(US) Navy budget pressures forcing tough moves

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dailypress.com/news/military/dp-nws-navy-ships-budget-20120323,0,1283223.story



The aircraft Carrier Gerald R. Ford is under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding on Friday.


Navy budget pressures forcing tough moves
By Hugh Lessig, [e-mail] | 757-247-7821
6:47 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2012

The Navy wants to slow down construction of two future aircraft carriers at the Newport News shipyard so it can spread out payments to six years. That in itself "is not the end of the world," said Rep. Randy Forbes.

~snip~

Carrier acquisition cycles have lengthened over the years. This latest request, included in the defense budget introduced last month, would delay delivery of the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy to 2022. The next carrier in the Gerald R. Ford class, as yet unnamed, would be ready in 2027 instead of 2025.

~snip~

The carrier schedule and the early retirement of cruisers are two separate issues, but they fall in the same harsh category. Both represent how the Navy is juggling money and resources to deal with budget pressures.

The Navy has no plans to reduce its fleet of 11 aircraft carriers, and both delayed carriers would remain within required cost caps of $8.1 billion in 2006 dollars, said Capt. Cate Mueller, a Navy spokeswoman. Also, the later deliveries fit better with the Navy's shipbuilding plan. Delivery of the new JFK in 2022 would better match replacement of the USS Nimitz. The same is true for the 2027-delivered carrier, which is destined to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.




unhappycamper comment: Evidently Cate forgot this or is working from another spreadsheet:

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120316/DEFREG02/303160003/U-S-Carrier-Costs-Will-Breach-Cap-Next-Year

Congress in 2008 capped the acquisition cost of the new nuclear aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) at $11.76 billion. The Government Accountability Office, however, has warned that — if uncontrolled — cost growth on the project could reach as much as $1 billion by 2015.

Does this mean the USS Gerald R. Ford is now going to cost (at least) $13 billion dollars?