LCS News and Views

The House Armed Services Committee had a hearing on the Littoral Combat Ship on Tuesday. I'd love to discuss it, but both the audio and the video for the hearing doesn't work right. The video has no audio, and the audio file is missing. I'm open to suggestions on how to read/hear the testimony.

The Navy's prepared statement on the Littoral Combat Ship program is here (PDF).

Thankfully Marine Log has the scoop.

Chairman Gene Taylor set the tone. He pointed out that the LCS program has so far delivered one ship.

"When I look at the plan from just two years ago," he said, "we should by now have at least four ships delivered, three more nearing completion from a fiscal year 2008 authorization, six under contract from a fiscal year 2009 authorization, and today we should be discussing the authorization of six more ships for fiscal year 2010. That would be a total of 19 ships."

"So instead of having 13 delivered or under contract with another 6 in this year's budget," continued Chairman Taylor, "we have one ship delivered that will likely tip the scales well above two and a half times the original estimate and one ship that might finish this summer, with similar if not higher cost growth. The Navy canceled two previously authorized ships, no ships were placed under contract for fiscal year 2008 and no contract award has been made for the two ships authorized for fiscal year 2009. And all this is from the program that was hailed as a poster child for its 'transformational' and 'affordable' acquisition strategy. "

Chairman Taylor said that what was needed was to "bring true competition into this program, not the pseudo competition we currently have between the two poor performers but true competition based on price, schedule, and quality. I have been asking for over two years if the government owns the rights to the design drawings of the ships so they can bid them out directly to any shipyard with the capability of constructing the vessels. The answer seems to be yes and no."

Government Purpose Rights (GPR) is covered in the Navy's statement (download from link above). Basically the government owns the plans, but shipbuilders will have to negotiate for the parts (Calvin, there is a MK 110 discussion in here somewhere). One more quote from the Marine Log article.

At the hearing it emerged that the Navy believed that "build to print" would add around $60 million to each ship--and an 18 months delay.

"Build to Print" sounds like the new Congressional buzzword for the Littoral Combat Ship program. Want to know what it means? Ask Bill Sweetman.

Hmm...