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Cost over-runs?
When pressed for an explanation: "After this story was published, the Navy told USNI News in a statement that the cost of the first boat grew due to a new estimate."
Brilliant reply. . .
When was the last modern boat class delivered anywhere close to the original estimates (to go to the trough to obtain initial congressional funding)?
When you're the design yard working on the Navy's top acquisition priority, it's a little easier to justify using cradle-to-grave, (design, procurement, procedural, logistics / sustainment) software designed to promote efficiency that really doesn't work as advertised.
Maybe they're using stacks of bills instead of lead pigs for ballast, or "efficiency" engineers canned from the LCS program. Navy ship acquisition programs have been really bad in the past twenty-five years and don't seem to be improving; submarine PEOs being better managed than the surface fleet, but nothing to brag about.
If they say $15 billion for the class lead now, measure and compare the lengths of the EB exec's noses in another year or two.
Stay tuned, this will be fun to watch.