RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,190905,00.html

Why not " Navy pressured to fix lawmakers" it's another case of the wrong people are trying to tell people who know what they are doing how to fix something that ain't broken. If it's a case of more money let the banks bailout the ship builders and Retrofit and recommission some of our ships sitting in bone yards

American shipbuilding has been an inefficient, costly, wasteful, and corrupt business since the early 1800's. Politicians are the main cause of this sorid history. The only difference now and then is that today's "lawmakers" are trying to spread a smaller money pie to all their contributors so they can't be as wasteful as they were before.

quote:

Originally posted by pegleggary:
RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,190905,00.html

Why not " Navy pressured to fix lawmakers" it's another case of the wrong people are trying to tell people who know what they are doing how to fix something that ain't broken. If it's a case of more money let the banks bailout the ship builders and Retrofit and recommission some of our ships sitting in bone yards

Ummm...

The navy ship building program is a mess - for example, the LCS costs doubled (maybe more) during construction (over original estimates). The costs were so out of control that even the navy cancelled half of the original LCS's that were supposed to be built (some believe they might've been better off to buy more FSF-1/SWATH designs instead, as they are considerably less expensive). Note that Senator McCain used LCS cost overruns as an example of waste in his presidential compaign.

Another example concerns the original costs of the DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers vs. the ~$3 Billion each (+) they are now (note: the lifecycle costs are also estimated to exceed over $1B more than was originally specified as well). The original plan was to build 32, then it went down to 24, then 7, and now 3 are all that will be built - primarily because of costs being out of control. One of the additional problems the ship has is that the Navy says that the Zumwalts will lack SM-3 capability, yet part of the reason for creating this ship is because it was considered essential to anti-ballistic missile defense (go figure!!). Now the ship is so expensive (on top of it all), it is suspected by many that the willingness to use it for it for it was originally designed for (land attack) will be reduced because of the reluctance to send such an expensive asset into the littorals.

In short - the costs (etc) are so out of control that it has been decided to build more Burke-class ships instead (an excellent, but far less stealthy/older design).

And there is the nightmare known as the San Antonio class (LPD-17). While an impressive (overall) design, it is way over cost estimates, extremely late, and legendary for the number of serious problems that turned the project into a SNAFU of notable repute. Ironing out the problems has been a long and arduous task. I'm not suggesting that it won't be a great piece of hardware when it finally gets the problems ironed out - its just that this ship class has had serious problems in a far larger number of respects than it should have.

The navy's penchant to not complete the design, yet begin building, effects the ship building process very badly. The contractors then process engineering change orders while the ship is being built, either due to discovered flaws or because of new features/toys/etc that the navy decides they want stuffed in afterwards, is killing the ability of the navy to meet its committments (the contractors also hold part of he blame because of the way they bid, etc. - but that is another story).

This isn't to say that congress isn't without its problems - it's got plenty. But it is clear that the navy (and the coast guard's deepwater) ship building programs have major issues (acquisition, specification, designs, process & cost controls, etc.) that must be addressed.

Hope this helps...

Cheers.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PolicyWonk,

Ike Skelton (D-Miss.), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) New SecNav, Ray Mabus (D-Miss.)ex-governer from Miss.

Anybody see a pattern here ?

I await the dictate from the WH to have sails added to the future design of war ships so that they are enviromentally friendly!
At the rate Congress is blowing through money we have borrowed ($.50 of ever dollar spent)we may be forced to put the USS Constitution back to sea!

