Navy shipbuilding woes
Let’s pick on the Navy. Barely able to squeak out enough crew to man/person/whatever the total ships they have, the Navy’s build programs all show one consistency. They’re late and over budget. First up, submarines – the Virginia-class boats are currently building 1.3 a year versus projected needs of 2 a year. And that doesn’t account for the five we are supposed to supply to Australia. Sounds like Oz has a minimum 3 year wait if they get every one we build. Oh, and the program is running 17 BILLION over budget by 2030. Is any of that due to the co-ed modifications?
The news comes after a major report earlier this year revealed the Navy’s biggest projects, including new Virginia-class submarines, were facing severe delays of up to three years.
On Thursday, House Rep. Ken Calvert, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said in remarks prior to an oversight meeting that the Navy had “withheld information on costs and delays” and that its “plans to address” its shipbuilding crises “are primarily aspirational.” Insider
Think we would say something pithier… like their mouths are talking goals their asses can’t manage. Why don’t some of THOSE flags get relieved for ‘lack of confidence’ – certainly, they don’t sound trustworthy.
EVERY program is behind. Not just the (snerk, snicker) Littoral Combat Ships…every damn one. Best of the lot is that last one…and that comment box in English instead of bureaucratese says “They ‘re late but we already figured they would be.” Unlike the aircraft carriers getting refueled at five years a whack – they are just late.
As of 2022 we had about 280 active, manned, able-to-get-underway ships. Total fleet strength, however, including these projected/late hulls, is 470 ships. Seems like a BIG of a difference, no?
Now, 370 ships… roughly the size of the current Chinese Navy. There are many differences – their Navy is much more brown-water coast-adjacent oriented and has many less powerful ships….you know, littoral ships. Still…
And that industry is building it a massive navy. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Navy “is the largest navy in the world with a battle force of over 370 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, aircraft carriers, and fleet auxiliaries,” the Pentagon said last fall in its report on China’s military power. And that number doesn’t include around 60 Houbei-class patrol combatants that carry anti-ship cruise missiles.
The country’s naval vessels are being constructed at incredible speeds, boasting increasingly advanced capabilities, sometimes even demonstrating impressive technological jumps. By 2030, the Pentagon expects China’s PLAN to have an overall battle force of 435 ships, a notable increase mostly in “major surface combatants.”
How is it they can build so much faster?
China’s shipbuilding industry has over 230 times the capacity of the US, according to recent estimates from the Office of Naval Intelligence, representing about 50% of the total global shipbuilding capacity.Insider II
Unlike WWII, we’re not going to build our way out of this mess. 230 times? Read the latter article…the numbers are a bit chilling.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", China, Navy
Sure, the CCP are building more ships faster. But how good are those ships, really. What’s the CCP’s QC like?
Or is this a case of “quantity has a quality all its own”. (I think that’s the quote)
There are literally dozens of recent articles of the crappy quality of ships and crews of the US Navy. Billion dollar littoral ships that are worthless to Navy ships running into obstacles all over the world.
Chinese ships = Junk
LCS = Garbage
LCS at its original inception wasn’t bad, then they f#&ked it up 10 ways to Sunday in order to enrich themselves.
Keep in mind, the Chicoms (as of now) do not have the global commitments that we do so their Navy can also be consolidated in a much smaller geographic area. That said, the state of our Navy is very disturbing.
The 80s called…
China has their own GPS and secured comms satellites now. They are also sending rockets to the moon.
Since most of the CCP fleet can’t survive much damage, it’s a busy afternoon for our shooters.
We just need to ensure our fleet can both shoot enough and survive enough. Plenty of work to be done, yes.
They built a merchant fleet, and thus have building capabilities. We tried to regulate away competitors, thus we have not much.
That could change.
You may also recall our prior “peer” competitor, who had a massive and scary fleet, that wound up beached or sunk of neglect.
CCP has a glass jaw, and knows is, thus they only bully small fry. When they start seeking multiple confrontations with the US Navy, where shots could get fired, and probably should, will be the sign they think they can take us.
And the moment that happens, we should wreck their whole fleet. Bam. Don’t give them a lesson, give them Defeat.
Our unofficial motto must be FAFO.
