Military platform development and production is almost impossible. I often wondered how we accomplished anything. We could not possibly run a normal business in the civilian world with the challenges faced by a defense contractor.
During the EMD phase (Engineering and Manufacturing and Development), a period when the contractor is taking the most risk and making the largest unsecured contribution to the effort, funding is allocated incrementally, and the contractor can only plan one or two years out with any remote sense of funding certainty. Often programs never mature from EMD, or they go much slower than originally planned. Because Moore's law applies to tanks, plane and submarines as surely as it applies to your desktop computer, the original capability requirements mat change dramatically during EMD resulting in significant scope change and contract renegotiation against an uncertain funding stream.
If the program moves to low rate initial production (LRIP), then the funding stream becomes a little more secure and certain, usually with a 2 to 3 year predictability glide path. But a new political wind can change that suddenly as the Army discovered when Rumsfeld killed the Crusader artillery program, Hagel killed the Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV), and Hegseth killed the M10 Booker - all of which were about to or already had entered LRIP.
LRIP is also the time when customer new ideas that most affect scope start to impact program progress. Enough time will have passed so that tech capabilities, or joint requirements, or the threat, or even our own doctrine will have changed.
Full rate production, should a program ever reach that stage, is much more predictable, and a company will likely be working against a 5-7 year production contract. There too congress or DOD can step in and reduce annual program spending, inevitably adding to unit production costs.
The B2 bomber is an excellent example. A fleet of 132 were originally planned with production capability scaled to that requirement. George H.W. Bush reduced the requirement to 75 aircraft and Clinton further cut the program to 21. Instead of costs being spread across more than a hundred aircraft, those costs were absorbed by only 21 platforms.
Ships are extremely challenging because they are essentially one-offs. Yes, a particular vessel is representative of a class, but as
@Altitude sickness points out, technology and requirement changes affect construction constantly (as of course does funding). For instance, the Gerald Ford - our newest carrier - began construction in 2005 and was commissioned in 2017. A lot happens in 12 years.
In contrast, during WWII the Essex class carrier was the primary fleet carrier. During the war, the Navy took delivery of 17. Obviously, maintaining and launching jet aircraft in the world's current contested battlespace is a far greater challenge, but our development and production system is clearly in need of overhaul.
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