First, the Navy and the degreed, but obviously exceedingly IGNORANT 'powers-that-be' were super STUPID, far beyond comprehension, to decomm and SINK the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3), and other such still very viable, flexible-platformed ships. How much raw, WASTED MONEY and materials went to the bottom of the Pacific off Hawaii in the pea-brained 2005 'SinkEx' which ended the unnecessarily-shortened 27-year life of USS Belleau Wood? How can some ungrateful FISH and a hypothetical artificial 'REEF' usurp the awesome, valuable multiple task capabilities of what was a very capable, well-designed, and yes, EXPENSIVE multipurpose ship? It's no wonder the Navy/DoD and the government is in major 'rough water' for its very dismal performance and the problematic, perpetual, massive cost-overrunning ship construction programs it is nearly drowning with to this day. The LCS ship boondoggle, the very idiotic, purely wasteful scuttling of the USS Belleau Wood, which stubbornly REFUSED to die and sink, even after numerous direct heavy artillery and bomb hits to its 40,000-ton massive hull; what has happened to our Navy, our military, our leadership going into the future? I get nasty headaches just thinking about the inexcusable, profligate abundance of outright WASTE, of the LOSS of plain old COMMON SENSE that has increasingly become the ORDER and RULE of the day! USS Belleau Wood was the PERFECT SOLUTION to assisting neglected, needy hurricane Katrina victims...humanitarian and military missions all over the globe were well within versatile Belleau Wood's well-designed capability, reach and scope. Yet, boneheaded, overpaid and, in my honest and humble opinion, very IRRESPONSIBLE 'higher-ups' consigned a great ship to its totally unnecessary early watery grave, despite its having another solid 20-odd years of useful life or more to offer and continue to serve the United States of America and its people. The government and America got ZIP--ZERO RETURN--on the people's considerable investment of their money in the USS Belleau Wood. What a terrible shame! We ALL lost out when this exercise in grossly wanton WASTE of valuable resources and blatant fiscal recklessness occurred. There are many truly OLD, very outdated barges, service ships and other auxiliaries that could have and SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUNK in that 2005 SinkEx off Hawaii, instead of USS Belleau Wood(LHA-3). Yet Washington, D.C. continues to willingly and blindly blunder and ignore the reality of the folly and the very high cost of so many of its decisions, to the ultimate detriment of our nation and its fine people. Where is even the most basic ACCOUNTABILITY? The continued official silence is deafening... - LHA-3 Rusty

Electric Boat seems to get it done. Perhaps the skimmers could follow the silent service's lead.

Submarines have been rolling out ahead of schedule and on budget for years. We pass our INSURVs too.

I shudder to think of how much the next CVN is really going to cost.

In order to fix the procurement mess it must be attacked at many levels.

• End users must be consulted and their laundry list of needs must be met without a whole lot of add ons or nice to haves.
• Once a design is settled on, it must be set in stone without a bunch of changes made during construction without proof that added capability far outweighs additional costs.
• Once a contract is signed, both sides, builder and Navy must be held to the terms or suffer severe penalties.
• All manufacturing and sub contract work must be awarded based on legitimate business concerns (cost, quality, transportation, etc...) not politics (how many Congressional Districts can be included).
• All designs must be geared to provide the most capability at the least cost which means they need to be multi purpose, highly adaptable platforms that can be built in quantity and manned by reduced crews.

Lets tell the entire story Bleah, Electric Boat builds 1/2 of the submarine, Northrop Grumman builds the other 1/2. So EB's success is a joint effort. Oh, and while Northrop is building that 1/2 submarine, at the same time were building an Aircraft Carrier, overhauling another CVN and designing a new class of CVN, known now as the Ford class. Lets see EB put all of that in their dry docks.

That changes what I said how exactly?

You wouldn't happen to work for a certain defense contractor, wouldja?

Given Northrop Grumman's performance on other projects, I stand by what I said about EB.

I’m curious to know what half of the 726 class that Northrop Grumman built. Please tell.

The abuses in contracting, procurement and so on was met with fury in the 80's. Lehman was a clear leader in reform, with proven results. We can not forget Mr. H. T Johnson as well. Many of the policies, and successes of Lehman and others were abandoned, in favor of the current way things are done. After the 80's, the politicians, entrenched bureaucracies, contractors and so on, couldn't wait to go back to their abusive ways. FFP, FPI, and competition were gone, in favor of Cost plus fee contracting, and sole sourcing.

Clinton, Bush and others allowed this reversion in policy to continue. They welcomed back cost plus fee, no ceiling contracting back with open arms. Cheney, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr and their administrations are to blame. The blame also goes to many politicians and especially the entrenched bureaucracy within the DOD.

Policy mentioned LPD-17. 5,000 discrepancies were found after the ship had been accepted. Once the ship is accepted, the contractor bears no responsibility, with the exception of equipment warranties, and other warranties that may have been within the said contract. That being said, the ship gets accepted with all those discrepancies which, need to be fixed. The Navy (and the taxpayer) then has to bear the cost of fixing those discrepancies, as well as entering into new contractual agreements. Much of which is through the same contractor.

The number of ships is ever dwindling. The last 18 years has been full of waste, abuse, proposals that only would sweep the inherent problems under the rug, and broken promises of reform and accountability. Deferment of maintenance in order to meet underway obligations is unacceptable and dangerous.