by Brandon Carter
Coastal Journal staff

Now, after years of hand-wringing and perspiration, the Navy is returning, somewhat sheepishly, to the Arleigh Burke DDG 51 that it once deemed no longer necessary.

Tom Allen’s office is saying that the trigger for the DDG 1000’s demise was its “strategic limitations” in responding to future military threats.  Meanwhile Susan Collins’ office is implying that the House rather flippantly changed its mind at the last minute and cut off funding for a third Zumwalt class ship.  Naturally, the answer is somewhere in the middle.

Between now and April 30, the last time the Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee approved funding for a third DDG 1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, it seems unlikely that the tactical needs the ship was originally designed to meet have changed, nor does it seem likely that both Congress and the Navy were suddenly stricken with a case of amnesia regarding the overtures made to both BIW and Northrop Grumman's Ingalls shipyard. 

The picture currently materializing is that of denial.  Both Congress and the Navy were aware of the DDG 1000's troubled history long before this point but proceeded onward with the program anyway.  The “wait and see” phase appears to have ended because someone didn't like what they saw.  That someone appears to be Admiral Gary Roughead.

The strategic limitations of the DDG 1000 have been in question ever since the earliest stages of the Navy's DD(X) program.  The Zumwalt class destroyer was to be the closest thing to a surface water submarine the Navy had in its fleet.  Outfitted with new integrated power systems, advance gun systems, and radar-dodging “tumblehome” hull design, the ship was designed to be a multi-use destroyer that could effectively support land missions as well.  The DDG 1000’s technological advances over the DDG 51 all but rendered the latter obsolete.  The Navy had no plans to construct any more 51s  beyond 2012.  The class would have ended with 62 ships.

Trouble for the DDG 1000 began in 2004 when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) voiced its concern that the ship could not demonstrate mature design stability or full disclosure of its subsystems before the Navy awarded the contracts for construction.  Similarly, concerns about the inward-slanting tumblehome design began to crescendo.  Some naval engineers, architects, and analysts expressed misgivings about the buoyancy of the DDG 1000, even going as far as to suggest that the ship could capsize under the right conditions.  Unfortunately, those conditions could not be effectively simulated.  The Navy would have to “wait and see” how the ship performed out on the water to obtain a better assessment of its capabilities.

Given the degree of uncertainty surrounding the ship's capabilities, Congress was reluctant to fund the program beyond the initial $2.6 billion each for the two lead DDG 1000s at BIW and Northrop Grumman's shipyard in Mississippi.  The budget for the DD(X) program is approved annually to ensure against cost-ineffectiveness.

The cost of both lead ships came to $3.3 billion each compared to the $1.2 billion the lead DDG 51 Arleigh Burke cost in 1985.  Accounting for inflation, the same ship would cost around $2.4 billion dollars today.  According to a Navy report issued in February, however, the technological advancements the 1000s offered over the 51s made $3.3 billion look like a good number.  The same report described several cost-cutting measures undertaken for the last three years on behalf of the DDG 1000, like reducing ship displacement from 18,000 tons to 14,500 and trimming manpower. 

The measures were not enough to curb fears that cost overruns on the ship could jeopardize other Navy programs.  Several sources claim that the DDG 1000, initially slated for 32 ships before quickly being readjusted to seven, faced perpetual cost-overruns in the billions of dollars.  Though BIW had only been awarded one contract, the other five ships slated for construction (not counting Ingall's lead ship) did offer the prospect of increased productivity for the shipyard.  News that the program will not live beyond the initial lead ship has stirred fears of job loss at BIW.

The Navy is attempting to allay those fears by resuscitating the DDG 51 program, which begs the question:  If the 51s weren’t good enough to continue manufacturing beyond 2012, what makes them good enough now?  Perhaps the benefits of the DDG 1000 were slightly inflated in proportion to its cost, and alternately the DDG 51 might have been undervalued.  For example, one complaint Navy officials have had in the past is that the DDG 51’s design was largely immutable, and that starting over with a new design (that would be the DDG 1000) would be a more a significant improvement to the Navy’s fleet. 

Now that the DDG 1000 has been scrapped, one report has the Navy looking long and hard at replacing the DDG 51’s radar system with the 1000’s.  The Navy is also considering the impressive 155mm Advanced Gun System, designed for the DDG 1000, for inclusion on the DDG 51’s hull. 

It would appear that the Arleigh Burke is not so immutable after all.