Given the shortage of skilled labor in the shipbuilding industry, perhaps Congress should fund a vocational shipbuilding school that is FREE for Navy, Coast Guard and Marine personnel (or maybe for all US military personnel) nearing the end of their service term. Shipbuilders are well paid. (A cursory Google search suggests they make something like $65K to $150K depending on seniority, position level, skill type, location, and performance.) Thus it shouldn't be hard to attract students from a pool of outgoing military personnel who would otherwise be entering the civilian world with no prospect for a lucrative job. Moreover, a free shipbuilding school would likely pay for itself by way of lower costs for the Navy to get its ships built and repaired.
Longterm that would help but in the short to medium term, Europe has 150 large shipyards,120,000 skilled employees, cheaper wage costs and are internationally competitive. Design your ships so that most of the work is built in Europe and then the hull is transferred to the USA for final fitout of the classified stuff. It's basically the two shipyard model that superyachts use, one shipyard does the basic shipbuilding, another does the fancy detail work.
The problem is there isn't much commercial building so there's a massive ebb and flow in ship building because the Navy is the only customer buying US made ships.
Nope. Can only have minimum wage employees. How else are the rich supposed to make millions upon millions in money. Those numbers will start to drop now that the NLRB has been neutered.
the Pentagon allowed defense contractors to " consolidate" after the end of the Cold War, in which led in part to fewer ship building yards and allowed the US Navy to close a number of " US Navy yards" for maintenance and repairs putting a huge number of workers with a strong trade skill out of work during the early 1990's to teach future generations of yard builders
Good enough warships now, are preferable to 'perhaps better' warships 10 years from now. The fleet is aging out faster than new hulls are being commissioned. I bet Japan or ROK could deliver perfectly adequate destroyer/frigate class warships faster than our own shipyards.
Japan is even building new battlecruiser sized super destroyers now with crew optional AI. Twice as long as any US destroyer with twice the fire power.
So could Bollinger, Edison Chouest, and Conrad. We have tons of untapped capacity because our navy is the world's worst customer and some need to be careful how far they dip their toe into the Navy pool.
Continue to overcommunicate this severe ship building and repair capacity issue! Define the problem, Need a larger US Navy. Issue: Insufficient repair and ship building capacity.
@@WeAllLaughDownHere-ne2ou They provided no evidence. I have plenty. I think critically and don't take what I hear at face value. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vGXRBmAkCuZfMZf-B16O565gF9V1tkFUaNlOsQ3Ir94/edit?usp=sharing
Brian you weren't the only one having BP issues with this topic. I never understood why "the Land Attack Destroyer/DD-21" did not require ammo commonality with USMC artillery. I absolutely concur with ditching the "fly off" competition for the LCS. From first hand experience I can tell you the South Korean shipyards embrace using smaller yards to build sub-assemblies and then transport them for integration at the main building shipyard.
Two thoughts on the problems: 1. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. 2. If everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible. Additionally, American shipyards have virtually no civilian business, no domestic competition, and government contracts are notoriously fickle, leaving the shipyards with no motive to spend their own money to increase capacity. I think there are only two ways to increase domestic shipyard capacity is for the USN and/or Maritime Administration to either: pay for shipyard expansion, or to subsidize the industry (like China does) so domestic shipyards can compete with China in the civilian market.
That would mean convincing Congress to spend tax dollars outside of their constituencies and subsidize foreign industries. I don't think that will happen.
@@jensl.942 The phenomenon of different stakeholders having different masters is underestimated. A congressperson will represent their district first and foremost - if that means building LCS in their district, despite it being unwanted by the navy, overpriced, under-gunned, unreliable etc... they will vote in favor (because it secures jobs in the district they represent).
Its not the builders its the customer. Foreign yards will run into every problem ours run into. Plus its the GFE that limits much of the pace of production. Those EASR panels get built at a rate and it needs to go into our ships and every other navy we sell them too. This is one reason we are selling our allies SPPY-7 and so far we are the only customer for SPY-6.
To me the Constellation class scandal was the final straw. All that was needed was a ship that matched the capabilities of the older OHP Class frigates but with modern systems. They supposedly picked an existing design to simplify and speed things up. Yet somehow these things will cost twice as much as the OHP, take over 10 years to make and be 6 knots slower?? I think this proves the Navy can't be trusted with ship design anymore. They deserve the international humiliation of having some of our ships at least designed if not built overseas for a few years. Maybe after suffering through that they will fix things.
In late July the Italian Navy ordered two additional enhanced FREMM class frigates, for delivery in 2029 and 2030. If not quite matching Japanese shipbuilding timetables, this compares very favorably with the Constellation-class schedule.
@@reallyhappenings5597 I think you're right. The Constellation is already too late to make a difference. I think we're going to need the mothballed ships back sooner rather than later.
To be a modern OHP it needed a radar to use the same size missile that now goes several times further. That missile also needs to hit a faster, smaller target that may be low observable. I think my beef would be that I'd have liked to see a cheap version of Burke as a competitor to FFG. We need more hulls and have enough flt IIIs ordered.
Would removal of Shipyard subsidies in the 1980's be partially to blame? That correlated to the loss of shipyards, companies and skilled workers. All we now need!
We need to do something about our commercial ship building. Trying to only build naval ships isn't sustainable and causes too much ebb and flow to maintain a competent workforce while also driving up the price.
Roads are subsidies, airports get subsidized. If every road were a toll road more trucks would be off the road and more containers would move on the rivers.
Requiring US standards to port in the US and added fees for non US ships would be a start. Including passport fees to step off the ships if not citizens. Little things that encourage a new US merchant marine. One of the reasons for 1776 is all products had to go though England first even if it was from just off our coast.
@@charlesmaurer6214 That just penalizes us. We need to get honest with ourselves and tell the people our system is far from most efficient. Then start making efficient decisions. That's why I say make most roads toll roads. They talk about taxing people for mile driven, but I don't care about the back country road. I care about the semi truck and whether it needed to be on the road or not.
@@DM-mv4eq It does not punish us to restrict or tax incoming trade, In fact the US budget used to be funded by import/export fees to the tune of 85% instead of taxing the people who made stuff ourselves instead of depending on potential foes in war like China, that the DOD admits have kill switches hardwired into over 80% of all the microchips used in US military hardware that XI can activate at will. Even the UK in repeated test of the updated Polaris Missiles from us failed to fire the Engines to a system wide hardware failure in the electronics. The reason it took so long to shoot down one balloon when two flights of planes previously able to shoot down things in orbit had electronics shutdown. After that it took over a week to strip out every microchip on two planes and missiles to replace them with not China made parts. (I suspect they barrowed the packages from Israel who buys our planes but replace all the electronics before use with those made only in Israel) We tax our people to death and out of business, then give China free trade and even subsidies to move our jobs and property to a future enemy. Even 80% of US meat production is either owned by China or Brazil giving them the power to starve us as the chips disarm us and the Chemical WMDs stream over our border with enough to kill everyone in the US every 2 months. First rule of security is you must secure your resources yourself or whatever you have is useless with the first breakdown or empty fuel tank. Second is if someone else can control it, you are never in control of the equipment. He who can destroy or shut down a thing controls that thing. (almost a Frank Herbert quote)
It does take a long time to design a ship, which is why the Navy was supposed to take the short cut of using the Fremm, but the Navy couldn't just take the easy win and build a bunch of foreign frigates, nope had to be different.
It would have been less complex to use the British Type 26, a larger hull from the outset which in the Canadian and Australian versions, was already designed to incorporate US weapons and sensors and likely faster to bring in service with the first RN ship already in the water and fitting out.
@@garyyoung3179 Don't you know, the US Navy can't use something that is British, why Admiral King would turn over in his grave. Our procurement system is so broken it isn't funny.
I think they could go back to learn from how the Fletcher and similar classes were built and still use those principles today. It sounds like mass-production principles were used. It reduces flexibility, but if the need is to get high enough numbers of good enough hulls out then it can work.
In many ways it adds flexibility to build a basic hull then add weapons that can be swapped out over time. Fletchers were workhorses that were loaded per a mission. Some carried extra tubes for torpedoes, or depth charges and hedgehogs for anti-sub while others traded much of that for extra antiair weapons. The first was used a lot in the Atlantic while the later for the Pacific for escort duties. Post war many were adapted for other duties with some finding life in the coast guard stripped of the bulk of the weapons for SAR or Law enforcement equipment. Another failure with the modern navy is the scrapping the bulk of the retired ships when we need a ready reserve and most would still be valuable for the Coast Guard, that should not be building new ships (bigger than a PT type, river boat or tug) but refitting older navy ships for a second life. A modern battleship would have missile boxes and energy or rail guns in place of the old big guns, removing a five deck deep support structure for each turret and the largest internal blast threat. With nuclear drive the power would come from the reactors to the mounts that at most require a single deck room below for an energy feed system using transformers and capacitors for the chosen system.
While it may sound backwards, bullet/shell/cartridge designs typically come before gun design. Even if there are exceptions when both designed at the same time or follow on designs are made for existing platforms.
When I was a JR Systems Engineer supporting NAVAIR PMA205(Aircrew Trainers). I was taught by a retired O-6 formerly at NAVAIR that the purpose of the Navy Systems commands/procurement was to SLOWLY buy Systems, speed was not an objective. Seemed fairly accurate during my later tours at SPAWAR and NAVSEA (IWS-2).
Japan regularly takes major warship designs from conception to completion in under 5 years. South Korea is impressively speedy, too, although their focus is a little more terrestrial. If it takes you a decade to build a frigate that’s 80% as large as your destroyers and has half the firepower you need to clean house.
I see the opportunity to expand our shipbuilding capabilities that would be a perfect opportunity to train young people in technical skills that we let expire. Now is the time to create large scale mentorship programs to pass the knowledge on to a new generation that needs a goal. The world doesn't need new video games, but we been computer experts. We need technical grade welders, shipwrights. and electricians. Many of these skills have retired. But the men (and woman) who have the skills should be brought back to teach younger people the skills. We are facing an unemployement problem in our eighteen to twenty six year old population. Let's do what we did in the early Nineteen forties, lay the foundation BEFORE we find ourselves in a conflict with China or Russia in the late twenty twenties. I know China is on a war footing over Taiwan. Let's not get caught unprepared.
The Navy can't build a ship, submarine, aircraft, or weapon system on time and within budget. Our inability to preform maintenance is another disgraceful issue. The DOD is in love with AI and drones!