The shipbuilding population in Maine is being replaced by Somalis that vote D and won’t work. Replacement theory?
Just wait ’til scads of Haitians and Venezuelen “migrants” get settled there because of politicians, cronies and fat grant $$$.
When Globalists outsource your shipbuilding capacity because “China can do it cheaper”… tell me they and Democrats don’t hate America.
As the “outsourced to” ship builders forward the classified portions of the plans to the highest bidders. Unless the outsourced builders are also the designers.
True. Unless we just buy other people’s military designs, we’re hosed in that area– capped and shrinking solely military capacity (absent a bunch of investment for a few years before the next war). No expansion room for destroyers, auxiliary ships, landing craft, etc.– and China sure ain’t gonna build Liberty ships for us if we’re at war with them already– either. Japan and South Korea will have their own military/civilian ship production needs during a war, too.
America used to be able to build quality products very quickly. Absolute near miracles of engineering and mass production. Literally building ships faster than enemies could sink them.
Now, what is left of American industry that has not moved to China, is a bloated, corrupt, polticized, DEI destroyed shadow of its former self.
And it will get worse.
^^^ THIS ^^^ Couldn’t put more than one like down on this comment no matter how many times I mashed the button…
I’m greatly afraid the only thing that will change the current “situations” in our country will be a huge loss of life from us getting our butts kicked. Possibly including the introduction of large angry “mushrooms” of the nuclear kind to some of once great cities by one or several of our enemies.
I’ll add the current boondoggles of the F-35, NGAD & Sentinel ICBM replacement from my old Chair Force to share in the pain… The B-21 might be okay but trusting the current media situation I have doubts.
Talk about everything going to hell at once, perfect storm of pain coming.
Nailed it…with a big hammer!
Prepare
Concur. We’ve been there before.
“How is it they can build so much faster?”
Slave labor and crappy materiel.
The LCS program did more damage to the US Navy that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Change my mind.
DEI trans woke alphabet soup groomer recruitment.
The MIC/Navy/Political elites used the LCS program to enrich themselves to do more damage to the US Navy than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
As far as the navy not being able to crew available ships, I think they have found their recruitment troubles by introducing co-ed subs. Seems it will only take slightly longer to raise a crew than it does to build a ship.
“….raise a crew….”
From birth to 18 years old.
The “Silent Service” needs to prepare for many pregnancies in their ranks.
“Silent Service”….
So, no screamers? How dull.
Speaking of China, how about Rudy West and his five keys
Singing Ling Ting Tong, 1954 on the Capital label.
But if the Navy builds smaller ships (easier) then they will need less people to crew them (efficiency).
What a win – win!
Build smaller and less ships and then the need (or lack thereof) for less recruits!
Won’t be much longer and China won’t have sufficient males to man the ships. Let’s hope that status comes sooner, rather than later!
Just a thought…
Are there enough skilled tradesman to build the ships we need? As a society, we’ve discouraged people from going into “the trades” for a few decades. I’m as guilty as anyone because I was an HT welder/pipefitter/plumber and I changed careers twice. When my son decided to join, he went IT as I told him “the horror stories” about life in engineering.
There is a program in place that offers free training in trades that are useful for shipbuilding. The Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing program is a full time residential program that provides essential skills training for no cost except for living expenses.
If you have someone who needs to learn a new trade, it’s definitely worth a look: https://atdm.org/about-atdm
Looks like some of the programs cover living expenses too. That looks amazing for anyone wanting to get into a trade.
Probably not. Saw my diesel truck mechanic for the first time in about five years. He may be going out of business. He can’t find people that want to work in his shop. He says that wasn’t a problem four years ago. Back then he had eight or nine mechanics and was turning away job applicants.
Riddle me this: Why would anyone think it is a good idea to name a sub or any ship after the District of Criminals?
Because Los Angeles was already taken.
Also Detroit, which is of course an LCS. Also Jackson, Montgomery, St Louis and Oakland. All LCSs. Gotta say they nailed it.
