The Day the Destroyer Died

Christopher P. Cavas is reporting that the purpose for the July 31st Congressional hearing has changed, the Navy will cease production of the DDG-1000 after two ships. Via Navy Times:

Top Navy and Pentagon brass met Tuesday to make the decision, which means the service will ask Congress to drop the request for the third ship in the 2009 defense budget and forego plans to ask for the remaining four ships.

Each of the two ships now under contract will be built, according to the new decision. That means the General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine will build the Zumwalt, DDG 1000, and Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls yard in Pascagoula, Miss., will construct the yet-to-be-named DDG 1001.

Admiral Gary Roughead, in his first year as CNO, has managed to do what we thought impossible; make a major impact to existing shipbuilding plans. The article goes on to note the decisions yet to be made include how many DDG-51s will be built to replace the canceled DDG-1000 destroyers, and how many will be built by BIWs. The construction of more DDG-51s is, in our opinion, a short term industrial must simply to insure the shipbuilders are taken care of. With shipbuilding decline a major problem for the United States, more DDG-51s represent a national interest by insuring work for Bath Iron Works more so than a Navy specific interest.

While it is easy to look at this news as the end of the road, we see it in the context of a beginning. This decision adds a lot of uncertainty for both Navy shipbuilding and the supporting industry, and in many ways was the decision of most resistance, not the least. Plowing on with the DDG-1000, however ugly that would have been, was still moving forward with a plan. Now the Navy doesn't have a plan.

Times like these reveals the quality and character of leadership.