Haze Grey and Underway- Almost
U.S. Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) underway in the Atlantic Ocean
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the largest warship ever constructed in terms of displacement, is also twenty-seven percent over its original budget and years behind schedule.
USS Ford is the lead ship of a new and more advanced class of aircraft carrier, is intended replace the aging Nimitz class aircraft carriers, and to boost the Navy’s striking power. But it took hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns and years of schedule slip to address problems incorporating new technology.
David sends.
America’s Newest Carrier Is a Fiasco. The Navy Just Admitted Why.
Kyle Mizokami
The Chief of Naval Operations, Mike Gilday, says the U.S. Navy built the aircraft carrier USS Ford with too many new technologies.
Now, the Ford is several years behind in its life cycle because of problems with many of those new technologies.
The last of the Ford’s four advanced weapon elevators, the most glaring example of the ship’s tech gone wrong, should enter service later this year.
The head of the U.S. Navy admits the service added too much untested tech to its latest and greatest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford.
When the Navy first built the Ford, it incorporated nearly two dozen new technologies, some of which are still giving the service headaches 4 years after the ship entered the fleet.
In a presentation recorded for August’s Sea Air Space exposition, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said adding 23 new features to the Ford was a “mistake” the Navy can’t afford to repeat. Gilday said he needs to take “a much more deliberate approach with respect to introducing new technologies to any platform”—preferably one that only introduces up to two technologies per ship and thoroughly tests them on land first.
This is the result of several unforced errors on Big Navy’s part, to include requirements creep and a schedule driven test program, instead adhering to an event driven one.
Just because the contractor delivered a widget or software per contract date doesn’t mean it will actually perform per requirements. The sad part is Navy has done this before on several major programs, with similar overruns and delivery delays.
USS Ford’s first deployment is now slated for next year.
Thanks, David.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Guest Link, Navy
The Iwo Jima class LPH’s were supposed to be 100 feet longer with 2 screws but due to the McNamara budget cuts, the were built 100 feet shorter with 1 screw. They were only good for taking the Marines in behind the lines in helicopters which was at the time called vertical envelopment.
At least the damn thing floats. If it was USS Chevy, it would still be at the pier…acting queer…and even under way, would be so gay. (giggle snort)
Gotta wonder if all of this new tech added on and severe cost overruns has anything at all to do with all of the highers going from uniformed service to grubermint contractors/procurement ossifers? Maybe a little more input from the enlisted pukes that actually have to make the equipment work would help? Stick with what you know and has worked for the last 100 years. Jimmy Doolittle weeps.
My guess would be Admirals, Captains, and Congressmen. All trying to add the “latest gizmo”. You really wouldn’t believe the stupidity at the upper echelon’s.
I think Jimmy Doolittle would have loved this and used it to advocate for a larger Air Force and Space Force. I bet he would be a Guardian if he were alive (that’s what USSF troops are called, if you didn’t know).
I think Jimmy Doolittle would’ve preferred something that was actually functional.
He would certainly be looking for ways to make it work, or, failing that, busting his ass to develop a working replacement. Of course, his time was a time when aircraft were intended to excel in their specialized role. The current “Swiss Army plane” paradigm would’ve likely prompted him to question the depths of modern stupidity.
A modern classic!
“Jesus, Buckman! This stuff’s been on the Stingray since Korea! This can expired in 1966!”
“It still tastes like cream corn…”
“Except it’s DEVILED HAM!!!”
“Uh, *that* could be a problem…”
This is reason why I hate when Democrats talking about all these millions of “new high paying jobs” in “Green Technology” that are going replace the current high paying jobs in the current Energy Sector. The shit they’re talking about is still on the drawing board and decades away from practicality if they are practical at all. Bureaucrats that have never created a damn thing and live of the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit of others are loathsome.
It’s in the lala land of the unicorn poop green energy sector and relies on gubmint subsidies the way that the windmills that don’t work when the temp goes below freezing.
I’m watching all the young people wearing masks now and wondering where the American spirit is in these kids. They have swallowed a huge line of bull shit hook line and sinker.
