FACTBOX: Pentagon weapon plan's winners and losers

Mon Apr 6, 2009 10:30pm BST
 
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on Monday a proposed 2010 budget for the Pentagon that makes changes to a broad swath of big-ticket weapon programs. If adopted by the White House and Congress his recommendations would:

-- Scrap a new presidential helicopter designed and built by Lockheed Martin Corp and its European partner AgustaWestland, a unit of Italy's Finmeccanica SpA. Gates said the program had nearly doubled in cost to over $13 billion and was six years behind schedule.

-- Restructure the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) modernization program run by Boeing Co and Science Applications International Corp, a program valued at $160 billion, scrapping a ground vehicle program valued at $87 billion.

-- Move work on three DDG-1000 destroyers to the General Dynamics Corp shipyard, while building more earlier-version DDG-51 destroyers at the Northrop Grumman Corp shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

-- Scrap plans for now for a new cruiser warship, which was initially planned to be based on the DDG-1000 design.

-- Cancel plans to build a new long-range bomber by 2018, a $10-billion-plus program for which Lockheed and Boeing had teamed up to compete against Northrop.

-- Cut $10 billion in annual funding for missile defense programs by $1.4 billion. The Pentagon would cancel work on a second airborne laser being developed by Boeing and not fund additional interceptor purchases. But it would add funding for more regional missile defense projects run by Lockheed and Raytheon Co.

-- Buy four more F-22 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin for a total of 187, but far less than the 60 additional fighters requested by the Air Force, while accelerating funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, also built by Lockheed, to $11.2 billion in fiscal 2010.

-- Buy 31 more F/A-18 fighter jets built by Boeing in fiscal 2010 to cover an expected Navy aviation gap until the Navy begins receiving larger numbers of F-35 fighters.  Continued...

 

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