WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy successfully achieved a significant milestone for the multimission DD(X) destroyer with the completion of a system-wide Critical Design Review (CDR) Sept. 14.
The review represents the culmination of years of design effort that encompassed the ship, mission system, human and shore designs that now comprise DD(X).
DD(X) is the Navy’s planned next-generation destroyer, tailored for land attack and inland support of joint and coalition forces. It is designed to meet Marine Corps, Army and special operations requirements for precision strike ashore, but also be able to outmatch current and projected threats in the air, on the surface and under water.
The completion of CDR marks the end of Phase III development, which resulted in the design, construction and test of 10 engineering development models (EDM) that will make DD(X) the Navy’s most capable multimission surface combatant ever constructed.
“DD(X) System CDR brings this incredible warship class one step closer from next generation to current generation," according to Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton, the Navy’s program executive officer for ships. “The Navy and National Team have accomplished the most thorough ship design and integration process in the history of Navy shipbuilding. I am proud of their achievement and believe their accomplishment sets a new standard in acquisition.”
“DD(X) CDR reflects a disciplined, rigorous process of risk mitigation in 10 EDMs. CDRs for each of the 10 EDMs have achieved both technical maturity as well as significant cost insight,“ he said. “Completion of the ship CDR is the culmination of three years of work executed on schedule and within one percent of stated budget,” Hamilton said.
“The National Team and Navy have achieved an unprecedented level of system design integration to deliver a balanced design that provides the required warfighting capability,” said Rear Adm. Chuck Goddard, DD(X) program manager. “We’ve matured the systems we need to build this class, and are ready to proceed to Milestone B and begin detail design and construction.”
Under the Navy’s proposed dual-yard acquisition strategy, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works will simultaneously build lead ships beginning in fiscal year 2007. Pending final approval of the plan, the Defense Department has authorized the Navy to award advance contracts to assist both shipyards to prepare to transition into detail design after the Milestone B decision. Development of major ship systems will continue under separate contracts.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/cno/testimony/clark050719.txt
The United States Navy on the World Wide Web
A service of the Navy Office of Information, Washington DC
send feedback/questions to
comments@chinfo.navy.mil The United States Navy web site is found on the Internet at
http://www.navy.mil
Testimony by CNO ADM Vern Clark
before the
House Armed Services Committee
Projection Forces Subcommittee
Washington, D.C.
19 July 2005
Chairman Bartlett, Congressman Taylor, Congresswoman Davis,
Congressman Hamilton and Saxton and Langevin. Mr. Marshall, thank
you for the chance to be here. I'm very glad to be here and be
able to discuss DD(X). I appreciate the invitation. I
appreciate the fact that you all are here, that you're here
investing in this discussion. You're investing -- by doing so,
investing in the national security of the United States. In my
view, this is a particularly important discussion, one that I am
so happy to be part of. Here I am with two-and-a-half days to
go, Mr. Chairman. One that we need to have so that we can get
this very important ship and its tremendous combat capability off
of the drawing board and into the fleet.
Mr. Chairman, you said that there are supporters and
critics, and so let me state my position up front as clearly as I
know how to state it. For the record, I am unequivocally in full
support of the DD(X) program. It is time to get the next
generation of capabilities to the fleet, and the projected
threat, both conventional and the global war against terrorism,
absolutely requires this kind of capability.
In my view, I'm in alignment with Secretary Krieg.
We stand at a crossroad. We can either build the next generation
of capabilities or we can continue to build today's. And maybe I
should say several years back level of capabilities. And,
unfortunately, because I know a lot about the Navy program and
our budget authority, we do not have the capability to do both.
And, in my view, the failure to build this next
generation capability -- and, Congressman Taylor, this gets at
your question right out of the blocks. The failure to build this
next generation of capabilities comes at the peril to the future
sons and daughters of America who are going to serve in the
United States Navy.
Secretary Krieg and Secretary Young and Admiral Hamilton
are here with me today, and they will present you a solid
shipbuilding and acquisition case for this ship. And over the
course of the hearings that you're going to have today and
tomorrow, you will have witnesses state both sides of this case,
Mr. Chairman. Some are going to tell you that this ship is
necessary and some that it's not necessary at all. Some that
it's the right cost, some that it's too costly. Some that it's
too risky, the technologies are too immature, and you'll hear the
other side. And perhaps the cost caps are an effective means to
control cost.
Secretary Young and Admiral Hamilton will address the
maturity of the technology, but the R&D costs of DD(X) are
critical to so many other parts of our program. When we
restructured in 2001, we did what members of Congress applauded
us for, that we did not have disparate technologies in R&D going
on in multiple platforms, but we built it into one family to
spiral out of. And, as the secretary has said, it will affect a
vast number of programs.
I can tell you this, that it is my understanding that
never before in history have we been this far with proof of
technology, and with this level of maturity at this stage of the
design process.
Now, I have testified before about the need for
partnership with Congress in the shipbuilding industry, and I do
not believe that cost caps alone prepare our Navy for the future.
They do not foster the partnership that we must have with
industry, and they don't create the kind of genuine
acquisition reform that will make a difference. So my focus
today is to speak about critical warfighting imperatives. We
need DD(X) for a lot of reasons.
And, Mr. Chairman, you talked about land attack and we
focused on land attack, but there are numerous other reasons. We
need it primarily to be able to get in the fight, to stay in the
fight, and win the fight when we must take on an enemy near land
scenarios, and when our nation calls. This ship is specifically
designed to operate in these new and more challenging maritime
battle spaces that we discussed, the contested littoral.
