Here’s what I see:
A project which was sold to the Congress with a cost of “X.”
A new revision puts the per-unit cost of these ships at double what was quoted to Congress.
In the private sector, we call that “bait and switch” and there are laws against it.
Here’s the new reality which everyone who clamors for new military toys needs to get their head around: We’re broke.
With all due respect to your argument, mine was all about the technical aspects that the writer was using to justify his tome. The cost issue goes wwwaaayyyyyy back when for some silly reason the cost of any government project from the local city to federal does not include solid time constraints as well. Many of the cost overs on this project were due to time because of change orders brought on by the customer (Pentagon).
I see this all too often, in that the governing body will commission a project and whether it is intentional or not, the specifications are not complete or up to date, mostly incomplete. The contractor can only bid on the specifications listed to get the job and only then start to point out where the specs are bad. So then come the change orders and in many cases, things need to be undone before they can be done again.
This all goes back to getting legal hacks the hell out of government and focus on electing citizen legislators who have real life experience at doing these things right the first time. Rejuvenate the calendar conditions on all contracts which stipulate penalties for late delivery and fire the people who write the bad specifications in the first place.