It's that time of year again! Here's some info to get you started on what the budget landscape could look like for the Navy:
1. One DDG-51 is being requested, at a cost of $2.24B.
2. A second year of incremental funding for the Fiscal 2009 DDG-1000 is being requested, to the tune of $1.62B.
3. One Navy and one Army Joint High Speed Vessel are being requested for $373M.
4. The Navy also wants three Littoral Combat Ships procured at the $460M cost cap, for a total of $1.87B.
5. A second year of incremental funding for the 10th LPD 17 amphibious transport dock ship from Fiscal 2009 and an advance payment on the 11th ship for Fiscal 2011, which totals $1.06B.
6. Two T-AKE ships procured as part of the Maritime Prepositioning Force-Future concept.
7. And one Virginia-class sub procured in the multiyear procurement contract and advance procurement for future ships, which will cost $4.18B. That's right: four billion dollars for one submarine.
But 4 BB per sub, how many is each Chinese sub we sink going to cost on an amortized present value method?
that's a real misleading statement and you know it. its the "advance procurement for future ships" which is the operative part of that statement.
this is taken from the Business Dictionary.com
Components, parts, or material (particularly those with long lead times) that must be acquired before their actual need to maintain a planned production schedule.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/advance-procurement.html
so in essence its for more than just one submarine!
Everybody: Since this is Ares (and not a news story) and we allow ourselves to opine, I'll go a step further and say it's mind-boggling. The Navy and sub industry has long been struggling to get the Va. price down to almost $2B/boat (2005 dollars) and are still struggling. Last I heard myself, the $2B "goal" was on track, but only after Congress helped increase the annual order plan.
That leads me to something I've never understood in many of the debates in the military industrial realm: the idea that the answer is to just buy more so that the per-item cost will go down. The U.S. may very well need more subs than are planned, but it should buy them for the right reasons.