In 2006 the navy released a paper showing by 1997 japanese shipyard workers were being paid a little more per hour than their american counterparts (showing our uncompetitiveness was not do to cheaper foreign labor) but crucially they required 4 times less manhours to build the same class of commercial ship. That's why Japan still has a large & competitive shipbuilding industry to this day while ours is dead. So this problem that has existed for a long time & was much longer than that in making. the push for global liberal hegemony or globalism began way back in 1947 with the GATT. They sold us out generations ago. You can have a nation our an empire but not both. I've heard that our manufacturers have become so out of practice & so inefficient & turnover is so high that building a new boat is like learning to walk again after a brain injury.
From ship-building to auto to semiconductor to airplane to space industry, same story, de-industralization from over-financialization, unless people want to accept much lower income and living standards, otherwise no way to reverse the trend.
Non-military tax payer here who firmly believes our government wastes tons of money. I make that preface for context on what follows. The only way forward is for a massive investment in shipbuilding infrastructure and training. We need to quickly and massively increase both, and that's expensive. Only other option is buy our ships from China, which is a collasively stupid idea. Unfortunately, i dont think we have the political will or intelligence to do it.
One idea being debated is buying ships from Japan or Korea, both allies with great shipbuilding industries, while the US shipbuilding industry and capacity is increased. news.usni.org/2024/09/25/bipartisan-ships-for-america-act-building-support-in-congress-say-sponsors
💰💰💰💰💰 You reach a point where you have to spend more money. 💵 In this case though I think we have to replace Congress and then work our way down. I've been hearing about this same problem for many years but the only clear solution is leadership replacement. None of this is beyond the abilities of our engineers. We need competent decision makers instead of finger pointers.
Awesome on this it's Truthful. That the Navy needs to expand. But the U.S. gave up its industrial to Build and Maintain the Navy Not to mention increase capacity. And to have a direction on what to buy. So to figure out what is needed and then Build and Fund the infrastructure to get there
For a low cost Maintenance and repair of the US Navy Ship, USA or the US Navy should have a NASSCO type Repair and Maintenance shipyard in Subic Bay Philippines
If you get away from the basics and training, sell out your oversight, and bias out competitive industries. This is what you get. The passing of knowledge within a trade diminishes. The biggest bang for the buck becomes more bucks for a bang. Then all your left with is a shell of gray hulls with no price controls and a stock holding decision maker. Just a rough overview. This problem worsened with the monopolizing of shipyards and outsourcing maintenance in the 00's. Yard periods became more contractor work than having it be sailors work. The loss of transition sailor to shipyard labor opened the experience gaps.
Thank you for the video. Sounds like there's a desire to turn the navy into a fleet of prototypes. Any engineer will tell you the bulk of the cost and time goes into building the first prototype.
I actually like the concept behind the tri hull design of the Independence. If it actually fulfilled it's design goals (specifically the speed portions,) it would be a nice asset for a variety of missions. They just need to figure out how to keep the hull from separating. Also, as I understand it, the freedom's issues with the engine / drive train have been solved. So that should be a class of ship that is useable.
I think LCS-2 has a lot of untapped potential. I think when we see the Saudi version of the LCS-1 we will wonder why we built in a massive delay for Constellation when we could have started pumping out 2 if these improved ships per year. We'd have about 12 by the time we get he first Connie.
Can't blame Rumsfeld for the Navy's problems. He didn't create the Zumwalt, which the navy didn't want and was only designed because the Marine Corps wanted something to replace the Iowas firepower on land. He had nothing to do with the Constellation mess. The only thing in common is the five sided building in Northern Virginia can't get its crap together.
Other than some sort of experimental one-off example, I am absolutely deadest against having any foreign shipyard build ships and/or hulls for the USN. For no other reason than it being a national security issue. Offshoring our defense industrial base is the height of lunacy. If capacity is an issue then Congress needs to bite the bullet and make the necessary funds available to procure the requisite shipyards and workforce necessary to achieve the hull numbers required.
Nothing classified about the hulls all the classified equipment is only incorporated during the fitting out period which was suggested to be done in the US. Even then, most of the systems are also used by several allies already. It would never pass Congress anyway because of labour issues unless it was deemed a national emergency.
@@garyyoung3179 I am not all that concerned about issues of classified equipment with respect to foreign shipyards building warships for the US. My concerns are being dependent upon a foreign country to manufacture our weapon systems. The US needs to be self-reliant when it comes to building our weapons.
The list IS long. And I ask this as a mere civilian who has followed the Sea Services since childhood, for the LCS and to a degree, the new frigate program, why not up-gun the USCG NSCs? Those cutters already operate in the littorals and, in most ways, are frigates.
I would add, on the capacity problem, that it is time to re-active (actually, re-acquire as well) former government shipyards. I am thinking Mare Island; Philadelphia; and (ideally), Boston and Charleston, the latter including reactivating the submarine base. I understand some of the reasons for the post-Cold War draw down. But it’s past time to reorient away from that thinking-along with which it is past time to re-shore our industrial infrastructure and capacity. Yes, labor is cheaper overseas. But the race for cheap labor has created both economic and national security gaps; gaps that every news cycle shows we can no longer afford.
A dilemma that was created by the USN and their short-sighted outlook on their own future. Whatever is being taught at the various military graduate schools, the results are dismal as way too many flag officers are coming out incapable of conceptualizing, sourcing, building and maintaining a fleet.
As a college student preparing to graduate with a degree in Information Decision Sciences, how can I get involved in supporting our shipbuilding capabilities?
Look for jobs with shipbuilding companies. Bollinger, Austal, General Dynamics, HII, and NASCO are all looking for good people. On the government side, Naval Sea Systems Command and the Naval Research Lab are involved in ship design and new technologies for the fleet.
All of this was great except for one off-hand comment: "building a ship is more complex than building a missile." Polaris was both a ship and a missile, and it was far MORE complex and revolutionary an undertaking than any other shipbuilding project of its day. And it was still accomplished in a few years. Whatever we used to do in those days was better. Not perfect, maybe, but good enough. So why can't we go back to doing things that way?
The Zumwalts should be converted to cruisers and be the base for a new class of cruiser, preferable nuclear. Also no idea why they felt the need to re-invent the wheel on the gun for Zumwalts, its like they forgot the mk71 existed.
The "ship" part of Zumwalt all works. It was the "whizz bang" new weapons that were vaporware. What should have happened. The Zum's should have contined to be built as Burke successors. Stick the Block III Burke fit on an Zum, and you are good to go. Sadly, its now too long ago to just restart production. The Zumwalt's have everything needed. massive electrical capacity and cubage for modern weapons and future upgrades. Such as new weapons that work, later in life. So, instead of using a proven hull and drive train with existing weapons. Scrap the programme after three ships. Classes are an odd one. What is a cruiser,destroyer and frigate today. The Tico's are "cruiser's" due to the stroke of a pen. They were designed as destroyer's. Only the "cruiser gap" scare with the USSR got them redesignated. IMO, a modern day real cruiser would have to be in the 20-25k ton range. They would have to be that big to carry the massive VLS cells needed to qualify. As until someone finally figures out how to easily and quickly reload VLS at sea. a ship will be out of missiles in a single engagement with the current "shoot, shoot, look" doctrine, that everyone uses. A cruiser will need the tubes to do both air, land and sea combat. So a few land attack or surface missiles mixed in with the SAM's not going to cut it. As an aside. I believe the current fastest, semi prototype at sea realoding of VLS takes an hour per missile and functionally calm seas. Which to reload a Tico is 122 hours. Five full 24 hour days to reload a single ship.....
@@Yandarval And don't forget the trip back to base without anything left to fight with after the load is shot leaving the ship and others sitting ducks until reloaded.
@@DM-mv4eq Unfortunately, that will lead to another FREMM. Too many "interested" paties wanting to dick around with the design again. The Zum's plans are already done. A subclass to fit a Burkes loadout should be the limit of the changes. Otherwise its yet another clean sheet design. Designs for a Zum's tooling etc exist. They would need to be manufactured again, of course. But should be a lot quicker to put back into series production. One look at all the failed studies to replace the Burkes highlights the fact that US yards will not be able to produce a clean sheet design within a decade at least. A lightly modded Zum is the best the US can do for the next 10-20 years IMO. Congress, as always happened will bleat about cost. Forgetting that a shooting war cost a hell of a lot more. So large production runs, say 12 at a time will be needed. The RN is not quite as bad. we have new designs. we just need more and faster construction of them.
@@charlesmaurer6214 Well, that was sort of unspoken, when I was banging on about how hard it is to reload VLS. the 122 missiles of a Tico, if all SAMs. Thats 62 missile intercepts under the shoot, shoot, look doctrine. Which is not a lot when any miss will mission kill a ship, at best. Aegis on auto will empty a ship in short order. The Cherry on top is a Tico carries more missiles that basically any other Western ship. Most have a lot, lot less. IMO, new ships need to start looking back to WWII. More guns for point defense. Shells are easy to transport and reload. keep the missiles for the long range attack and intercept. Not the 40mm of the past. More of the 76mm and up autoloading weapon systems floating around now. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_76_mm
Not a professional but I am curious what you think about the viability of large surface platforms on the long term in this hypersonic and drone filled world. Are investments in current technologies likely to be viable in the next 30 years?
Should have built the first flight as 95% common for the frigate and while those are being built, set up set two with some improvements and three with the next improvements. Then you get, as a minimum, the first set fairly quick. Make the Zumwalts into dedicated motherships for the ghost fleets. Include with them technicians and staff to maintain at sea the Ranger and the whole ghost fleet. Then get Naval Group to build a dozen of the MCM ships they are building for the French and Netherlands for a similar purpose plus surface drones. Build small diesel subs ( Like the Swedish design ) for local defense and based off of forward naval bases ( Guam, Japan, etc ). And, yes, upgun the larger USCG ships as others suggested. "Dear Naval Group/Austal/Turkey, what is the most powerful corvette you can design and build for $80 million?" Also, more ships means more need for sailors which is a separate issue. A fine discussion gentlemen.
As a freedom class sailor, I’m looking forward to the day they either decommission or put all the maintenance in the hands of the crews, contractors have beyond screwed up these ships. While the ship on paper was great, those combining gears are this ships kryptonite, I feel like the Philippines navy would benefit from these in the china conflict and can give us valuable war fighting data. But even tho the ship may be a failure , the crews I have worked with are some of the greatest men and women I’ve served along side of.
Former USAF here (so .. "the enemy") - the Air Force has similar problems with systems development. You could make an argument that the invasion of Ukraine made the F-35 a success by getting the production numbers up. I tend to fall on the Rumsfeld side of the construction of the Ford. The way to make ships & systems maintainable and crewable is to have them standardized. You get a new crewman and they already know where everything is and how to quickly get to their battle station. While the Arleigh Burke is a success - they're essentially a series of one-offs. I would want Kennedy and Enterprise to have less than $75mm in design changes from Ford, unless there's a showstopper of a problem (haven't heard of one yet). Something you didn't really touch on is careerism. You were almost there but didn't say it (and it's a problem in the USAF too). When you have people rotating through the program office every 2 years, and each of them want to show the promotion board that they were effective leaders and contributors - you end up with design churn. What you need (to speak bluntly) is an asshole who will push hard to get the ship/system delivered and working, and is able to say No to unneeded changes. And will stay in that position until it achieves operational readiness.
