Navy's latest destroyer: Is it a ship or a test-bed?

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.

As the Navy prepares to award a design contract in April for its next generation surface combatant, there are conflicting explanations for the program's rationale. The Navy says that the DD-X project will produce a new ship class. But some senior Defense officials insist in categorizing DD-X as only a "test-bed" for new technologies.

The Pentagon requested $960 million in fiscal year 2003 to start developing the DD-X family of ships, which is expected to include a new cruiser, called CG-X and a smaller vessel for coastal operations, called the LCS (littoral combat ship). Through fiscal 2007, the Navy would spend $5.7 billion to complete development and possibly build the first ship.

A senior Navy budget official who briefed reporters in early February, however, said that DD-X is a "test-bed" to explore new technologies and may or may nor lead to actual ship construction. "It's too early to tell what is going to happen," the official said.

Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim said, during a news conference, that it's not clear whether any ships will be built under this program. "I don't know if [DD-X] will be deployed as a new class of ships," said Zakheim. He stressed that the Navy has yet to articulate specific requirements for a new class of surface combatants and that many of the decisions will be based on whether the Navy rakes over more missile-defense missions.

But several top Navy officials made it clear in recent remarks that they do not regard DD-X as only a test-bed. The director of Navy surface warfare, Rear Adm. Phillip M. Balisle, said that "DD-X is not a program simply to develop technology.... [It] will bring transformation to the fleet."

Rear Adm. Charles S. Hamilton, program executive officer for surface strike, explained that the DD-X program will fund a "lead ship" to be built in fiscal year 2005. That first ship would serve as the baseline, on which future upgrades would be incorporated. The idea is to make DD-X a "spiral development" program--a term used to describe the Defense Department's preferred approach to building weapon systems. Spiral development assumes that the design of a ship is flexible enough that it can be upgraded with new technologies over a long period of time.

The CG-X, said Hamilton, will be the next-generation cruiser for missile-defense missions. The LCS will perform, among other functions, mine- and submarine hunting duties.

The hullforms for DD-X and CG-X probably will be common, he said during a...