Back in October 2006, “Dutch Looking to Field 20 CH-47F Chinooks for $652M” covered a mixed new-build and upgrade order to expand their Chinook heavy-lift helicopter fleet. Recent Boeing and MvD releases and Dutch news reports, however, have referred to only 6 new-build CH-47Fs and associated spares and support. Cost? EUR 389.5 million (currently about $509 million).
Why the discrepancy? What’s going on? And how do these aircraft differ from the CH-47Fs the USA is ordering? DID has explanations, with help from Dutch Parliamentary documents and translation/ background provided by our readers…
Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors in Moorestown, NJ won a $5.6 million firm-fixed-price modification under previously awarded contract (N00024-06-G-5107), exercising an option for FY 2007 Cruiser Modernization Hardware. This delivery order includes procurement of the 2nd and 3rd Cruiser Modernization shipsets of AEGIS Conversion Equipment Group Cabinets, Advanced Displays, and peripheral equipment, to be installed on the Ticonderoga Class cruisersUSS Mobile Bay [CG 53] and USS Philippine Sea [CG 58] in 2009. Work will be performed in Moorestown, NJ (75%) and Ferrol, Spain (25%), and is expected to be complete by September 2009. The Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, DC issued the contract.
With the DDG-1000 destroyer program running at $2-3 billion per ship and the CG (X) future cruiser program in question before it has even begun due to the implicit price tag and competing priorities, the USA’s Cruiser Modernization program is critical to the maintenance of U.S. Navy force structure.
