There Will Be Three.

From Chris Cavas at Defense News.

"The Navy has reached an agreement with General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works for pricing, terms and conditions for DDGs 1001 and 1002," Sean Stackley, the Navy's top acquisition official, said in a statement.

"This is an important step in the process to ensure a fixed price contract in line with the Navy's 'should cost' estimates," Stackley said. "While we continue to complete final mechanics of the contract award, we can proceed with funding material and other work to keep 1001 and 1002 on track, until actual contract award before the end of the Fiscal Year."

It will be interesting to see the totals for the final contract. There are little if any savings from economy of scale with the Zumwalt class, so the nation is basically paying full price. Luckily, the maturity of design hasn't raised any red flags with GAO or CBO yet in terms of cost creep, so at least the program is being well run despite the high cost.

What I find most noteworthy however is how nobody can yet find anything about the ship to complain about except for the cost. The Zumwalt is going to be amazizng. When the Navy fields this ship with its new technologies (specifically integrated power system), it will change everything we think we want to do with future surface combatants. DDG-1000 is looking to be the greatest surface combatant in the world the day it is commissioned, and it won't be close.

Zumwalt is basically the gold plated Iowa-class version of HMS Dreadnought.

The third Zumwalt has not been named yet, and I'm hoping that Ray Mabus aims high with a name to the third Zumwalt - something like Earnest Evans for example. The Navy set a sky high bar when they named DDG-1001 Michael Monsoor, and I hope DDG-1002 gets the same treatment.