New DDG-51s could get tweaks, upgrades

[unhappycamper]

New DDG-51s could get tweaks, upgrades
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Aug 5, 2008 6:45:58 EDT

Even though the Navy will resume building Arleigh Burke-class destroyers because the ships are cheaper and the costs are predictable, the eight new Burkes could get new refinements that set them apart from earlier siblings, according to a congressional report.

According to written testimony submitted Thursday to the House Seapower Subcommittee by Navy shipbuilding expert Ron O’Rourke, the Navy has several options to improve and accessorize the new series of destroyers that will resume with the ship carrying hull number DDG 113.

The Navy acquisitions officials who appeared before the subcommittee Thursday said there isn’t yet a plan for how and when to begin the paperwork for buying the new ships, which take the place of five bigger, more advanced Zumwalt-class destroyers. The general sense was that the new Burkes would correspond to the Flight IIA standard — including the latest SPY-1 radar— and be equivalent to ships that had been upgraded with the Navy’s DDG Modernization, which includes open architecture, consumer off-the-shelf systems.

Testifying for the Navy were Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of resources and capabilities; and Allison Stiller, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for ship programs.

According to statistics provided by the Navy, the estimated cost for two new DDG 51s is about $3.5 billion, as compared to an estimated $3.2 billion per ship for DDG 1000. But lawmakers, including the Seapower Subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., hope that serialized production for new DDG 51s would bring down the per-ship costs by the time the next copies are being built. Stiller said it would take extra money and about 50 additional weeks to re-start production on the destroyers’ main reduction gear, which ended when the Navy ordered what it thought would be the final ships in the class.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/08/navy_destroyer_upgrades_080108w/

[Angleae]

1. It isn't as if it hasn't been done before.

DDG-51 (Arleigh Burke-class) has 3 different variants (Flight I, II, IIa) and even flight IIa has been "tweaked" twice.