The U.S. Navy is dropping plans to extend by another 10 years the expected 35-year service lives of DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers after it found that the plan was not cost effective, Defense News reported Saturday.
“Service life extensions can be targeted, physical changes to specific hulls to gain a few more years, or a class-wide extension based on engineering analysis,” James Geurts, assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition at the Navy and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said in his written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The Navy has evaluated the most effective balance between costs and capability to be removing the service life extension on the DDG 51 class.”
The Navy is expected to lose 27 DDG 51s between 2026 and 2034 as a result of the cancelation of the hull life extensions. The service said in its 30-year shipbuilding plan for fiscal year 2020 the proposed service life extension for destroyers was key to reaching the 355-ship goal.
The Pentagon has yet to submit its three-decade shipbuilding plan for FY 2021.
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The Wash100 Award, now in its seventh year, recognizes the most influential executives in the GovCon industry as selected by the Executive Mosaic team in tandem with online nominations from the GovCon community. Representing the best of the private and public sector, the winners demonstrate superior leadership, innovation, reliability, achievement and vision.
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