General Dynamics protests DD(X) deal

General Dynamics Corp. has filed a protest with the General Accounting Office over the awarding of the Navy's DD(X) contract to a team led by Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co.

The Northrop-Raytheon team, known as the Gold Team, won the four-year, $2.9 billion contract April 29 to develop the Navy's next generation surface combat ships. General Dynamics, known as the Blue Team, is claiming the Navy showed favoritism to the Northrop-Raytheon team.

When the Navy awarded the contract to the Northrop-Raytheon team, it cited use of a Spruance-class DD 963 hull as a test bed as one of the reasons the Gold Team won. Yet, when the Blue Team requested a DD 963 hull, the Navy said no, according to General Dynamics.

The company also is claiming that "firewalls" failed to screen information about a radar system developed by Raytheon under a separate contract. Because that information was not properly screened, the Northrop-Raytheon team had an unfair advantage, General Dynamics said.

The Navy also counted ship performance features in two different parts of the evaluation, when the features were only supposed to be counted once, General Dynamics said.

"We are very concerned about the fundamental fairness of the award decision in light of the clearly flawed process," said Allan Cameron, president of Bath Iron Works, the General Dynamics unit leading the Blue Team.

General Dynamics' other teammates include Lockheed Martin Corp., United Defense Industries, Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems and L-3 Corp.