The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and DDG-51 destroyer were the winners April 6 when Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled his recommendations for the fiscal 2010 budget at the Pentagon.

Gates called LCS “a key capability for presence, stability and counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions,” recommending the program grow from two to three ships in FY ’10 and continue to build out to the previously planned 55-hull fleet.

The only Republican supporters of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, Maine Sens. Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, will benefit from Gates’ recommendation that all three DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyers be built at General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works. Collins released a late-afternoon statement enthusiastically endorsing the decision. “This is incredibly welcome news for Maine,” Collins said. “I worked hard to convince the president and the Navy to include full funding for a third DDG-1000 in the budget.”

Gates justified his decision by saying that “people here in the building believe that building individual prototypes in two different shipyards is about as ...cost-inefficient an approach as you can have.”

Negotiations with the Navy still remain before a final move of all DDG-1000 hulls is made to Bath. Part of that move will require the Navy to “smoothly restart” the DDG-51 at Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi. If efforts with industry are unsuccessful, Gates warned, the Pentagon may decide to build only one prototype DDG-1000 in Maine and review options for production restart of the DDG-51. “It would unfortunately reduce our overall procurement of ships and cut workload in both shipyards,” Gates said of the alternative.

Aircraft carriers, amphibious ships and sea-basing programs will all follow a more tempered approach to development under Gates’ plan. The 11th San Antonio-class Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ship and the Mobile Landing Platform ship will be moved to FY ’11 “in order to assess costs and analyze the amount of these capabilities the nation needs,” he said. The Navy’s aircraft carrier program will be moved to a five-year build cycle, placing it on what Gates termed “a more fiscally sustainable path.” The result will be 10 carriers after 2040.

Gates said his decisions regarding shipbuilding “do a good job of taking care of the industrial base and evening out employment.”

Photo: Lockheed Martin