Orphaned Ship Looks for Sugar Daddy

What happens when the military builds an innovative new ship that is built within budget and on schedule? Nothing, and that's the problem. The Pentagon's now-shuttered Office of Force Transformation paid M Ship in San Diego to build the Batman-esque craft, called Stiletto, as an experiment in all-carbon shipbuilding. The stealthy, fast ship seemed a natural for special operations, and possibly as an alternative to the very troubled Littoral Combat Ship, the Navy's new shallow-water ship.

Everyone seems to like the 89-ft., 60-ton Stiletto. But thanks to the Pentagon's archaic weapons-buying system, no one has the money to pay for it. So M Ship is following a time-honored tradition of looking for friends in Congress, as Roxana Tiron of The Hill reports:

*Several months ago, M Ship Co. hired Duane Morris Government Affairs to raise its profile on Capitol Hill. The goal for this year is to secure $1.5 million in research and development funds in the defense authorization and appropriations bills to study the use of the M-hull design for a littoral combat-type scenario. That money would go towards designing a ship in less than a year. Ultimately, the company’s goal is to have a steady funding line starting in fiscal 2009, company executive director and co-founder Bill Burns said. *

The current Stiletto platform could be doubled or tripled and can be used as an actual Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) or for a variety of ships complementing the Navy’s prized LCS.

Given the troubled state of the Pentagon's other ship programs, Congress may well be agreeable to support a company that claims to have innovative (and affordable) technology.