Coming from the heavy industrial sector, we have deindustrialized. It has an impact. Can anyone comment on the evolution of safety in shipyards impacting productivity? (IOW's, lawyers making safety decisions w/o having the on the ground experience...?) We have seen a significant impact due to this in the heavy industrial...
As an European I stumbled upon this video and reading the responses I wanted to say that the oldskool Battleships are bad-*ss. But look at the ramped-up tempo that China is putting out navy vessels of the latest tech. I read that in >7yrs. their Navy will out number the U.S... Not just Drill Baby Drill but also Build Baby Build. Make America that America I was used to, about how my Dad always talked about the 🇺🇸 Dream. Coca Cola, Levi's, Awesome kick-*ss V8's. Ever since Trump got involved I paid more attention about what (mostly) he talked about and was truly shocked to see the despair the state of the country was in. Cultural, Political. So different in such short time. I think it will turn for the better, if not; "Something might be rotten in the state of Danmark".
I work for a small engineering company in southeastern CT, and we get plenty of transplants from Electric Boat. I've heard so many stories of people being handed 2 days worth of work, and being told to make it last 2 weeks. Welders hanging pipe hangers for pipes that haven't been installed, then knocking them off and reattaching them weeks later when the pipes are attached. Bolts that cost 10x a COTs equivalent due to arcane technical requirements. There is an understanding in that organization that it's fine if your work is 90% waste, so long as you can charge it to the govt.
I've had to install equipment in an Amtrack yard. It wasn't that bad, but for any work being done a second person is observing just to make sure the first guy is safe. The safe checker usually doesn't pay attention and ends up being the guy who gets hurt. They also have no comms gear so if you need a guy and don't know where he is, you basically wait around all day hoping they can be found wherever they are hiding.
@DM-mv4eq So the issue isn't typical "1 guy working 3 guys watching" union shit. There's a general attitude that what they're there to do is to charge hours to the government, not to build submarines. We've hired multiple designers from them with 5-10 years of experience who come to us on the competency level of a fresh grad from tech school. People tell stories of going to work hungover, taking naps, and finding ways to fill time because their managers won't give them more work even when they ask. That company is being run by its union, and the union is well beyond the point of caring about the product. They just want to hire as many people as possible, and do the bare minimum to keep the Navy from actually developing a competitor for them. It's kind of hard to explain. But the people who come out of EB describe accountability purely in terms of A) Does your work meet all technical requirements? (I do think what they produce is high quality when it's done) B) Did you maximize the billable hours for your work?
Congress should have picked the least problematic lcs and ordered both shipyards to build them. We could have built a lot of the lcs that worked and would have had a simplified logistics chain. The problem is the Navy kept hoping for a solution to their math problem, namely the scarcity of appropriations for ship building.
Indy built at Marinette would never leave the lakes. The plan was 2 yards buut by team. General Dynamics teamed with Austal and would have had Bath be yard number 2.
The Ford's electro magnetic ordinance elevators were developed by HII as contractor equipment. HII decided that the risk is not warrant a Land based test site. NAVAIR had nothing to do with the development and risk management of those systems
Genuine question, though it seems like there maybe some obvious flaw: Is there any reason we could not surge defense spending to half of gdp growth more than current spending adjusted for inflation until we hit like double current spending to near Cold War levels spending and solve the issue entirely? Over several years, that’d be like a trillion or more in funding. For example: Assuming we could recruit for, build, maintain, and supply logistics for a carrier battle group for like $100 billion in the short term, is there any reason we couldn’t just splurge on 5 or more carrier battle groups in the next 7-20 years among buying thousands of extra missiles and hundreds of more F-35s? Assuming that all the economists are not bullsh*ting engagement baiting us saying that China’s economy will stagnate/barely grow like Japan’s in 20-50 years, then wouldn’t that be worth a 7-12 more years of Cold War level spending just to completely eliminate the risk calculus in China’s favor?
Time and time again the USMC shows us how it’s done. What I mean by this is that the US Navy cannot afford what it has ( Or what it wants.) and needs to choose priority’s like the USMC recently did, even removing heavy armor from the force. Thus the USN should start training more American kids in school and invest in public shipyard and the people to man them. They should cut failing programs like the LCS and Zumwalt. That’s the best way forward imo. We should pay the piper now as it’s unavoidable and it will never be easier to do than right now. The longer we put this off the harder it gets and every US admin going forward is likely to demand readiness as China is pushing for that outcome to ensure we cannot invest in the future. We must not let China get its way.
Biggest issues: #1 lack of building and repair structures. #2 lack of development or construction of any sustained combat vessels since WWII short of the carriers both Ford/Nimitz and Landing assault types. #3 Over investment in failed designs with all of the littorals (high maint. and short ranged issues) (The rail guns need farther development.) Upgrades in tech is great but useless if fundamentals are forgotten. We need a new main fleet ship class that is both long range, multirole and able to handle sustained combat. At least some large fast Cruisers to travel with Carrier Battle Groups that have nuclear drive and have missile loads, bombardment ability and a fleet antiair/sub defense systems. I would propose a group of 4-6 new battleships that are a hybrid design scaled on an Iowa with the nuclear drive, a small well deck and 4 craft hanger aft for special ops or to augment other fleet ops. (Hanger I picture is 2 bays for 4 maybe 6 total VSTOL/Helicopter craft. It should have 2-3X the missile load of the missile cruisers. Would like to see two twin gun railguns (one over the hanger/one forward) A maser/laser mount would be an alternate system for main weapons. Both rail and energy weapons don't require large magazines filled with explosives and draw the power straight from the reactor systems. For secondaries traditional 5" and CWIS mounts. In time the energy weapons will improve and all they need is power and slugs(for railguns) to work. There is no reason for expensive rail rounds as any lump of metal can do, if they cost as much as you said they were shaped charges or included explosive rounds that defeats the idea in that a rail gun depends on kinetic energy on target not explosives.
@@DM-mv4eq Small is useless against China or any area thousands of miles from bases. Small, Many Cheap works for coastal defense but totally useless for any offense when they lack the range to reach a target on the other side of an Ocean. In WWII if not for 2 bombs, every estimate said the final push would have cost a third of our men and fleet. Both in planes and ships we lacked the supplies to roll the enemy and each foot of Japan would have cost a life for much the same reasons our foes do not use military invasion but a draining chemical WMD loaded mass illegal invasion to weaken us from the inside with corrupt and bought leaders aiding the fiscal and population mass take overs.
@@charlesmaurer6214 You blended a lot of topics there. The what if had we not dropped the bomb hasn't faired well under historical scrutiny. An LCS-2 class range at speed is very similar to a Gearing class destroyer. Burke at 3 times larger fairs about the same. Yes we need some large combatants for effective AAW. We don't need that same ship prosecuting subs, doing MCM, or even doing NGFS or strike missions. LCS-2 could be embarking 2 MH-60R and at least towing the existing MFTA. Those Overlord USV/FSVs could be hauling a battery of Tomahawks or SM-6 around. We could also get serious about NGFS again by making them rocket ships with quad packed ER-GMLRS. Cheap, useful. THose ships were designed to haul liquids and deck cargo. Both made stints will over 5000nm at 7-8 knots on their Pacific deployment. Not a large ship, but very cheap, and very useful for any aggressive and inventive talent we may yet have out there.
My recommendation: when congress agrees to a contract for a given number of given product, it will be ILLEGAL to alter the number or product (unless safety is an issue). That's how it's supposed to work. On the other hand, I've also seen how our military has wasted money for the sake for fulfilling a contract. Maybe limit how many of a product it can order at one time? Another recommendation: learn from China and reduce the divide between commercial ship building and Navy shipbuilding. The secret stuff can be put in later. Anyway, good video and good luck.
Need to change the act that limits ships on the rivers and littoral waterways where the ships have to be American Crewed, Captained, Built and Owned. I would suggest modifying the Act to a weighted score where built and owned are emphasized so that just built and owned barely gets you over the "Score" needed to qualify. Then tag a "Comprehensive safety check" every decade for these littoral cargo ships to ensure we have no "tramps" putting people at risk.
Take it the other way. Remove the other subsidies out there. Roads - tax the cars for miles or make more toll roads. Remove oil company subsidies. Make the airlines pay for the taxpayer end of the cost for the FAA. Our ships are true cost to own. Plenty else isn't. Weed it out.
If the Navy stopped looking for new shiny boats and ships and concentrated on ones that could be effective and made in mass, they’d be much further ahead. Needs to be rugged, which means dependable needs to have survivability needs to have firepower and speed. And they have to be able to be maintained by someone with a high school education and you need to be able to produce large numbers of them.
@@DM-mv4eq Actually is the problem why is the frigate 6000 tons. Because somebody in Congress is going to say why is the frigate 6000 tons. And then you get canceled
Why can't we build things that our navy needs instead of what they don't need? Why is the triad between military, congress and defense contractor based on money and kickbacks?
Oops, there goes 100 billion? Littoral ships should have been "Low Mix" tin cans. Their operating environment is going to have unknown rocks and shoals combined with hostile rocks thrown by malicious hominids, you are going to have losses. Maybe a littoral "Tender" that stays out at sea carries 4-6 smaller gunboats as part of its "Magazine." All the boats are bigger than a PT Boat with commensurate firepower increase but they are "Tooth, Claw and Muscle" that depend on the mothership for sustainability. Build these hulked out PT boats and tie them to a supercarrier sized mother ship that would be the command and control node with defensive firepower like a Russian Battle cruiser. Lots of AA and point defense with just enough ranged ability to make a single attacking ship a boarders flying chunks of metal and chum. Now you have much cheaper ships and steady work for a lot of people starting at lower skills for the Gunboats, higher skills for the Mothers, and the trained people can build the Supercarriers, Subs and Destroyers. The smaller boats can be made by the offshore oilrig companies, and also kick off a possibility of having some transoceanic capable costal/ river cargo ship builders. That infrastructure would enable Pacific and North Atlantic capable "Free Trader" grade ships for "point to point repeat runs" I think of a business model where a company owns 4 ships and has a couple crews that shuttles them around like LPG tankers that the crew flies to. When a tanker fills the crew is all present and the go take the ship to the "Supply dock" that services a propane powerplant for an Alaskan or Maine town that can be swapped out like a propane tank. The ships are more like mobile storage tanks. Make a supersized one or few to service Vancouver and Prinz Edward Island... You build back better and develop the capacity to surge small, cheap, disposable, specialized stuff you may need in a shooting war.
