The cost of the US Navy's Zumwa It-class (DDG 1000) destroyer programme has rocketed by 89 per cent in three years to USD6 billion per ship, according to the Pentagon's undersecretary of defence for acquisition.rnJohn Young's admission, in a memorandum of record dated 26 January, came as he unveiled fresh proposals to safeguard the threatened programme by awarding it funds earmarked for the procurement of six Future Surface Combatant (FSC) ships by 2015.rnThe transfer of FSC into the DDG 1000 budget line would bring down the latter's unit price and remove the statutory requirement for a Congres-rnsional review of the programme. Young's memo states that the unit cost rose to USD5.964 billion for three ships in 2008, up from the baseline estimate of USD3.16 billion in November 2005, when the navy was planning a 10-ship buy.rnThe funding switch could, he says, reduce the DDG 1000 unit cost to USD3.4 billion and give the navy more time to decide whether to use the DDG 1000 hull or the smaller hull from the Arleigh Burke-class (DDG 51) destroyer for the FSC design.
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