The Navy, Defense Department and commercial shipbuilders agreed on a plan to build the next-generation DDG-1000 destroyers solely at Bath Iron Works, Maine. Initially, both Bath Iron Works and Northrop Grumman Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., were to share the task of constructing the vessels, with its cost of $3.2 billion each. That changed when the Obama administration submitted its 2010 defense budget proposal to Congress, which authorized only three new ships instead of 32. Spreading the work between Bath and Ingalls would have driven up costs, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said April 17. In exchange for ceding work on the DDG-1000, Ingalls will build two DDG-51 guided-missile destroyers.