Good reference to the movie "Pentagon Wars", fantastic movie! It's like you have a constituency driven build program, a bit like SLS in the space program. It's not a choice by NASA or engineers, it's a choice of members of congress wanting jobs in their districts demanding the use of shuttle contractors.
The USA like the US Navy and US Marine Corps should hire Filipinos to the US Military as Gen Mc Arthur did in the 40's, Many Filipinos joined US Army and US navy and US Marines
There are Names and People behind this mess, but not hearing about any accountability for it. All those highly skilled and capable Navy Shipbuilding Yards that were shut down (BRAC), and the quality shipbuilding talent squandered, miss them now don't we. Contractors promising you top quality ships in a timely manner and once the dotted lines signed, up goes the costs and backwards goes the delivery time, and no accountability, and the now often Slapped Together end product, my cousin Kuda could have built better behind the Farm Barn! (Littoral ships built today cancelled tomorrow where's a Truck of that "Loss of Confidence" when its really needed, someone needs to take charge and correct this.
On top of everything that was discussed, the increasing vulnerability in the last few years of large ships has been demonstrated in Ukraine. Should they do another re-design?
The best shipbuilding Navy 😮 We do not like to build things in America. Also, the Navy mistreats its personnel and they want nothing to do with the Navy or the Shipyard 😮
China is building warships faster than we did in WW2. Plus they build 53% of the worlds commercial shipbuilding. How did Roosevelt handle things in 1938 to build a world class navy? I know we are in worse shape today because of our loss of manufacturing but there must be lessons we can apply to turn things around? The President needs to declare an emergency and use the bully pulpit to educate the public as to how much trouble we are in. The current administration can't even admit we are in a new Cold War with China. We may be on the losing end of a Hot War soon if current trends continue.
China's build rate isn't US rate during WWII, for it is not wartime now. In case there is war btw the US and China, China could easily add up 2-5 million metric tonnes of warships and China builded 50 milions of commercial ships. Many Chinese docks are building commercial and warships at the same time. It is a deliberate policy to make commercial building dock adapting to wartime need quickly.
Why are all our current US Navy and US Coast Guard shipbuilders on the east coast? Why? How about lowering costs through competition? West and Gulf Coast States need to invest in shipbuilding facilities both military and civilian ships. Why are South Korea, China and Japan constructing ships and not the USA? Because we are shortsighted and inept. Poor leadership 😢
@@USNavalInstitute Excellent reply. Problem still is most large ships and subsurface ships of the US Navy are all built on the east coast. The gulf coast States have Communist Cuba to contend with and those pesky seasonal storms which regularly populate. However, your reply is educational and reassuring. Totally appreciated. Mahalo! Bravo Zulu
For me, the perfect design group would have some old crusty Chiefs and Enlisted that give no shi*s about rank and tell the designers what makes sense and what does not. Those who know should be involved.
No project can succeed as planned without someone or a very tight group being ultimately responsible for a project's execution to completion. No other successful organization, corporate, non-profit, educational etc.attempts to execute long term objective without stable leadership. How can any military organization expect project success with the constant churning of personnel. MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR EXPENSIVE ERRORS AND THE REST OF OUR SOCIETY PAYS A HUGE PRICE FOR THEM.
Look, You guys know better that me, but if one looks at the past 30 to 35 years, it's not like the US has had a reason to have a 600 ship Navy (end of cold war and then 20 y of war on "terror," such as it was). When one is fighting Asymmetric warfare in a a dessert, ship are not a going concern (even if they should be). One should not be that surprised that the Navy is having these struggles. The Navy is going to sort all of this out. Oh hey, I wanted to add, Rumsfeld was a schmuck.He always was. Just my opinion.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Congressional task force went through the US and around the world closing bases left and right. The bad old Soviet bear became a cuddly warm Russian bear. Unfortunately, these people never learned anything from WWI WWII Korean, and Vietnam wars and closed a substantial portion of US shipbuilding capacity including the Washington Navy Yard. We have sufficient close allies who could build our smaller warships, probably cheaper and on time. President Reagan built up a navy of 600 ships, which had only one major task, and that was to beat down the Soviet Union. Today, the navy has less than 320 ships to confront, again, the Russians and now the Chinese. There have been and unfortunately, there still are, small brains running the Navy today whose major task apparently is DEI CRT BLM ESG LGBTQIA crap. The Navy brass today isn't like the warriors that won WWII.
What is the purpose of USN and Pentagon: to defend US or to defend the "International Liberal Rules Based Order" under which US provides the Rules, is prosecutor, judge and uses its armed forces to enforce its verdicts. That was not effective in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, is not even effective against Yemen and that at a cost that exceeds the defense expenditure of the next ten biggest spenders and leaves US with a huge debt of $35T. Compare with China whose car industry will take away all the export markets of the US car industry thank not to low wages but to superior technology. US tries to keep low wages low and to that end 'saves' money on education and attracts hugh numbers of foreigners to man a low technology economy.
Have you considered Elon Musks companies to assist in ramping up production technology in the Maritime Industry especially if there is a War and be able to produce ships at a faster rate.
None of this is new. Pre ww1 the British could churn out battleships cost effectively and faster than anyone. As they were doing they this brough in new tech oil fired eengines among other things. Post war they start again with new classes but Germany was gone and the British put their faith in treaties to limit warships, when they tried to rebuild in the 30s, many of the yards and expertise was gone in a much worst way than the west faces now. While no country can compare with the US in size many countries are having similar problems my country Canada being one. Origenally there was a joint US, British , Canadian planning group that exchanged ideas and plans The Burkes and Canadian Halifaxs came out of that. I beleive it was killed by the American government to keep tech to themselves. Following the 1990s Canada built no Naval ships of any consequence and very little in the way of Coast Guard. Folloowup programs were cancelled. When the conservative government started looking at it and blundered badly, but what shook out of it was a program with two yards one on each coast specializing in ship types. They started the Arctic Patrol ship(6500 tons). When the liberals came in they expanded the program and despite higher cost and political crirism expanded the program and selected the British type 26 to build 15 frigates which with changes have become heavily redesigned to become more general purpose destroyers. Aegis, Spy7 systems for example. It looks like they have actually been listening to the navy. The also expanded the program to include 2 new heavy ice breakers using the Davy yard in Quebec. The Davy yard has bought a yard in Finland that has ice breaker experience. The US government has made a deal to allow Davy to build ice breakers in another yard they are purcasing in Louisiana(Jones Act). It also looks like Canada will be building patrol ships on the Lakes(2000+ tons) All this will cost lots of money, but if you are going to develop your navy building almost from scratch it is going to cost and given the size of the US navy a very big cost. You should never incorporate tech on a ship by ship basis generally you release in blocks and retrofit on the next full refurbishment. There is considerable tech coming down the line. THe problem at least in the American navy seems to be in part a confusion of objectives and doctrine, tech driving design rather than operations and accompanied by down sizing
The United States has decided to spend our wealth on environmental and climate change issues. That's where the wealth of much of the whole economy is being directed. That leaves reduced amounts for the navy ---- as always funding is reduced when war is not imminent. So it's time for the United States to face up to that fact and bring our troops and navy home. Let the world solve it's own problems ----it will, you know. As leftists used to shout: "The United States is not the policeman of the world!" Of course, that was before they discovered how much FUN it was to tell everyone else in the world what they must and must not do. Now they DO imagine themselves the policeman of the world, but without the big stick, or the big industrial economy, to back that up. Because they KILLED the big stick and the big industrial economy. So let's draw back before we get ourselves in another avoidable disaster. Let the world sort out it's own problems.
The Navy should consult with some of Elon Musk's industrial engineers. They've revolutionized rocket manufacture. Maybe they could do the same for warship design and construction.
Fantastic interview. I agree 100% with Mr. O'Rourke. Well done.
Gratifying to see you here.
Given the shortage of skilled labor in the shipbuilding industry, perhaps Congress should fund a vocational shipbuilding school that is FREE for Navy, Coast Guard and Marine personnel (or maybe for all US military personnel) nearing the end of their service term. Shipbuilders are well paid. (A cursory Google search suggests they make something like $65K to $150K depending on seniority, position level, skill type, location, and performance.) Thus it shouldn't be hard to attract students from a pool of outgoing military personnel who would otherwise be entering the civilian world with no prospect for a lucrative job. Moreover, a free shipbuilding school would likely pay for itself by way of lower costs for the Navy to get its ships built and repaired.
Longterm that would help but in the short to medium term, Europe has 150 large shipyards,120,000 skilled employees, cheaper wage costs and are internationally competitive.
Design your ships so that most of the work is built in Europe and then the hull is transferred to the USA for final fitout of the classified stuff.
It's basically the two shipyard model that superyachts use, one shipyard does the basic shipbuilding, another does the fancy detail work.
The problem is there isn't much commercial building so there's a massive ebb and flow in ship building because the Navy is the only customer buying US made ships.
@@jonahhekmatyar Large US made ships. Plenty going on further down in size.
Nope. Can only have minimum wage employees. How else are the rich supposed to make millions upon millions in money. Those numbers will start to drop now that the NLRB has been neutered.
the Pentagon allowed defense contractors to " consolidate" after the end of the Cold War, in which led in part to fewer ship building yards and allowed the US Navy to close a number of " US Navy yards" for maintenance and repairs putting a huge number of workers with a strong trade skill out of work during the early 1990's to teach future generations of yard builders
Good enough warships now, are preferable to 'perhaps better' warships 10 years from now. The fleet is aging out faster than new hulls are being commissioned. I bet Japan or ROK could deliver perfectly adequate destroyer/frigate class warships faster than our own shipyards.
Japan is even building new battlecruiser sized super destroyers now with crew optional AI. Twice as long as any US destroyer with twice the fire power.
So could Bollinger, Edison Chouest, and Conrad. We have tons of untapped capacity because our navy is the world's worst customer and some need to be careful how far they dip their toe into the Navy pool.
Yes, that would help create a mutual defense specializations like NATO to create a Pacific Treaty Organization.
@@watchthe1369Hahaha sure...try telling the Koreans to work with the Japs
Continue to overcommunicate this severe ship building and repair capacity issue! Define the problem, Need a larger US Navy. Issue: Insufficient repair and ship building capacity.
We have the capacity, we need the plan, organization and skilled labor.
Wrong. You missed everything they said.
