersonic missiles and the room for growth. Less crew, more punch As Clark says, the Zumwalt s big guns will not fit on a Burke, and Downey maintains the gun-testing has been right on target. The DDG-1000 s Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) successfully completed two live-fire tests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. So the Navy has a ship that can sneak right up to the shores in places like China or Iran and deliver a punch unlike any destroyer, with half the crew and a third of the operational cost of an Arleigh Burke. Part of those manning and cost reductions relate directly to the care of the ship itself. Reliability-centered maintenance and condition-based maintenance concepts will be employed on the [ship] instead of the traditional planned maintenance system currently used on DDG-51 destroyers, GAO notes. The bridge design and computer networking allows each sailor or officer to do the work of two or three now on the Burkes, Raytheon program officials maintain. The Zumwalt s electric-drive propulsion system also requires fewer people. The DDG-1000 will be the first U.S. Navy surface combatant to use electric power for propulsion and ship services. There are still technological challenges with propulsion destroyer Budget p. 25 aegis, from p. 5 one includes ship integration costs. Even Lockheed says it isn t sure of the price tag, but the rule of thumb for the industry lately has been about $1 billion per ship for an Aegis system with more than 90 ships equipped thus far. With the high bills coming due for Aegis upgrades, and burgeoning concerns over AMDR technology risks and expected costs, the Navy may have little choice but to delay or abandon some of its grand BMD plans. The Navy, though, still expects to stay on track. AMDR is on track to demonstrate all critical technologies this year, Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) said in statement. Cost estimates are coming down. Rating the radars Not far enough, doubters say. The Navy is becoming the centerpiece of national missile defense, says Lexington Institute defense analyst Loren Thompson. But it can t afford to stick with the program of record. Here s the current status and what s in store for Aegis, DBR and AMDR. AEGIS As the linchpin for the Obama administration s missile defense plan, the Aegis Combat System architecture is now at the heart of the Navy s strategy to defend Europe and other countries from an Iranian missile launch. Aegis was designed to protect ships and fleets from missiles, not cities and countries or even vessels from ballistic rockets. But now that countries such as Iraq, Iran, China and North Korea are deploying or developing ballistic missiles, the Navy needs to protect itself, and U.S. allies, especially as other nations hone the range and accuracy of those weapons. "The Navy is becoming the centerpiece of national missile defense." Thompson The Navy brass is especially concerned with recent Chinese tests of its DF-21 ballistic missile system that could potentially hit a carrier group at sea. BMD or at least building the sensor picture that makes it possible has been on the Navy s radar screen for some time. It is that kind of situational-awareness fidelity that makes true missile defense feasible. The nation s interest in Navy BMD took greater hold, Thompson notes, when then-president George W. Bush withdrew America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 2002, clearing the way for full-throttle development of sea-based BMD systems. That put Aegis and the Navy on course for an even greater BMD role one the service covets and cherishes. We re no longer just defending a ship, says Capt. Jim Kilby, commanding officer of the first enhanced Aegis-equipped cruiser Monterey deployed as a part of the EPAA. We re defending cities. We re defending whole populations. And it is easier, too, to defend a budget for a program protected not only by the Navy, but also by powerful contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, as well as another government powerhouse, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). There are 27 Aegis BMD-equipped warships 23 in the U.S. Navy and four in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, Lockheed notes. In addition, 11 additional U.S. ships have been identified for modification to perform BMD missions by Lockheed says it continues to receive strong interest in the Aegis Combat System and Aegis BMD from a variety of international customers. Anchored by Lockheed s venerable SPY-1 phased-array radar and Raytheon s MK-99 fire-control system and connected through a web of proven tactical data links and aegis p. 17

17 march 2012 PAGE 17 aegis, from p. 16 sensors, the highly automated Aegis combat system has continued to protect ships and improve through the decades. Lockheed says Aeigs has decades of real-world, proven Navy combat system experience. It s now the benchmark for other operational systems, says Forecast International naval analyst Stuart Slade. When France or other countries try to sell their programs, they say, It s as good as Aegis. BMD with Aegis is proving extremely successful, author and analyst Norman Friedman says. You have a picture-centric device, Friedman says. What counts is the picture. With GPS you can order a missile to a point in space. The driving force behind the Aegis concept was Rear Adm. Wayne Meyer, seen by many Navy officers as a combat system messiah. The service is populated with Meyer disciples whose faith in Aegis is unwavering. Aegis Resurrection Now, of course, it is the BMD mission that very well may be saving the Aegis production lines. Going into 2008, the Navy was on course to stop making Aegis systems and the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers to deploy the shield, and instead focus on developing Dual Band Radar (DBR) aboard the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer. But that all changed with the rise of Adm. Gary Roughead as the chief of naval operations (CNO) by all accounts a true Meyer and Aegis disciple. Under Roughead, the Navy moved quickly to truncate the DDG-1000 line, cancel the Zumwalt DBR and restart the Burke and Aegis production lines. About two years ago the program looked like it was going to go into close-out, says Sean Kane, Raytheon operations lead for Aegis programs. But then in 2010, there was a resurgence of Aegis. As contractors gear up to build more Aegis combat systems, the Navy is trying to re-engineer the system s software and related components, which is becoming an increasingly difficult and expensive task. Indeed, the Navy has already canceled some of the upgrades and dialed back others. One big reason it is so hard to upgrade and improve Aegis is because of the way the combat system evolved. The program s baselines were developed in the 1970s, according to Bill Bray, director of the Navy Program Executive Office, Integrated Warfare Systems.The combat systems were tailored for each ship or platform they were landing on, and every platform ended up with its own system. Cruisers and destroyers have their own Aegis systems and certain groups of each ship would get their own baselines depending on when they were delivered or available for an upgrade. They all have the basic Aegis core, but with different baseline capabilities, integrated systems and system architectures. The Navy refers to it as the clone-and-own method. Clone and own refers to the practice of essentially capturing code from a predecessor baseline and building upon that to add additional capabilities to develop a new, more capable baseline, Lockheed says. Still, the Navy has a tangle of different baselines. When "Aegis is a layer cake of code, with one series of patches after another." Gresham there s a problem that needs fixing, all the baselines have to be addressed you can t just fix the core software package and redeliver it. Code cobbling Lockheed says the common source library (CSL) being incorporated into Aegis will ensure that corrections will be able to be fixed one time and delivered to all baselines sourced from the CSL. Some folks believe Aegis is an old system, says Lockheed Aegis Program Director Jim Sheridan. But there was a continuous evolution both in radar capability and combat system capability. But others see it differently: They say Aegis is stitched together with a mish-mash of code. Aegis is a layer cake of code, with one series of patches after another, says military analyst and author John Gresham. The only reason it works is because of the resourcefulness of the sailors working around those code problems. Lockheed takes issue with that contention. aegis p. 18