Crs Report for Congress: Navy Dd(x) and Lcs Ship Acquisition Programs: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress: January 25, 2005 - Rl32109

The Navy in FY2006 and future years wants to procure no more Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyers and instead wants to begin procuring two new classes of surface combatants -- a new destroyer called the DD(X), and a smaller surface combatant called the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). In support of this plan, the Navy for FY2005 requested procurement funding for three final DDG-51s and initial procurement funding for the first DD(X) and the first LCS. Congress for FY2005 provided $3,445.0 million for procurement of three DDG51s. Congress also provided $350.5 million in advance procurement funding for the DD(X) program -- $221.1 million for the first DD(X), and $84.4 million for the second DD(X) -- and directed that procurement of DD(X)s be fully funded in the Navy's ship-procurement account rather than incrementally funded in the Navy's research and development account as the Navy had proposed for the first DD(X). Congress approved the Navy's plan to build the first LCS using research and development funds rather than shipbuilding funds, provided $214.7 million in procurement funding to fund the ship's entire construction cost (rather than about half the ship's cost, as the Navy had requested), required the next LCS (to be funded in ...