@@WeAllLaughDownHere-ne2ou They provided no evidence. I have plenty. I think critically and don't take what I hear at face value. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vGXRBmAkCuZfMZf-B16O565gF9V1tkFUaNlOsQ3Ir94/edit?usp=sharing
@@DM-mv4eqif you don't have the skilled labor, you don't have the capacity. Human Resources is a key factor of capacity.
@@WeAllLaughDownHere-ne2ouLol it's hopeless regardless of what they said 😂
The FFG-62 should've been a slam dunk - yet somehow NAVSEA screwed it up badly, and almost immediately.
That has become a cherished part of their mission statement.
see the movie " The Pentagon Wars".
Agree NAVSEA needs to fix itself first. The USCG built the NSC no problem. You guys can screw up a wet dream.
probably you never saw the movie " The Pentagon Wars".
@nx014 about the Bradley fighting? the armored platform that Ukraine has the highest praise for?
Brian you weren't the only one having BP issues with this topic. I never understood why "the Land Attack Destroyer/DD-21" did not require ammo commonality with USMC artillery. I absolutely concur with ditching the "fly off" competition for the LCS.
From first hand experience I can tell you the South Korean shipyards embrace using smaller yards to build sub-assemblies and then transport them for integration at the main building shipyard.
Yeah And that concept was to build something cheap that just do one job and the U S Navy couldn't do that lo😂 😂
Two thoughts on the problems:
1. Perfection is the enemy of good enough.
2. If everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible.
Additionally, American shipyards have virtually no civilian business, no domestic competition, and government contracts are notoriously fickle, leaving the shipyards with no motive to spend their own money to increase capacity. I think there are only two ways to increase domestic shipyard capacity is for the USN and/or Maritime Administration to either: pay for shipyard expansion, or to subsidize the industry (like China does) so domestic shipyards can compete with China in the civilian market.
And design like commercial industry. Not their standards, but their methods.
Having close allies help with work force, as well as facilities issues is a good idea.
That would mean convincing Congress to spend tax dollars outside of their constituencies and subsidize foreign industries. I don't think that will happen.
@@jensl.942 The phenomenon of different stakeholders having different masters is underestimated. A congressperson will represent their district first and foremost - if that means building LCS in their district, despite it being unwanted by the navy, overpriced, under-gunned, unreliable etc... they will vote in favor (because it secures jobs in the district they represent).
Its not the builders its the customer. Foreign yards will run into every problem ours run into. Plus its the GFE that limits much of the pace of production. Those EASR panels get built at a rate and it needs to go into our ships and every other navy we sell them too. This is one reason we are selling our allies SPPY-7 and so far we are the only customer for SPY-6.
Congress will never allow it. Local jobs = local votes.
To me the Constellation class scandal was the final straw. All that was needed was a ship that matched the capabilities of the older OHP Class frigates but with modern systems. They supposedly picked an existing design to simplify and speed things up. Yet somehow these things will cost twice as much as the OHP, take over 10 years to make and be 6 knots slower?? I think this proves the Navy can't be trusted with ship design anymore. They deserve the international humiliation of having some of our ships at least designed if not built overseas for a few years. Maybe after suffering through that they will fix things.
In late July the Italian Navy ordered two additional enhanced FREMM class frigates, for delivery in 2029 and 2030. If not quite matching Japanese shipbuilding timetables, this compares very favorably with the Constellation-class schedule.
Maybe, but it's gonna be go time in WestPac soon
@@reallyhappenings5597 I think you're right. The Constellation is already too late to make a difference. I think we're going to need the mothballed ships back sooner rather than later.
@@peterdavis7579 Except their decision to delivery timeframe is way shorter.
To be a modern OHP it needed a radar to use the same size missile that now goes several times further. That missile also needs to hit a faster, smaller target that may be low observable. I think my beef would be that I'd have liked to see a cheap version of Burke as a competitor to FFG. We need more hulls and have enough flt IIIs ordered.
Would removal of Shipyard subsidies in the 1980's be partially to blame? That correlated to the loss of shipyards, companies and skilled workers. All we now need!
Roads are subsidized, why the stigma. Other solution would be remove those subsidies and watch inland waterways load up with container feeders.
We need to do something about our commercial ship building. Trying to only build naval ships isn't sustainable and causes too much ebb and flow to maintain a competent workforce while also driving up the price.
Roads are subsidies, airports get subsidized. If every road were a toll road more trucks would be off the road and more containers would move on the rivers.
Requiring US standards to port in the US and added fees for non US ships would be a start. Including passport fees to step off the ships if not citizens. Little things that encourage a new US merchant marine. One of the reasons for 1776 is all products had to go though England first even if it was from just off our coast.
@@charlesmaurer6214 That just penalizes us. We need to get honest with ourselves and tell the people our system is far from most efficient. Then start making efficient decisions. That's why I say make most roads toll roads. They talk about taxing people for mile driven, but I don't care about the back country road. I care about the semi truck and whether it needed to be on the road or not.
@@DM-mv4eq It does not punish us to restrict or tax incoming trade, In fact the US budget used to be funded by import/export fees to the tune of 85% instead of taxing the people who made stuff ourselves instead of depending on potential foes in war like China, that the DOD admits have kill switches hardwired into over 80% of all the microchips used in US military hardware that XI can activate at will. Even the UK in repeated test of the updated Polaris Missiles from us failed to fire the Engines to a system wide hardware failure in the electronics. The reason it took so long to shoot down one balloon when two flights of planes previously able to shoot down things in orbit had electronics shutdown. After that it took over a week to strip out every microchip on two planes and missiles to replace them with not China made parts. (I suspect they barrowed the packages from Israel who buys our planes but replace all the electronics before use with those made only in Israel) We tax our people to death and out of business, then give China free trade and even subsidies to move our jobs and property to a future enemy. Even 80% of US meat production is either owned by China or Brazil giving them the power to starve us as the chips disarm us and the Chemical WMDs stream over our border with enough to kill everyone in the US every 2 months. First rule of security is you must secure your resources yourself or whatever you have is useless with the first breakdown or empty fuel tank. Second is if someone else can control it, you are never in control of the equipment. He who can destroy or shut down a thing controls that thing. (almost a Frank Herbert quote)
It does take a long time to design a ship, which is why the Navy was supposed to take the short cut of using the Fremm, but the Navy couldn't just take the easy win and build a bunch of foreign frigates, nope had to be different.
Just reading the required gear should make clear to anyone the design could not remain common. Some self delusion here.
USN has a long-standing tradition of disdainful parochialism in shipbuilding. No surprise there.
It would have been less complex to use the British Type 26, a larger hull from the outset which in the Canadian and Australian versions, was already designed to incorporate US weapons and sensors and likely faster to bring in service with the first RN ship already in the water and fitting out.
@@garyyoung3179 Don't you know, the US Navy can't use something that is British, why Admiral King would turn over in his grave. Our procurement system is so broken it isn't funny.
@@garyyoung3179 Connie ends up using type 26's gensets, that's one give away.
I think they could go back to learn from how the Fletcher and similar classes were built and still use those principles today. It sounds like mass-production principles were used. It reduces flexibility, but if the need is to get high enough numbers of good enough hulls out then it can work.
In many ways it adds flexibility to build a basic hull then add weapons that can be swapped out over time. Fletchers were workhorses that were loaded per a mission. Some carried extra tubes for torpedoes, or depth charges and hedgehogs for anti-sub while others traded much of that for extra antiair weapons. The first was used a lot in the Atlantic while the later for the Pacific for escort duties. Post war many were adapted for other duties with some finding life in the coast guard stripped of the bulk of the weapons for SAR or Law enforcement equipment. Another failure with the modern navy is the scrapping the bulk of the retired ships when we need a ready reserve and most would still be valuable for the Coast Guard, that should not be building new ships (bigger than a PT type, river boat or tug) but refitting older navy ships for a second life. A modern battleship would have missile boxes and energy or rail guns in place of the old big guns, removing a five deck deep support structure for each turret and the largest internal blast threat. With nuclear drive the power would come from the reactors to the mounts that at most require a single deck room below for an energy feed system using transformers and capacitors for the chosen system.
While it may sound backwards, bullet/shell/cartridge designs typically come before gun design. Even if there are exceptions when both designed at the same time or follow on designs are made for existing platforms.
Hello Bill. I read Proceedings in the past. Thank you.
When I was a JR Systems Engineer supporting NAVAIR PMA205(Aircrew Trainers). I was taught by a retired O-6 formerly at NAVAIR that the purpose of the Navy Systems commands/procurement was to SLOWLY buy Systems, speed was not an objective. Seemed fairly accurate during my later tours at SPAWAR and NAVSEA (IWS-2).
Japan regularly takes major warship designs from conception to completion in under 5 years. South Korea is impressively speedy, too, although their focus is a little more terrestrial. If it takes you a decade to build a frigate that’s 80% as large as your destroyers and has half the firepower you need to clean house.
I see the opportunity to expand our shipbuilding capabilities that would be a perfect opportunity to train young people in technical skills that we let expire. Now is the time to create large scale mentorship programs to pass the knowledge on to a new generation that needs a goal. The world doesn't need new video games, but we been computer experts. We need technical grade welders, shipwrights. and electricians.
Many of these skills have retired. But the men (and woman) who have the skills should be brought back to teach younger people the skills.
We are facing an unemployement problem in our eighteen to twenty six year old population. Let's do what we did in the early Nineteen forties, lay the foundation BEFORE we find ourselves in a conflict with China or Russia in the late twenty twenties. I know China is on a war footing over Taiwan. Let's not get caught unprepared.
I agree but it comes down to the willingness to plan and budget more than the next election cycle ahead
Honestly, we are too late for a war within the next decade.
@@ThePTBRULES Wait till this October.
The Navy can't build a ship, submarine, aircraft, or weapon system on time and within budget. Our inability to preform maintenance is another disgraceful issue. The DOD is in love with AI and drones!
And DEI.
In 2006 the navy released a paper showing by 1997 japanese shipyard workers were being paid a little more per hour than their american counterparts (showing our uncompetitiveness was not do to cheaper foreign labor) but crucially they required 4 times less manhours to build the same class of commercial ship. That's why Japan still has a large & competitive shipbuilding industry to this day while ours is dead. So this problem that has existed for a long time & was much longer than that in making. the push for global liberal hegemony or globalism began way back in 1947 with the GATT. They sold us out generations ago. You can have a nation our an empire but not both. I've heard that our manufacturers have become so out of practice & so inefficient & turnover is so high that building a new boat is like learning to walk again after a brain injury.
From ship-building to auto to semiconductor to airplane to space industry, same story, de-industralization from over-financialization, unless people want to accept much lower income and living standards, otherwise no way to reverse the trend.
Robotics automation and AI could enable improvement. It can also destroy us. We better learn fast and pay attention.
