ARTICLE

June 2003

Appropriators Worry About DD-X Price Tag

by Sandra I. Erwin

Congressional appropriators recently expressed concern that the Navy’s next-generation DD-X destroyer may price itself out of the market.

Appropriation staffers who attended a DD-X briefing on Capitol Hill last month told Northrop Grumman and Navy officials that they would like to see definitive cost estimates on the program before they can commit long-term funding.

At the briefing, sponsored by the Lexington Institute, DD-X Program Manager Capt. Charles H. Goddard, explained that the lead ship, scheduled to be completed by 2005, will carry a steep price tag—about $2.5 billion—because it must cover the so-called “non-recurring” research and development costs. Once the ships are in production, the price of each vessel will be much lower, he said, depending on the final configuration and requirements.

During the next three years, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems will build and test 10 “engineering design models” that will represent each of the DD-X key technologies, said Philip Dur, president of the company. He said he is optimistic about the program’s future and that, from a design perspective, the “hull form, displacement and baseline configuration are stable.”

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