The following is a draft copy of the Government Accountability Office July 2013 report on the Littoral Combat Ship program and the Navy’s response to the GAO’s recommendations. Read More
Tag Archives: GAO
Forbes Wants ‘Intensive Oversight’ On LCS, Hearings Likely
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) will likely hold hearings on the state of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship. AP Photo
Congress will likely hold hearings on the state of the Littoral Combat Ship program, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) , the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection forces, told reporters on Tuesday.
“We are going to do some intensive oversight of this program, which will include hearings,” Forbes said in a report from Reuters.
The hearings are prompted by an anticipated Government Accountability Office report that will likely advise Congress to slow down acquisition of the program so the ships and the planned mission packages.
“I have felt that LCS had bumps in the road but it was moving. The only thing that’s really raising this flag is what this GAO report may or may not say,” Forbes said.
Excerpts of a draft GAO LCS report have appeared in several press outlets. The draft recommends Congress slow down acquisition of the ships and the mission packages pending further study.
“The apparent disconnect between the LCS acquisition strategy and the needs of the end user suggests that a pause is needed,” a draft of the GAO report was quoted in a Friday Bloomberg story. “Congress is in a position to slow funding… pending the results of the technical studies that are already underway.”
The U.S. Navy currently plans to acquire 52 LCS hulls to round out the low-end of the Navy’s surface combatant roster. The two hulls being built — Lockheed Martin’s Freedom-class and Austal USA’s Independence-class — are part of a dual acquisition strategy formulated in 2010. After a fierce competition between Austal’s aluminum trimaran and Lockheed’s steel mono-hull design, the Navy elected to buy both versions in a deal for 20 ships with an estimated value of $8.9 billion.
In addition to four ships the Navy funded outside of the 2010 deal, the Navy’s current plan is to buy 24 ships with both hulls.
In November, Vice Adm. Tom Copeman, commander of U.S. Surface Forces, sent a classified memo to Navy leadership that advised narrowing down to a single LCS design modified to carry more weapons than the current version or an entirely new class of ship.
GAO: Cost of COCOM Staffs Doubled in Five Years
The following is an excert from the executive summary of a May Government Accountability Office report on support personnel to the Department of Defense’s Unified Combatant Commands:
GAO’s analysis of resources devoted to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) geographic combatant commands shows that authorized military and civilian positions and mission and headquarters-support costs have grown considerably over the last decade due to the addition of two new commands and increases in authorized positions at theater special operations commands. Data provided by the commands shows that authorized military and civilian positions increased by about 50 percent from fiscal years 2001 through 2012, to about 10,100 authorized positions. In addition, mission and headquarters support-costs at the combatant commands more than doubled from fiscal years 2007 through 2012, to about $1.1 billion. Read More
GAO: Costs Double for Aegis Ashore
An artist’s conception of an Aegis Ashore battery. Lockheed-Martin Photo
The estimated cost of a for series of ballistic missile defense batteries in Eastern Europe and Hawaii have doubled, according to an April report from the Government Accountability Office. Read More
GAO: LCS Package Cost Likely to Increase
scientists and engineers recover a deployed Remote Minehunting System (RMS) during developmental testing of the Littoral Combat Ship’s mine warfare mission module package on Jan. 7, 2012. US Navy Photo
The way the U.S. Navy is buying the mission modules planned for the Littoral Combat Ship could lead to cost increases, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Thursday. Read More
Reports: US Starts Pulling Gear Out of Afghanistan
A Pakistani policeman guards a road used by NATO trucks Monday. The U.S. will use the road to start pulling military equipment out of Afghanistan. Associated Press Photo
The massive material withdrawal from Afghanistan began Monday when almost 50 containers of weapons and equipment began leaving via Pakistani supply routes, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
The departure began the day after U.S. Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford took charge of the NATO forces in the region from USMC General John Allen.