Non-military tax payer here who firmly believes our government wastes tons of money. I make that preface for context on what follows. The only way forward is for a massive investment in shipbuilding infrastructure and training. We need to quickly and massively increase both, and that's expensive. Only other option is buy our ships from China, which is a collasively stupid idea. Unfortunately, i dont think we have the political will or intelligence to do it.
One idea being debated is buying ships from Japan or Korea, both allies with great shipbuilding industries, while the US shipbuilding industry and capacity is increased. news.usni.org/2024/09/25/bipartisan-ships-for-america-act-building-support-in-congress-say-sponsors
💰💰💰💰💰 You reach a point where you have to spend more money. 💵 In this case though I think we have to replace Congress and then work our way down. I've been hearing about this same problem for many years but the only clear solution is leadership replacement. None of this is beyond the abilities of our engineers. We need competent decision makers instead of finger pointers.
We need some amendments to make Congress less divisive and more functional. First past the port driving a 2 party system is death by a thousand cuts.
Awesome on this it's Truthful. That the Navy needs to expand. But the U.S. gave up its industrial to Build and Maintain the Navy Not to mention increase capacity. And to have a direction on what to buy. So to figure out what is needed and then Build and Fund the infrastructure to get there
For a low cost Maintenance and repair of the US Navy Ship, USA or the US Navy should have a NASSCO type Repair and Maintenance shipyard in Subic Bay Philippines
If you get away from the basics and training, sell out your oversight, and bias out competitive industries. This is what you get. The passing of knowledge within a trade diminishes. The biggest bang for the buck becomes more bucks for a bang. Then all your left with is a shell of gray hulls with no price controls and a stock holding decision maker. Just a rough overview. This problem worsened with the monopolizing of shipyards and outsourcing maintenance in the 00's. Yard periods became more contractor work than having it be sailors work. The loss of transition sailor to shipyard labor opened the experience gaps.
Thank you for the video. Sounds like there's a desire to turn the navy into a fleet of prototypes. Any engineer will tell you the bulk of the cost and time goes into building the first prototype.
When was the last time any project run by DOD finished on time and on or under budget?
I actually like the concept behind the tri hull design of the Independence. If it actually fulfilled it's design goals (specifically the speed portions,) it would be a nice asset for a variety of missions.
They just need to figure out how to keep the hull from separating.
Also, as I understand it, the freedom's issues with the engine / drive train have been solved. So that should be a class of ship that is useable.
I think LCS-2 has a lot of untapped potential. I think when we see the Saudi version of the LCS-1 we will wonder why we built in a massive delay for Constellation when we could have started pumping out 2 if these improved ships per year. We'd have about 12 by the time we get he first Connie.
Can't blame Rumsfeld for the Navy's problems. He didn't create the Zumwalt, which the navy didn't want and was only designed because the Marine Corps wanted something to replace the Iowas firepower on land. He had nothing to do with the Constellation mess. The only thing in common is the five sided building in Northern Virginia can't get its crap together.
Congress more than Marines
Brian O'Rourke is without peer. Thank God the CRS has him.
Other than some sort of experimental one-off example, I am absolutely deadest against having any foreign shipyard build ships and/or hulls for the USN. For no other reason than it being a national security issue. Offshoring our defense industrial base is the height of lunacy. If capacity is an issue then Congress needs to bite the bullet and make the necessary funds available to procure the requisite shipyards and workforce necessary to achieve the hull numbers required.
Nothing classified about the hulls all the classified equipment is only incorporated during the fitting out period which was suggested to be done in the US. Even then, most of the systems are also used by several allies already. It would never pass Congress anyway because of labour issues unless it was deemed a national emergency.
@@garyyoung3179 I am not all that concerned about issues of classified equipment with respect to foreign shipyards building warships for the US.
My concerns are being dependent upon a foreign country to manufacture our weapon systems. The US needs to be self-reliant when it comes to building our weapons.
NAVSEA needs to be overhauled. It employs 86,886 employees!
The list IS long. And I ask this as a mere civilian who has followed the Sea Services since childhood, for the LCS and to a degree, the new frigate program, why not up-gun the USCG NSCs? Those cutters already operate in the littorals and, in most ways, are frigates.
I would add, on the capacity problem, that it is time to re-active (actually, re-acquire as well) former government shipyards. I am thinking Mare Island; Philadelphia; and (ideally), Boston and Charleston, the latter including reactivating the submarine base.
I understand some of the reasons for the post-Cold War draw down. But it’s past time to reorient away from that thinking-along with which it is past time to re-shore our industrial infrastructure and capacity. Yes, labor is cheaper overseas. But the race for cheap labor has created both economic and national security gaps; gaps that every news cycle shows we can no longer afford.
A dilemma that was created by the USN and their short-sighted outlook on their own future. Whatever is being taught at the various military graduate schools, the results are dismal as way too many flag officers are coming out incapable of conceptualizing, sourcing, building and maintaining a fleet.
As a college student preparing to graduate with a degree in Information Decision Sciences, how can I get involved in supporting our shipbuilding capabilities?
Look for jobs with shipbuilding companies. Bollinger, Austal, General Dynamics, HII, and NASCO are all looking for good people. On the government side, Naval Sea Systems Command and the Naval Research Lab are involved in ship design and new technologies for the fleet.
All of this was great except for one off-hand comment: "building a ship is more complex than building a missile." Polaris was both a ship and a missile, and it was far MORE complex and revolutionary an undertaking than any other shipbuilding project of its day. And it was still accomplished in a few years.
Whatever we used to do in those days was better. Not perfect, maybe, but good enough. So why can't we go back to doing things that way?
The Zumwalts should be converted to cruisers and be the base for a new class of cruiser, preferable nuclear. Also no idea why they felt the need to re-invent the wheel on the gun for Zumwalts, its like they forgot the mk71 existed.
The "ship" part of Zumwalt all works. It was the "whizz bang" new weapons that were vaporware. What should have happened. The Zum's should have contined to be built as Burke successors. Stick the Block III Burke fit on an Zum, and you are good to go. Sadly, its now too long ago to just restart production.
The Zumwalt's have everything needed. massive electrical capacity and cubage for modern weapons and future upgrades. Such as new weapons that work, later in life. So, instead of using a proven hull and drive train with existing weapons. Scrap the programme after three ships.
Classes are an odd one. What is a cruiser,destroyer and frigate today. The Tico's are "cruiser's" due to the stroke of a pen. They were designed as destroyer's. Only the "cruiser gap" scare with the USSR got them redesignated.
IMO, a modern day real cruiser would have to be in the 20-25k ton range. They would have to be that big to carry the massive VLS cells needed to qualify. As until someone finally figures out how to easily and quickly reload VLS at sea. a ship will be out of missiles in a single engagement with the current "shoot, shoot, look" doctrine, that everyone uses. A cruiser will need the tubes to do both air, land and sea combat. So a few land attack or surface missiles mixed in with the SAM's not going to cut it. As an aside. I believe the current fastest, semi prototype at sea realoding of VLS takes an hour per missile and functionally calm seas. Which to reload a Tico is 122 hours. Five full 24 hour days to reload a single ship.....
@@Yandarval We could still do a flt II Zumwalt. Zeus might lead us their.
@@Yandarval And don't forget the trip back to base without anything left to fight with after the load is shot leaving the ship and others sitting ducks until reloaded.
@@DM-mv4eq Unfortunately, that will lead to another FREMM. Too many "interested" paties wanting to dick around with the design again. The Zum's plans are already done. A subclass to fit a Burkes loadout should be the limit of the changes. Otherwise its yet another clean sheet design. Designs for a Zum's tooling etc exist. They would need to be manufactured again, of course. But should be a lot quicker to put back into series production.
One look at all the failed studies to replace the Burkes highlights the fact that US yards will not be able to produce a clean sheet design within a decade at least. A lightly modded Zum is the best the US can do for the next 10-20 years IMO.
Congress, as always happened will bleat about cost. Forgetting that a shooting war cost a hell of a lot more. So large production runs, say 12 at a time will be needed.
The RN is not quite as bad. we have new designs. we just need more and faster construction of them.
@@charlesmaurer6214 Well, that was sort of unspoken, when I was banging on about how hard it is to reload VLS. the 122 missiles of a Tico, if all SAMs. Thats 62 missile intercepts under the shoot, shoot, look doctrine. Which is not a lot when any miss will mission kill a ship, at best. Aegis on auto will empty a ship in short order. The Cherry on top is a Tico carries more missiles that basically any other Western ship. Most have a lot, lot less.
IMO, new ships need to start looking back to WWII. More guns for point defense. Shells are easy to transport and reload. keep the missiles for the long range attack and intercept. Not the 40mm of the past. More of the 76mm and up autoloading weapon systems floating around now.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_76_mm
It is not just the Navy's ship building. Look at the other armed services.
Is the Military Industrial Complex and its toxic ("legal") relationship with congress
Not a professional but I am curious what you think about the viability of large surface platforms on the long term in this hypersonic and drone filled world. Are investments in current technologies likely to be viable in the next 30 years?
Shared.
Should have built the first flight as 95% common for the frigate and while those are being built, set up set two with some improvements and three with the next improvements. Then you get, as a minimum, the first set fairly quick. Make the Zumwalts into dedicated motherships for the ghost fleets. Include with them technicians and staff to maintain at sea the Ranger and the whole ghost fleet. Then get Naval Group to build a dozen of the MCM ships they are building for the French and Netherlands for a similar purpose plus surface drones. Build small diesel subs ( Like the Swedish design ) for local defense and based off of forward naval bases ( Guam, Japan, etc ). And, yes, upgun the larger USCG ships as others suggested. "Dear Naval Group/Austal/Turkey, what is the most powerful corvette you can design and build for $80 million?" Also, more ships means more need for sailors which is a separate issue. A fine discussion gentlemen.
As a freedom class sailor, I’m looking forward to the day they either decommission or put all the maintenance in the hands of the crews, contractors have beyond screwed up these ships. While the ship on paper was great, those combining gears are this ships kryptonite, I feel like the Philippines navy would benefit from these in the china conflict and can give us valuable war fighting data. But even tho the ship may be a failure , the crews I have worked with are some of the greatest men and women I’ve served along side of.
Former USAF here (so .. "the enemy") - the Air Force has similar problems with systems development. You could make an argument that the invasion of Ukraine made the F-35 a success by getting the production numbers up.
I tend to fall on the Rumsfeld side of the construction of the Ford. The way to make ships & systems maintainable and crewable is to have them standardized. You get a new crewman and they already know where everything is and how to quickly get to their battle station. While the Arleigh Burke is a success - they're essentially a series of one-offs. I would want Kennedy and Enterprise to have less than $75mm in design changes from Ford, unless there's a showstopper of a problem (haven't heard of one yet).
