Littoral Combat Ship - Now Over $600 Million

I think it might be time to start taking odds on whether the LCS will be canceled or not. This news is even more depressing when one realizes the Navy doesn't have any design alternatives out there on the radar.

The price to buy each of the Navy’s first two Littoral Combat Ships has crashed through the $500 million barrier, and the final tab to deliver the ships is well over $600 million apiece, according to service budget documents released Feb. 4.

Soaring cost growth has severely disrupted the program, which once envisioned the purchase of a series of relatively inexpensive, $220 million warships that would take about two years to build. Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics (GD) are building ships to very different designs in a competition to be decided in 2009.

We do find some interesting information here. Tim Colton has been saying for years that Lockheed Martin doesn't know how to build ships. This seems to confirm he is partially right, they don't know how to build inexpensive ships. We note the article lists the price of Freedom to be $531 million, and Independence now costs $507 million. If you read the entire article, which we recommend, you will note those cost figures do not include the $100 million for the mission modules. That means both now cost over $600 million. Check out the new estimates for the "basic construction" cost of more platforms.

Now, Navy figures contained in justification documents submitted with the 2009 defense budget request show a “basic construction” cost for Lockheed’s Freedom (LCS 1) of $471 million; for GD’s Independence (LCS 2), $440 million.

The difference in cost for 53 more Littoral Combat Ships at these prices would be $1.64 billion more for the Lockheed Martin version. However, to complete the next 53 LCS at that price the LCS program would now be around $24 billion. Considering the entire program was originally supposed to be a $12.5 billion, the program now costs twice as much.

For perspective, this would still be affordable if the Navy canceled just the last 5 DDG-1000s. I see absolutely no evidence that the Navy will be anywhere close with their cost estimates of the DDG-1000. What a mess.