The Navy put off indefinitely Thursday the choice of a winning design in an all-new $30 billion advanced destroyer program pending developments in sweeping Defense Department reviews. Competing for design and full-service contractor awards for the ship, known as DD 21, are teams led by General Dynamics Corp.'s Bath Iron Works unit and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ingalls Shipbuilding subsidiary. The Navy has been planning to buy 32 of the ships over 35 years at a combined cost of about $30 billion, or $750 million per unit after the fourth ship. Highly modular in design, the electric-powered DD 21 would be equipped to attack foes hundreds of miles inland as well as fight at sea.