This just in… All three (3) Chicom carriers are at sea right now and October (like April) is an ideal time to invade Taiwan across the Strait:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/three-chinese-aircraft-carriers-were-210119937.html
We do have Roosevelt CSG and 2 x ARGs in the region though.
https://news.usni.org/2024/09/23/usni-news-fleet-and-marine-tracker-sept-23-2024
$17B over budget and can’t pass a GAO audit, but your motherfucking ass better not have a 30¢ underpayment to your government travel card after 30 days.
OFF TOPIC – I’d offer that from HENCEFORTH, any article proportionately about John Kirby must use his official Navy photo, or no photo at all.
I get a kick looking at him trying to keep those Chicklets in his mouth.
Reminds me of the 90s Dennis the Menace movie when he tapes Mr. Wilson’s teeth together using Chicklets.
Does anyone else agree or am I just being a simple fuck?
Bush league replying to myself…
I knew shit was fucked up with shipbuilding the instant I saw a commercial about buildsubmaries dot com.
I watch a lot of baseball, an embarrassing amount if I’m honest, and that logo and website is everywhere.
Kudos to the commercial creators for having the most diverse group of Silicon Valley look-alikes I have ever seen.
The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell ruined our Navy.
Tongue-in-cheek, but it’s sadly starting to seem prescient….
Navy consistently beat Army, until it became acceptable for soldiers to play with balls… now Army leads a strong trend.
It ain’t gay when you’re underway, but now it’s sometimes beneficial to be gay in today’s DOD. We’ve robbed our sailors of their best semen. Buoyancy suffers.
I work for a contractor for public transit projects. If the contract process works in a similar fashion (and I presume it does since most public transit money comes from the FedGov so they have to follow the federal procurement rules), I can see why there are always delays.
The Request For Proposal (RFP) typically has as one if the requirements, a schedule. If your responding proposal doesn’t match the schedule (regardless of how unrealistic the schedule is) you won’t win the contract.
So, everyone lies. Everyone who submits a proposal knows damn well that the proposed schedule is impossible, but if they say so in their proposal, they won’t win the contract (one of their competitors who lied about it will win), so everyone lies, knowing full well that there’s no way the contract is going to be completed on schedule.
This issue would be very easy to fix…the contracts need to incorporate heavy penalties for delays on the part of the contractor as well as heavy penalties for delays as a result of changes to the original design requested by the contracting agency.
Proposers would quickly learn to be honest about their timelines if they start losing money on contracts because of their pie in the sky proposals.
The contracting agency would also quickly learn to a) be realistic on their requested timelines (or they only proposals they’ll get in response will be from fly by night places that will never fulfill a contract) and b) stop constantly requesting changes to the design.
Of course, when the contracting agency is the government, they don’t care about money, it’s just taxes…not like it’s real money or anything…so they’ll keep making changes to the design every two weeks and the costs will balloon out of control (even worse than they do now because of the penalties), Congress will get fed up and cancel the projects and nothing will get built.
So there’s that.
(example follows)
Ran out of space in previous comment.
Several years ago one of the many bridges across the Elizabeth river between Norfolk and Portsmouth needed to be replaced.
The city knew that an extended closure would play havoc with traffic, so when they put out the RFP, there were huge penalties for delays as well as lucrative incentives for finishing ahead of schedule.
The company that won the contract, basically built the bridge in sections off site, while working on pilings and supporting structures in and above the water. Then floated the bridge sections to the location on barges, had everything staged and ready before shutting down the old bridge.
I don’t remember exactly how long it took, but it was the fastest bridge demo/construction I’ve ever seen. I want to say it was less than a month that the bridge was closed, but my memory is hazy so I could be remembering with rose colored glasses, but it was fast for that type of project. The company won all kinds of bonuses for finishing early and getting traffic flowing ahead of schedule.
The point is, when there’s no incentive to getting things done on time (especially when the contract requirements are unrealistic from the jump), they won’t get done on time. Make it reasonable and worth their while to meet the schedule and you’ll get much better results.
Of course, common sense reforms like that will never happen because it would break the entire procurement system…congresscritters would no longer be able to throw lucrative contracts at their wife’s sister’s third cousin and/or large political contributors if those contracts were ever actually expected to be fulfilled.
China has their own problems.
https://apnews.com/article/china-nuclear-submarine-sank-us-military-3c68bba0882fe81b3ace6da6c39e771b