Something you didn't really touch on is careerism. You were almost there but didn't say it (and it's a problem in the USAF too). When you have people rotating through the program office every 2 years, and each of them want to show the promotion board that they were effective leaders and contributors - you end up with design churn. What you need (to speak bluntly) is an asshole who will push hard to get the ship/system delivered and working, and is able to say No to unneeded changes. And will stay in that position until it achieves operational readiness.
Building them faster would make them have a chance to be more the same. Avoid obsolescence.
Coming from the heavy industrial sector, we have deindustrialized. It has an impact. Can anyone comment on the evolution of safety in shipyards impacting productivity? (IOW's, lawyers making safety decisions w/o having the on the ground experience...?) We have seen a significant impact due to this in the heavy industrial...
The best ship s have already been built long time ogo thats the best strongest keeping it old-school gots to!!!!!!!.❤❤❤❤😊
As an European I stumbled upon this video and reading the responses I wanted to say that the oldskool Battleships are bad-*ss. But look at the ramped-up tempo that China is putting out navy vessels of the latest tech. I read that in >7yrs. their Navy will out number the U.S...
Not just Drill Baby Drill but also Build Baby Build.
Make America that America I was used to, about how my Dad always talked about the 🇺🇸 Dream. Coca Cola, Levi's, Awesome kick-*ss V8's.
Ever since Trump got involved I paid more attention about what (mostly) he talked about and was truly shocked to see the despair the state of the country was in. Cultural, Political. So different in such short time.
I think it will turn for the better, if not; "Something might be rotten in the state of Danmark".
I work for a small engineering company in southeastern CT, and we get plenty of transplants from Electric Boat.
I've heard so many stories of people being handed 2 days worth of work, and being told to make it last 2 weeks. Welders hanging pipe hangers for pipes that haven't been installed, then knocking them off and reattaching them weeks later when the pipes are attached. Bolts that cost 10x a COTs equivalent due to arcane technical requirements.
There is an understanding in that organization that it's fine if your work is 90% waste, so long as you can charge it to the govt.
I've had to install equipment in an Amtrack yard. It wasn't that bad, but for any work being done a second person is observing just to make sure the first guy is safe. The safe checker usually doesn't pay attention and ends up being the guy who gets hurt. They also have no comms gear so if you need a guy and don't know where he is, you basically wait around all day hoping they can be found wherever they are hiding.
@DM-mv4eq So the issue isn't typical "1 guy working 3 guys watching" union shit.
There's a general attitude that what they're there to do is to charge hours to the government, not to build submarines.
We've hired multiple designers from them with 5-10 years of experience who come to us on the competency level of a fresh grad from tech school. People tell stories of going to work hungover, taking naps, and finding ways to fill time because their managers won't give them more work even when they ask.
That company is being run by its union, and the union is well beyond the point of caring about the product. They just want to hire as many people as possible, and do the bare minimum to keep the Navy from actually developing a competitor for them.
It's kind of hard to explain. But the people who come out of EB describe accountability purely in terms of
A) Does your work meet all technical requirements? (I do think what they produce is high quality when it's done)
B) Did you maximize the billable hours for your work?
Congress should have picked the least problematic lcs and ordered both shipyards to build them. We could have built a lot of the lcs that worked and would have had a simplified logistics chain. The problem is the Navy kept hoping for a solution to their math problem, namely the scarcity of appropriations for ship building.
The problem was that there was no real trial ship.
No systems succesfully integrated b4.
Indy built at Marinette would never leave the lakes. The plan was 2 yards buut by team. General Dynamics teamed with Austal and would have had Bath be yard number 2.
Is it me or have we seen Nav Sea basically take on the attitude of the Bureau or Ordinance from the 30's?
The Ford's electro magnetic ordinance elevators were developed by HII as contractor equipment. HII decided that the risk is not warrant a Land based test site. NAVAIR had nothing to do with the development and risk management of those systems
Genuine question, though it seems like there maybe some obvious flaw: Is there any reason we could not surge defense spending to half of gdp growth more than current spending adjusted for inflation until we hit like double current spending to near Cold War levels spending and solve the issue entirely?
Over several years, that’d be like a trillion or more in funding. For example: Assuming we could recruit for, build, maintain, and supply logistics for a carrier battle group for like $100 billion in the short term, is there any reason we couldn’t just splurge on 5 or more carrier battle groups in the next 7-20 years among buying thousands of extra missiles and hundreds of more F-35s?
Assuming that all the economists are not bullsh*ting engagement baiting us saying that China’s economy will stagnate/barely grow like Japan’s in 20-50 years, then wouldn’t that be worth a 7-12 more years of Cold War level spending just to completely eliminate the risk calculus in China’s favor?
Time and time again the USMC shows us how it’s done. What I mean by this is that the US Navy cannot afford what it has ( Or what it wants.) and needs to choose priority’s like the USMC recently did, even removing heavy armor from the force.
Thus the USN should start training more American kids in school and invest in public shipyard and the people to man them. They should cut failing programs like the LCS and Zumwalt. That’s the best way forward imo. We should pay the piper now as it’s unavoidable and it will never be easier to do than right now. The longer we put this off the harder it gets and every US admin going forward is likely to demand readiness as China is pushing for that outcome to ensure we cannot invest in the future. We must not let China get its way.
Biggest issues: #1 lack of building and repair structures. #2 lack of development or construction of any sustained combat vessels since WWII short of the carriers both Ford/Nimitz and Landing assault types. #3 Over investment in failed designs with all of the littorals (high maint. and short ranged issues) (The rail guns need farther development.) Upgrades in tech is great but useless if fundamentals are forgotten. We need a new main fleet ship class that is both long range, multirole and able to handle sustained combat. At least some large fast Cruisers to travel with Carrier Battle Groups that have nuclear drive and have missile loads, bombardment ability and a fleet antiair/sub defense systems. I would propose a group of 4-6 new battleships that are a hybrid design scaled on an Iowa with the nuclear drive, a small well deck and 4 craft hanger aft for special ops or to augment other fleet ops. (Hanger I picture is 2 bays for 4 maybe 6 total VSTOL/Helicopter craft. It should have 2-3X the missile load of the missile cruisers. Would like to see two twin gun railguns (one over the hanger/one forward) A maser/laser mount would be an alternate system for main weapons. Both rail and energy weapons don't require large magazines filled with explosives and draw the power straight from the reactor systems. For secondaries traditional 5" and CWIS mounts. In time the energy weapons will improve and all they need is power and slugs(for railguns) to work. There is no reason for expensive rail rounds as any lump of metal can do, if they cost as much as you said they were shaped charges or included explosive rounds that defeats the idea in that a rail gun depends on kinetic energy on target not explosives.
Big, bankrupting targets. Small, many, cheap.
@@DM-mv4eq Small is useless against China or any area thousands of miles from bases. Small, Many Cheap works for coastal defense but totally useless for any offense when they lack the range to reach a target on the other side of an Ocean. In WWII if not for 2 bombs, every estimate said the final push would have cost a third of our men and fleet. Both in planes and ships we lacked the supplies to roll the enemy and each foot of Japan would have cost a life for much the same reasons our foes do not use military invasion but a draining chemical WMD loaded mass illegal invasion to weaken us from the inside with corrupt and bought leaders aiding the fiscal and population mass take overs.
@@charlesmaurer6214 You blended a lot of topics there. The what if had we not dropped the bomb hasn't faired well under historical scrutiny. An LCS-2 class range at speed is very similar to a Gearing class destroyer. Burke at 3 times larger fairs about the same. Yes we need some large combatants for effective AAW. We don't need that same ship prosecuting subs, doing MCM, or even doing NGFS or strike missions. LCS-2 could be embarking 2 MH-60R and at least towing the existing MFTA. Those Overlord USV/FSVs could be hauling a battery of Tomahawks or SM-6 around. We could also get serious about NGFS again by making them rocket ships with quad packed ER-GMLRS. Cheap, useful. THose ships were designed to haul liquids and deck cargo. Both made stints will over 5000nm at 7-8 knots on their Pacific deployment. Not a large ship, but very cheap, and very useful for any aggressive and inventive talent we may yet have out there.
My recommendation: when congress agrees to a contract for a given number of given product, it will be ILLEGAL to alter the number or product (unless safety is an issue). That's how it's supposed to work. On the other hand, I've also seen how our military has wasted money for the sake for fulfilling a contract. Maybe limit how many of a product it can order at one time? Another recommendation: learn from China and reduce the divide between commercial ship building and Navy shipbuilding. The secret stuff can be put in later. Anyway, good video and good luck.
Need to change the act that limits ships on the rivers and littoral waterways where the ships have to be American Crewed, Captained, Built and Owned. I would suggest modifying the Act to a weighted score where built and owned are emphasized so that just built and owned barely gets you over the "Score" needed to qualify. Then tag a "Comprehensive safety check" every decade for these littoral cargo ships to ensure we have no "tramps" putting people at risk.
Take it the other way. Remove the other subsidies out there. Roads - tax the cars for miles or make more toll roads. Remove oil company subsidies. Make the airlines pay for the taxpayer end of the cost for the FAA. Our ships are true cost to own. Plenty else isn't. Weed it out.
If the Navy stopped looking for new shiny boats and ships and concentrated on ones that could be effective and made in mass, they’d be much further ahead. Needs to be rugged, which means dependable needs to have survivability needs to have firepower and speed. And they have to be able to be maintained by someone with a high school education and you need to be able to produce large numbers of them.
The problem is the ships are too big it's probably the biggest problem we have.
ESBs are big and aren't the problem.
@@DM-mv4eq Actually is the problem why is the frigate 6000 tons. Because somebody in Congress is going to say why is the frigate 6000 tons. And then you get canceled
It seems to me that the navy has been retiring a lot of ships at one time
Indeed. Too many. And too early.
Why can't we build things that our navy needs instead of what they don't need? Why is the triad between military, congress and defense contractor based on money and kickbacks?
Oops, there goes 100 billion? Littoral ships should have been "Low Mix" tin cans. Their operating environment is going to have unknown rocks and shoals combined with hostile rocks thrown by malicious hominids, you are going to have losses. Maybe a littoral "Tender" that stays out at sea carries 4-6 smaller gunboats as part of its "Magazine." All the boats are bigger than a PT Boat with commensurate firepower increase but they are "Tooth, Claw and Muscle" that depend on the mothership for sustainability.
Build these hulked out PT boats and tie them to a supercarrier sized mother ship that would be the command and control node with defensive firepower like a Russian Battle cruiser. Lots of AA and point defense with just enough ranged ability to make a single attacking ship a boarders flying chunks of metal and chum.
