Page 31: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 1985)

eight AN/BLD-1 microwave inter- cept receivers. Navy had not planned to buy these units until FY 1988. The Senate added $13 million for communications equipment and civil engineering support equipment for the 9th battalion. Navy had not requested this funding. An addi- tional $35 million was authorized the House to purchase 150,000 low- cost sonobuoys and $12 million was added for seashed procurement. ships. Yard top management has changed several times since the pro- gram began.

MSC Solicits Bids

To Operate Two Range

Instrumentation Ships

The Military Sealift Command has issued a request for proposal to operate the instrumentation ships

Observation Island and Redstone for three years. This solicitation is part of a cost comparison study (called an A-76 study) being made under guidelines specified by the

Office of Management and Budget.

Prices obtained from prospective contractors will be compared to gov- ernment operation costs. If found more cost-effective the ships will be switched to contract operation.

Interested firms should contact

Frances Gapp at (301) 427-5694. (continued on page 32)

Research and Development

DOD proposed an $11.3 billion budget for research, development, test and evaluation programs. Con- gress authorized $10.1 billion for these programs. A comparison of the budget request and Congres- sional action is shown in Exhibit 4.

Congress refused to authorize the full budget request in 76 RDT&E programs. It added or increased spending authorization for 14 pro- grams.

Several Navy missile programs cut by the House were partially reinstated by the conferees. The

House had refused to authorize de- velopment of the advanced surface- to-air missile (ASAM), the rolling airframe missile (RAM) and the ad- vanced medium range air-to-air missile (AMRAMM). Each of these programs was authorized by confer- ence agreement, but at a lower fig- ure than requested by DOD. 2. PROGRAM

DEVELOPMENTS

Detail design work has begun on

DDG 51, the first T-5 tanker was delivered, and MSC has issued an

RFP for contract operation of range instrumentation ships.

DDG 51 Engineering Work

Begins At Bath

Bath received a $322 million con- tract on 2 April to build the lead

Aegis destroyer. Fabrication is to begin in May 1987. Delivery is scheduled in September 1989. Con- tract milestones for the DDG 51 are shown in Exhibit 5.

First T-5 Tanker Delivered

Tampa delivered Paul Buck, first of five T-5 tankers to Ocean Prod- uct Tankers (who has a charter with

MSC) in early April. The remaining four ships are due for delivery over the next ten months:

Darnell 15 August 1985

Cobb 11 November 1985

Mathieson 10 February 1986

Gianella 12 May 1986

Extensive subcontracting was em- ployed to build the ships and major start-up problems were encoun- tered. Avondale built the bow and midbody sections. Alabama Dry- dock built the deckhouses. Stern modules were built at a Florida facility owned by Westinghouse.

Bond restrictions prevented Tampa from using its existing graving dock for new construction. Tampa is un- derstood to have invested $25 mil- lion in new facilities to assemble the

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