Navy budget proposal would provide BIW solid funding
file PHOTo / Courtesy Bath Iron Works
A Zumwalt deckhouse is lifted into place at Bath Iron Works in this file photo. BIW is under contract to build all three of the Zumwalt-class of Navy destroyers.
On Wednesday, a top-level Navy official told a Senate Armed Services Committee that it is seeking $81.4 billion to purchase just over three dozen warships, submarines and support vessels in the next five years — a request that would provide Bath Iron Works steady funding for ships awarded for construction at the yard.
Currently seven Navy ships are under construction at BIW including three Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers and four Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers — another four Arleigh Burke destroyers are currently under contract.
“The Navy is seeking funding for ships that have already been contracted,” BIW spokesman Matt Wickenheiser told the Portland Press Herald. “We need that funding to go forward.”
The Navy’s proposal requests spending approximately $14.7 billion on seven vessels in 2017; $16.8 billion on eight in 2018; $16.2 billion on seven in 2019; $16.9 billion on eight in 2020 and $16.8 billion on eight vessels in 2021.
The request for increased purchasing ability came on the same day that USNI News, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute, reported that costs for the Zumwalt destroyers being constructed at BIW are currently $450 million over costs estimates from the previous fiscal year due to “performance issues.”
“Almost without exception, every new-build Navy ship experiences similar if not worse cost increases,” Jay Korman, senior Navy analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm The Avascent Group, told the Bangor Daily News. “The fundamental fact is that there is a learning curve to building the first ship of any class. Normally you realize the cost benefits after the fourth or fifth ship of a class, but guess what? This is a three-ship build and they’re just not going to get the cost efficiencies.”
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