Now you have much cheaper ships and steady work for a lot of people starting at lower skills for the Gunboats, higher skills for the Mothers, and the trained people can build the Supercarriers, Subs and Destroyers. The smaller boats can be made by the offshore oilrig companies, and also kick off a possibility of having some transoceanic capable costal/ river cargo ship builders. That infrastructure would enable Pacific and North Atlantic capable "Free Trader" grade ships for "point to point repeat runs"
I think of a business model where a company owns 4 ships and has a couple crews that shuttles them around like LPG tankers that the crew flies to. When a tanker fills the crew is all present and the go take the ship to the "Supply dock" that services a propane powerplant for an Alaskan or Maine town that can be swapped out like a propane tank. The ships are more like mobile storage tanks. Make a supersized one or few to service Vancouver and Prinz Edward Island... You build back better and develop the capacity to surge small, cheap, disposable, specialized stuff you may need in a shooting war.
Your small combatant mothership concept is part of the original Sea Fighter idea. Think ESD mothership with 50m 164' combatants on deck.
Should have just bought the Danish Frigates, like the Royal Navy did.
We'd just end up with what we are seeing on FFG-62. Delay by redesign to meet standards.
⭐️
maybe the USN should contract china to construct the shipbuilding
Good reference to the movie "Pentagon Wars", fantastic movie!
It's like you have a constituency driven build program, a bit like SLS in the space program. It's not a choice by NASA or engineers, it's a choice of members of congress wanting jobs in their districts demanding the use of shuttle contractors.
The old adage, that an Elefant is a mouse built by a committee. This is where the navy is today.
Secretary Rumsfeld was a disaster. A modern version of MacNamara
This is an issue mainly because of the continuing increase in low cost prc vessels.
Money problem
The USA like the US Navy and US Marine Corps should hire Filipinos to the US Military as Gen Mc Arthur did in the 40's, Many Filipinos joined US Army and US navy and US Marines
There are Names and People behind this mess, but not hearing about any accountability for it. All those highly skilled and capable Navy Shipbuilding Yards that were shut down (BRAC), and the quality shipbuilding talent squandered, miss them now don't we. Contractors promising you top quality ships in a timely manner and once the dotted lines signed, up goes the costs and backwards goes the delivery time, and no accountability, and the now often Slapped Together end product, my cousin Kuda could have built better behind the Farm Barn! (Littoral ships built today cancelled tomorrow where's a Truck of that "Loss of Confidence" when its really needed, someone needs to take charge and correct this.
On top of everything that was discussed, the increasing vulnerability in the last few years of large ships has been demonstrated in Ukraine. Should they do another re-design?
And disproven in the Red Sea.
@@DM-mv4eq Yemen isn’t exactly a peer of the United States. China would launch a lot more than the occasional drone or missile.
🤲🏽🇵🇸homeland 🏡/ Country with their own currency. Where you can go on holiday just like the rest of the world 🌍.
its BeauOrd and the mark 14 all over again
take back the philly shipyard for ship repair!
Shipyards are miserable environments.
The best shipbuilding Navy 😮 We do not like to build things in America. Also, the Navy mistreats its personnel and they want nothing to do with the Navy or the Shipyard 😮
Obama with his wiseass comments to mitt Romney regarding size of navy did not help
There's only one reason for the lack of Shipbuilding in the U.S. Politics! Where are most, if not all are the jobs going to? Statewise.
China is building warships faster than we did in WW2. Plus they build 53% of the worlds commercial shipbuilding. How did Roosevelt handle things in 1938 to build a world class navy? I know we are in worse shape today because of our loss of manufacturing but there must be lessons we can apply to turn things around? The President needs to declare an emergency and use the bully pulpit to educate the public as to how much trouble we are in. The current administration can't even admit we are in a new Cold War with China. We may be on the losing end of a Hot War soon if current trends continue.
China's build rate isn't remotely our rate in WWII although it is absolutely apples to oranges.
China's build rate isn't US rate during WWII, for it is not wartime now. In case there is war btw the US and China, China could easily add up 2-5 million metric tonnes of warships and China builded 50 milions of commercial ships. Many Chinese docks are building commercial and warships at the same time. It is a deliberate policy to make commercial building dock adapting to wartime need quickly.
2-5 milion metric tonne a year.
Building over 50 milions commercial ships 2023.
Chinese ship builders have 1500 ships on their order books and their US colleagues have only order stock of 5 ships.
Sell all the shore to condo development then wonder where the shipyards are.
Why are all our current US Navy and US Coast Guard shipbuilders on the east coast? Why? How about lowering costs through competition? West and Gulf Coast States need to invest in shipbuilding facilities both military and civilian ships. Why are South Korea, China and Japan constructing ships and not the USA? Because we are shortsighted and inept. Poor leadership 😢
Bollinger, Austal, Eastern, and Pascagoula are in the Gulf.
@@USNavalInstitute Excellent reply. Problem still is most large ships and subsurface ships of the US Navy are all built on the east coast. The gulf coast States have Communist Cuba to contend with and those pesky seasonal storms which regularly populate. However, your reply is educational and reassuring. Totally appreciated. Mahalo! Bravo Zulu
Amend the law to any country that has purchased F-35s from us can build ships for us. We should buy ships from S. Korea and Japan.
For me, the perfect design group would have some old crusty Chiefs and Enlisted that give no shi*s about rank and tell the designers what makes sense and what does not. Those who know should be involved.
You've got a point there!
No project can succeed as planned without someone or a very tight group being ultimately responsible for a project's execution to completion. No other successful organization, corporate, non-profit, educational etc.attempts to execute long term objective without stable leadership. How can any military organization expect project success with the constant churning of personnel. MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR EXPENSIVE ERRORS AND THE REST OF OUR SOCIETY PAYS A HUGE PRICE FOR THEM.
They cant even *Design* the damn things.
The Constellation program has been fucked up too.
did he say "warship" or "worship" 😅
Look, You guys know better that me, but if one looks at the past 30 to 35 years, it's not like the US has had a reason to have a 600 ship Navy (end of cold war and then 20 y of war on "terror," such as it was). When one is fighting Asymmetric warfare in a a dessert, ship are not a going concern (even if they should be). One should not be that surprised that the Navy is having these struggles. The Navy is going to sort all of this out. Oh hey, I wanted to add, Rumsfeld was a schmuck.He always was. Just my opinion.
I wish the coast guard would get smart and stay away from NAVSEA
Donald Rumsfeld
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Congressional task force went through the US and around the world closing bases left and right. The bad old Soviet bear became a cuddly warm Russian bear. Unfortunately, these people never learned anything from WWI WWII Korean, and Vietnam wars and closed a substantial portion of US shipbuilding capacity including the Washington Navy Yard. We have sufficient close allies who could build our smaller warships, probably cheaper and on time. President Reagan built up a navy of 600 ships, which had only one major task, and that was to beat down the Soviet Union. Today, the navy has less than 320 ships to confront, again, the Russians and now the Chinese. There have been and unfortunately, there still are, small brains running the Navy today whose major task apparently is DEI CRT BLM ESG LGBTQIA crap. The Navy brass today isn't like the warriors that won WWII.
What is the purpose of USN and Pentagon: to defend US or to defend the "International Liberal Rules Based Order" under which US provides the Rules, is prosecutor, judge and uses its armed forces to enforce its verdicts. That was not effective in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, is not even effective against Yemen and that at a cost that exceeds the defense expenditure of the next ten biggest spenders and leaves US with a huge debt of $35T.
Compare with China whose car industry will take away all the export markets of the US car industry thank not to low wages but to superior technology. US tries to keep low wages low and to that end 'saves' money on education and attracts hugh numbers of foreigners to man a low technology economy.
Have you considered Elon Musks companies to assist in ramping up production technology in the Maritime Industry especially if there is a War and be able to produce ships at a faster rate.
Interesting thought.
None of this is new. Pre ww1 the British could churn out battleships cost effectively and faster than anyone. As they were doing they this brough in new tech oil fired eengines among other things. Post war they start again with new classes but Germany was gone and the British put their faith in treaties to limit warships, when they tried to rebuild in the 30s, many of the yards and expertise was gone in a much worst way than the west faces now.
While no country can compare with the US in size many countries are having similar problems my country Canada being one. Origenally there was a joint US, British , Canadian planning group that exchanged ideas and plans The Burkes and Canadian Halifaxs came out of that. I beleive it was killed by the American government to keep tech to themselves. Following the 1990s Canada built no Naval ships of any consequence and very little in the way of Coast Guard. Folloowup programs were cancelled. When the conservative government started looking at it and blundered badly, but what shook out of it was a program with two yards one on each coast specializing in ship types. They started the Arctic Patrol ship(6500 tons). When the liberals came in they expanded the program and despite higher cost and political crirism expanded the program and selected the British type 26 to build 15 frigates which with changes have become heavily redesigned to become more general purpose destroyers. Aegis, Spy7 systems for example. It looks like they have actually been listening to the navy. The also expanded the program to include 2 new heavy ice breakers using the Davy yard in Quebec. The Davy yard has bought a yard in Finland that has ice breaker experience. The US government has made a deal to allow Davy to build ice breakers in another yard they are purcasing in Louisiana(Jones Act). It also looks like Canada will be building patrol ships on the Lakes(2000+ tons) All this will cost lots of money, but if you are going to develop your navy building almost from scratch it is going to cost and given the size of the US navy a very big cost.
You should never incorporate tech on a ship by ship basis generally you release in blocks and retrofit on the next full refurbishment. There is considerable tech coming down the line. THe problem at least in the American navy seems to be in part a confusion of objectives and doctrine, tech driving design rather than operations and accompanied by down sizing
The United States has decided to spend our wealth on environmental and climate change issues. That's where the wealth of much of the whole economy is being directed.
That leaves reduced amounts for the navy ---- as always funding is reduced when war is not imminent.
So it's time for the United States to face up to that fact and bring our troops and navy home. Let the world solve it's own problems ----it will, you know.
As leftists used to shout: "The United States is not the policeman of the world!" Of course, that was before they discovered how much FUN it was to tell everyone else in the world what they must and must not do. Now they DO imagine themselves the policeman of the world, but without the big stick, or the big industrial economy, to back that up. Because they KILLED the big stick and the big industrial economy.
So let's draw back before we get ourselves in another avoidable disaster.
Let the world sort out it's own problems.
The Navy should consult with some of Elon Musk's industrial engineers. They've revolutionized rocket manufacture. Maybe they could do the same for warship design and construction.
The LCS was iterative. We burnt through 4 non-standard ships. 25 year ships is a larger sunk cost than an iterative rocket development.
Blood pressure 🩸 💥 🩸