“Even in a downturn there will still be pockets of winners,’’ said Todd Harrison, senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. “A lot of the winners in recent years have been ground systems and lower-end systems needed for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We are shifting away from those kinds of wars and focusing more on other regions of the world where we will rely on substantially different weapons systems.’’
The shift in strategy was first detailed earlier this month in a 16-page document designed to guide defense expenditures for years to come. Its effect can be seen in a company such as General Dynamics. One program believed to be on the chopping block is the Littoral Combat Ship, a coastal patrol vessel that has ballooned in cost and had design problems. Last year, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, a key subcontractor, added at least 100 high-tech jobs at its Pittsfield plant to work on the vessels, which are each estimated to cost $500 million.
Those jobs have been seen as imperiled. But some analysts now predict that as a result of the new focus on the Asia-Pacific region, the Navy will increase its production of larger warships, such as destroyers built by General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine. Each destroyer costs several billion dollars and its construction relies on hundreds of smaller suppliers across New England.
Meanwhile, the company’s Electric Boat Division in Groton, Conn., could also receive more work to upgrade the nation’s submarine fleet, several analysts predicted.
“General Dynamics is going to look better than some of their competitors due to the role of shipbuilding in their business base,’’ said Loren Thompson, chief executive of Source Associates, a defense consulting firm in Arlington, Va.
