DATE: Saturday, October 18, 1997            TAG: 9710180556

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   72 lines

LACKING SUPPORT IN CONGRESS, NAVY MAY SINK ``ARSENAL SHIP'' PLAN

Listing badly from lack of congressional support, the Navy's ``arsenal ship'' apparently will be abandoned by the service next week, a knowledgable defense official said Friday.

Though he stressed that no final decision has been made, the official cast Navy leaders as virtually certain to end efforts to develop the ship, envisioned by former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda as a platform for hundreds of anti-aircraft and land attack missiles.

Boorda, who originally proposed a fleet of six arsenal ships, said each would carry up to 500 missile tubes and enough spares for one or two reloadings. The ships were to be manned by fewer than 50 sailors, however, with its missile firings controlled by other ships, airplanes and even Marines ashore.

The ship also was to be developed in an innovative way, with the Navy spelling out broad requirements for its capabilities but letting contractors work without the complicated military specifications that have lengthened development times for other ship classes. The Navy hoped to put the first arsenal ship to sea shortly after the turn of the century, roughly five years after hatching the idea; new ships typically take up to a decade to develop.

The service has been struggling to save Boorda's idea since shortly after his death 17 months ago. Critics said the arsenal ship would have been a fat target for potential U.S. adversaries and that its mission could be effectively executed by other aircraft, particularly Air Force bombers, already in the Pentagon's inventory.

Supporters saw the ship as pointing the way toward a new era of importance for the surface Navy, which saw its mission to the fleet dwindle with the ascent of aircraft carriers during World War II. Missiles and long range guns the Navy planned to experiment with on the ship were to reach targets hundreds of miles inland, well beyond the range of the service's now-retired battleships.

Congress last month trimmed the Navy's request for $85 million in 1998 to continue development of the arsenal ship concept to just $35 million. The defense official said that while the program continues to have the support of Navy leaders, the lack of congressional backing forced the Navy to reassess whether it could sustain the ship within an essentially frozen budget.

The official said that Navy leaders are continuing to search for additional funds in the service's budget, and for more support from Pentagon officials, for another critical ship program, the last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

Newport News Shipbuilding, which will construct that ship, hoped to secure a $345 million down payment in 1998 to begin preliminary work. The yard said that investment - actual construction of the ship is not slated to begin until 2002 - would save the Navy up to $600 million on the final cost of the carrier. The big flattops typically cost close to $5 billion.

Congress provided just $50 million for Newport News' ``smart buy'' initiative, however, prompting Navy leaders to launch a review of their budget for programs that might be cut or delayed to generate more funds.

It was unclear Friday whether the service hopes to shift some of the arsenal ship money to the carrier. The official suggested that the $35 million appropriated for the arsenal ship this year probably would be dispersed through a variety of programs by the Pentagon.

With the program clearly in trouble, Navy officials moved early this year to rename the ship the ``Maritime Fire Support Demonstrator'' and to say they would build only one. The ship was to serve as a testing ground for technologies the service hopes to employ on a next-generation destroyer that will begin to join the fleet around 2008.

The Navy official said Friday that the service still hopes to put those technologies aboard the new destroyer but will have to do so without the benefit of experience gained aboard the demonstrator. ILLUSTRATION: Photo COURTESY OF U.S. NAVY

Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda envisioned the

arsenal ship as a platform for hundreds of anti-aircraft and land

attack missiles. He proposed a fleet of six, each carrying up to 500

missile tubes and enough spares for one or two reloadings.

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