Northrop To Start Building Arliegh Burke Destroyers Again

December 3, 2009 by Matthew Potter
Filed under: Business Line, Companies, Congress, Contract Awards, Department of Defense, Events, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman Corp., Services, U.S. Navy, production program 

The Obama Administration restructured the new U.S. Navy destroyer program as part of their 2010 budget review. The DDG-1000 program will now end after only three ships and rather then having two sources only General Dynamics (GD) will build them. A new destroyer program will be developed. Since Northrop Grumman (NOC) lost the contract they had participating in DDG-1000 the Navy gave them another one to start making more DDG-51 class ships to fill the gap created by reducing the numbers of the DDG-1000. The first of these new ships, DDG-113, began construction with Northrop receiving a contract to begin purchasing long lead items.

The DDG-51 is an evolution of the AEGIS CG-47 class cruisers started in the Seventies. It is a general purpose ship and replaces many older destroyers and frigates and has been built in large numbers. The DDG-51 certainly can be modified to conduct missile defense missions as it has the same radar and missile suite as the CG-47 class ships. The DDG-1000 incorporated many of the same weapon systems but was of stealth design and had modern propulsion and data systems.

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