Previous surface combatants were optimized for
operations in the high seas, our typically referred to blue water
navy. But DD(X) has been designed with the combat power that we
need, and significantly higher survivability for the kind of
operational environment that this ship will have to operate in.
We need DD(X) for these kind of things that it brings to the
first, persistent and long-range power projection to the fight
without a permission slip. Eighty missile cells, not just for
today's tactical tomahawks but tomorrow's hypersonic missiles and
the room for growth that's present in this ship.
We need it for its two incredible guns that could hit
this room from 80 miles, and not just once but time after time,
with incredible precision, the likes of which we have never seen
before. Not only could -- if I was lucky enough to command a
ship like that again, that I could hit this room at long range,
but I could hit it with four projectiles, fired from the same
ship, and have them land here at exactly the same time
simultaneously, by sequencing the shots at different elevations,
for a devastating strike against an enemy of this nation.
A pair of these guns don't fit on any other surface
combatants that I own in my fleet today, so let's dispense of the
talk about redesigning DDG-51 to try to create DD(X) capability.
It simply is a non-starter. These are big guns with a big
magazine, and I spent hours talking about how many rounds this
ship ought to carry so that it will make a difference in
tomorrow's fight, and 600 rounds was the right number. We could
have made this ship smaller, we could have reduced the number of
rounds that this ship could carry, but if we did it, it wouldn't
make the kind of difference that the nation is investing in, and
so it requires a sizeable ship, and that's DD(X), and not a
modified cruiser or a modified cruiser will fill the bill.
Something the size of a DD(X) hull is what you need to carry this
pair of guns and a magazine of decent size. If you want less,
you're going to change the calculus of what kind of capability is
coming to the fight.
But here is about this big ship. By the way, there's
been talk about a battleship. That's 55,000 tons. Interesting
discussion that this is now too big of a ship, at 14. DD(X) also
brings stealth to the game. And if you're an adversary to the
United States of America, looking for a DD(X) is like looking
for the proverbial needle in a maritime haystack. It looks 50
times smaller than a DDG-51. Think of it, 50 times smaller than
a DDG-51.
Now, that has tremendous implications for the sons and
daughters that are going to go against an enemy, because that
enemy is going to have to -- that enemy will see the ship with
its eyeball before it can make out what it is on its radar. And
who gets the advantage in that game? It has 10 times the
operating area that a DDG-51 has against bottom-influenced mines,
and this means that DD(X) can readily operate in the littorals.
And most radar operators, as I said, will see the ship itself
before their radar locks on.
This changes the warfighting calculus forever and it
gives us a chance to kill enemy platforms before they can engage
us, and that's the kind of capability we're going to need in the
future.
DD(X) will prevail against the anti-access systems that
are being developed and deployed around the world. And in full
committee, in closed hearing, I talked to you all specifically
about those kind of challenges and things that the general public
cannot be told about because of classification reasons.
DD(X) also brings multi-mission capability and anti-air
warfare and anti-surface warfare and undersea warfare, 15 times
the improvement of a DDG in AAW detection capability in the near-
land arena. That's 1,500 percent. Ten times the increase in
track capacity. Three times the improvement in protection of
escorted units against swarm boats and the like. And the ASW
suite is significantly more sophisticated and capable in the
near-land environment than the DDG, Mine avoidance capability,
SOF insertion and five times the external communications ability
of a DDG-51. It isn't just about land attack.
But despite the tremendous improvement in capability,
DD(X) R&D is also critical to all of these other ships that we
talked about. Twenty-five percent of this R&D is applicable to
CVN-21. Twenty-five percent of it is applicable to LHA(R). And
DD(X) R&D is also the foundation of the plan modernization for
our Aegis ships and for CGs. Delays in this ship -- this is
important to a number of you and our nation -- would impact other
ships. A one-year delay in DD(X) at this point in time is going
to cost the nation another $1.3 billion and delays to CVN-21.
And it's going to cost another one to two-year delay in that
platform.
And, finally, the anticipated cost of a DD(X) is almost
the same as for a DDG-51, but with an exponential increase in
capability. And I know that we'll talk about those numbers. But
my numbers that I'm using, fifth ship of a class, $2.1 billion,
whereas the cost of a DDG- 51 in FY '07 dollars is up to $1.8
billion.
And so as the CNO, Mr. Chairman, I'm charged with -- for
two-and- a-half more days I'm charged with equipping the Navy
with the right force not only for today but for the future.
And it's an imperative to meet the developing threats, as I
briefed you in closed hearings. And I am convinced more than ever
before that DD(X) is a ship that we must deliver, that this kind
of persistent combat capability we must have in the future.
I am also morally bound to do all that I can do to
provide for and protect the men and women in the United States
Naval Service, those in the service and those that are going to
serve in the future, and to provide them with the means to win in
combat. And that's what DD(X) is all about, having the ability
to operate in this toughest operational environment, the
contested littoral.
So, in summary, Mr. Chairman, I want to be on the record
emphatically that DD(X) is a warfighting imperative.
The United States Navy needs it now and the
technological door that it opens to our future. And as you
listen to the secretaries and to Admiral Hamilton here today
comprehensively address all of the facts, I expect the Congress
to come to the same conclusion, that this program is, in fact,
well-conceived, that it is well-planned, but most importantly of
all, that it provides the vital capability that the sons and
daughters of America need to go to war for this nation. And I
ask for your support to deliver these combat capabilities to our
fleet of the future. And I thank you for the opportunity to
address this most important program today.
-USN-