Reports of DDG-1000 Cost Overruns Disputed

Defense Department officials say recent news reports that new DDG-1000 destroyers would cost between $5 billion and $7 billion each. “There’s no basis for [that cost] projection,” says John J. Young Jr., the undersecretary of defense for acquisition. The price per vessel will more likely be in the $2.2 billion to $2.5 billion range, Young said, with the prototype carrying the slightly higher cost of about $3.3 billion. Initial plans that called for construction of 32 ships at Bath Iron Works, Maine, and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ Ingalls operation at Pascagoula, Miss., were scaled back to two vessels. The DDG-1000 program is on hold now, pending analyses of production, manufacturing and costs. When the new destroyers eventually join the fleet, they will replace the venerable Arleigh Burke class ships.