Need cost-effective plan for CHAMP

WASHINGTON – The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has directed the Pentagon to come up with a cost-effective plan than the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform (CHAMP), a ship the Navy had planned to use as part of a sealift recapitalization program. Navy had been planning to develop and field two variants of CHAMP, one for sealift purposes and one for auxiliary ship missions such as submarine tender, hospital ships and command and control platforms. But the White House has balked at a $1.3B cost estimate for a sub tender variant for 2024. The sealift fleet is either rapidly becoming obsolete or is nearing its useful service life. The bulk of the Navy’s reserve force ships will be nearing 50 years old by the end of the 2020s. (Source: Defense News 12/24/19) GULF COAST NOTE: Naval Sea Systems Command awarded four shipyards contracts worth almost $2.9M each to carry out design studies for the proposed CHAMP platform. The four yards were Bollinger Shipyards of Louisiana, General Dynamics NASSCO, Philadelphia Shipyard, and VT Halter Marine of Pascagoula, Miss. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/12/24/white-house-poised-to-blow-up-us-navys-plans-to-recapitalize-its-aging-sealift-ships/