Costing the CVN-21: A DID Primer

CVN-21 Concept(click for alternate view) Super-carriers may be cheaper than building the same amount of aircraft and mission capacity via smaller carriers, but they aren’t cheap. Just how expensive, however, has recently become an item of some debate. Speciality publications like GovExec.com, and mainstream media papers as well, have put forward figures of $13.7-14 billion for the CVN-21 Class. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter [R-CA] has been quoted giving similar figures. In the wake of DID’s anchor article covering the new carriers, Pat Dolan of NAVSEA got in touch with DID to protest those figures. She made a solid case, some minor changes were made, and DID began asking a slew of detailed questions. After all, the US Navy’s own on-line Fact File pegs the cost of a Nimitz Class carrier at $4.5 billion, but Navy representatives claim a cost of $8.1 billion per ship for the CVN-21 Class – and note that this is cheaper than building a new Nimitz Class ship! NAVSEA also claims up to $5 billion of savings over the ship’s lifetime vs. a Nimitz carrier. How does this math square, and how specifically do the innovations in the CVN-21 Class rack up $5 […]