DoD Buzz: LCS Price Gives Navy Pause (only 275% over original estimate)

[unhappycamper]

LCS Price Gives Navy Pause
By Greg Grant Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 3:33 pm
Posted in Naval, Policy

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Lockheed Martin’s steel mono-hull LCS can be built in most any shipyard and, more importantly, it can put in for repairs at many more dry-docks than can GD’s trimaran. How many more? There are roughly 10 dry-docks in the Norfolk area, Lemmo said, only two of which could fit the trimaran. Lockheed’s mono-hull fits in all of them. That ease of maintenance will result in lower LCS lifecycle costs, Lemmo says.

The issue of LCS lifecycle costs is a hot one. GD contends that the Navy’s down select criteria doesn’t sufficiently emphasize lifecycle costs. GD says its trimaran will burn much less fuel than Lockheed’s LCS-1 mono-hull over the life of the ships.

At the request of Sen. Jeff Sessions R-Ala, who supports the GD design, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examined LCS-1 lifecycle costs and how projected fuel usage will impact those costs. CBO found that LCS-1 fuel costs would be largely insignificant. Fuel costs would account for somewhere between 8 and 18 percent of total costs; whereas the ship’s price tag accounts for up to 66 percent of total costs.

Lockheed’s Lemmo said they’ve been able to bring down LCS-3 production costs about 30 percent compared to LCS-1. LCS-3 is over 40 percent complete and on track for a 2012 delivery. He said much of the work on LCS-1 was done at pier side, versus while it was still on land, a far costlier way to build a ship. Most of the pre-outfitting on LCS-3 will be done on land.

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While the two builders argue over competing costs, the cost that is causing the Navy staff heartache is the ship’s price tag. CBO estimates that once the Navy selects a single design, ship costs will come down to about $550 million. Of course that doesn’t include the cost for the mission modules.



unhappycamper comment: The original Deepwater estimate for Littoral Combat Ships was $200 million dollars. LCS1 cost us $584 million dollars. LCS2 cost us $704 million dollars. Without mission modules. And MV-22s can melt the flight deck.

NLOS missiles were to have been the primary defense along with a 5 inch popgun, but the $466 grand non-working missiles pretty much takes it out of contention. What are these things except floating targets?