I dunno guys, these kids have no idea how to think on their own.
Bet it will have a full compliment of CRT manuals/books in the ships library though. For only a fraction of the price of the new launch system!
See, CRT is paying dividends already. /s
BUT has the Crew completed their CRT, EEO, LGBT and SHARP training? That’s why today’s top echelon deems important!
You would have thought the Navy learned its lesson with untested systems with the MK14 torpedo of WW2 infamy. The Bureau of Ordnance designed the MK14 to be the most sophisticated undersea weapon in the world. Every component was checked to insure it would function as designed. However, they never tested a live torpedo prior to WW2. As a result, our submarines spent the first two years of the war shooting the world’s most expensive duds. When confronted with multiple complaints from sub commanders the Bureau of Ordnance reacted as any entrenched bureaucracy, they circled the wagons and insisted there was nothing wrong with the MK14. Only after the sub crews tried field expedient fixes and CNO, Admiral Ernest J. King, “lit a blowtorch under the Bureau of Ordnance” did things improve. We need a “King” to kick ass, take heads, and crush careers over this fiasco. Don’t see that happening in our modern military.
The only Mk14 that ever exceeded expectations:
https://youtu.be/GpEcU0OEzhc
In 1941, a single Mk14 cost the Navy (and the taxpayers) $20,000. The truck would be about a grand, brand-new, if that.
They did fire two torpedoes to test the theory that the fish were fine.
One exploded, the other one didn’t. So at that test it was a 50% failure rate.
Most of the problems were with the magnetic trigger, exploder in layman’s terms. But, the other contact firing pin were breaking in most angled contacts which turned a $20,000 fish into so much junk metal.
The new and more accurate movie “Midway” shows one torpedo hitting the side of a Japanese battlewagon and breaking in half.
In 1943 they finally got it right and from then on to the rest of the war our torpedoes functioned as they should and began to sink the entire Japanese Navy and their Maru class supply ships with a vengance.
Those guys in the Submarines had the worst job in the war at the outset. The fish fired by the subs would leave a vapor trail in the water so the Japanese destroyers knew where the submarines were.
The only good thing about that fact is that Japanese depth charges triggered at either 50 or 100 feet. The maximum depth for a Gato Class Sub was 200′, but no doubt I am certain that many went further down to escape depth charges and actually came back up on their own volition.
The Gato Class subs are around the country and many serve as a museum ship in places like the USS Cobia does at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc Wisconsin.
Cool place too !!!
If you’re up there take a spin by and see how difficult it would be in that little steel tube to even exist let alone fight a up close and personal war.
Can they please stop naming warships after politicians? I know, Ford was President and a Navy vet, but who cares? Had he not been picked as Tricky Dick’s veep, nobody would know who the hell he was. Even having been Tricky Dick’s veep/successor, most people still don’t know who the hell he was.
The US Navy could do with a few less Gerald Fords, Harry Trumans, and John C. Stennises and a few more Yorktowns, Hornets, Enterprises, and Lexingtons. Yeah, I know, some of those names are currently held by LHDs and cruisers. That’s bullshit. They are carrier names and should have only been applied to carriers.
Be careful what you ask for TOW. I rather have a carrier named after a president, well, at least most presidents, than named after a social justice icon. So how does the USS George Floyd float your boat?
You mean like the USNS Harvey Milk?
Ugh…
Rumor is the planned aircraft carrier USS John Kerry will be rechargeable because climate change. Right now they’re trying to get Tesla to put charging stations along coasts here and overseas.
Will its Home Port be in RI where John “Lurch” Kerry registers and docks his lavish yacht to avoid paying MA luxury taxes on it?
To be precise, he was the replacement VP- our first unelected VP and President…
You couldn’t pay ol’ Poe enough to serve on one of our big carriers in this time when our major enemies possess the ability to fire ship-killer missiles in swarms that are capable of overwhelming all available missile defenses.
And it really only takes one or two getting through and America’s pride and joy carriers are out of the fight.
