Stars and Stripes:
The Navy is asking Congress for more than $5 billion next fiscal year to build three more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, according to a Congressional Research Service report published Tuesday.
Building the warships would bring the number of guided-missile destroyers the Navy has procured to 85, according to the report. The latest version, or Flight III, incorporates a new air and missile defense radar system that requires further changes to the destroyer design.
Two shipbuilders — General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi — are capable of the job if Congress approves the estimated $1.8 billion for each vessel.