Ol’ Poe thinks our Navy would be far better off building large quantities of smaller carriers, that can serve as birds’ nests for F-35’s with their vertical takeoff capabilities, and widely dispersing these ships, keeping them in a constant rotation in and out of areas where their strike capabilities give our enemies pause for thought.
Read some of Capt. David Poyer’s novels about naval warfare in the 21st Century. They are eye openers about how vulnerable, even with all their high-tech defensive systems, our biggest ships really are to modern technology.
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/david-c-poyer/
http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html links to “Superiority” by Arthur C. Clarke. Should be required reading for every officer, procurement person, and weapons R&D researcher. Probably one of the best summaries of out-of-control R&D ever written.
When the decision makers suffer no consequences the decisions are meaningless in real terms.
The people behind this process won’t lose their careers, won’t lose pay, and the Navy doesn’t go out of business for producing shit that goes over cost.
A lot of our competitors here in the private sector no longer exist today. Their decision makers suffered the consequences of cost over runs and lavish spending.
Government is unaccountable to anyone at this point. The people of this nation have become its subjects not its owners.
Shit like this simply confirms the reality of that situation.
There is no group in American society so insulated from any consequences for their actions like our bureaucratic class, the deep state.
A few years ago there was a case where two VA employees got caught stealing $400,000 in “moving expenses”. They didn’t go to jail, they didn’t lose their jobs and ultimately they weren’t even demoted. You tell me where else something like that could happen and the perpetrators just keep their jobs (both were pretty high up in the GS system) and go on with life like nothing happened. “Contractors” may not be able to abuse the system with such impunity, but anyone who understands the concept of an “iron triangle” will know that many of them are retired bureaucrats or politicians, at least those who know best how to game the system.
Nine out of the 20 wealthiest counties in the U.S. are in the D.C. suburbs, that’s not because of all the wealth they create for the rest of the country (they all vote overwhelmingly Democrat as well).
“USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the largest warship ever constructed in terms of displacement, is also twenty-seven percent over its original budget and years behind schedule.”
And my fucking DTS voucher gets kicked back because I forgot to attach an $8.00 parking receipt.
Leftist lips sink ships.
This will be long, but stick with me. This is about how over-regulation and acquisition law has crippled our ability to innovate at the pace of modern warfare. We need to stop building Death Stars. http://www.thedanward.com/resources/Build+Droids+Not+Death+Stars.pdf This debate centers around Capability Development- basically we develop a concept of how we will fight in the future, identify the capabilities we will require to fight that way, then acquire those capabilities. A capability isn’t a thing or piece of kit necessarily. We look at it in terms of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities, and Policy (DOTMLPF-P). As an example the Marines are changing their infantry squads- sure, they will have some Gucci kit, but the real innovation is in the Organization (more people), Leadership (Staff Sergeant Squad Leaders), and even Doctrine/Training (they are getting away from COIN and back to the old days of fighting a near peer). This is part of their new Warfighting Concept, which drove changes to DOTMLPF-P, Notice they got rid of all their tanks… The Army is doing the same kinds of things with MDO, the Air and Space Force are as well. Even the Navy. Everyone is doing the same thing. Everyone is wrong to some extent. No one can guess the future, and unlike in WWII we aren’t a sleeping giant- everyone is watching us and adapting to our changes. So, if we take years to build a super carrier, our adversaries have years to figure out how to defeat them (more on that later, but one way is to simply not fight them). The thing is, while we have an incredibly Byzantine acquisition system that literally requires an act of Congress to approve a new procurement program, our adversaries are totalitarian governments that can simply direct change on a dime AND redirect their entire economy (which includes essentially slave labor) to build it. In the end, we spend years conceiving of, designing, approving, and building a multi-billion dollar carrier, stuff it with sailors and multi-million dollar aircraft, and send it to the South China Sea or Persian Gulf where it will be… Read more »
“Of course, whatever we do, the adversary is watching and will adapt…”
Right now our adversaries are watching the Commander in Chief of all our forces.
And giggling uncontrollably…