Comment on the Maritime News

Starting in September 2005, the Headlines pages have been combined with the Comment pages in a new News and Comment page: please click here to go to the new page and here to go to the summary Headlines page for links to the old Headlines pages.

August 2005

   THE COST OF AIRCRAFT CARRIERS.  The first of the Navy's new generation of aircraft carriers, CVN 78, is currently expected to cost about $8.1 billion, and that's not counting about $5.6 billion in R&D funds.  To put this in perspective, here's what the ten ships of the Nimitz class cost and how long they took to build.

Apart from being the world's most expensive ship by far, it seems to me that it may turn out to be the only one of its class.  If we need 12 carriers in total and each one lasts 50 years, we need to build a new one every four years, as we did with the Nimitz class.  But can we afford $2 billion a year for ever?  If we don't really need 12 carriers and could get by with eight, say, Newport News would have to slow down the construction process to one every six years and the per-ship cost would go up, probably, knowing Newport News, back to the equivalent of $2 billion a year.  So the question still is, can we afford $2 billion a year for aircraft carriers?  

For $8 billion, you could buy maybe 16 DDGs.   Which would you rather have, 16 DDGs, each of which has 96 missile-launching cells, armed with, among other things, Tomahawks, which have a range of 1400 nautical miles, or one CVN, which carries 30 F-18s, each of which can stay in the air for a full 90 minutes before it has to be refueled by a land-based tanker?  (Of course, some folks would rather have neither, opting instead for a decent educational system, or universal health care, or some similar foolishness, and who am I to say that they are wrong?)  Note that these are just the shipyard prices: all up, a DDG costs over $1 billion but CVN 78, with all its planes, will cost about $13 billion.

Maybe it's time to say goodbye to aircraft carriers and their accompanying ships and planes, and to concentrate on building a Navy that's nimble and flexible and responsive.  Then Newport News - the self-proclaimed "world's most advanced shipbuilder" - could turn its talents to the types of ships that it used to be good at, such as cruisers and assault ships.  Tim Colton, August 13, 2005.

   MORE ON LPD 17.  Just in case anyone thinks that this web site is the only source of coverage of the LPD 17 fiasco, here's what the San Antonio Express-News has to say.  

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA073105.1A.uss_sa_folo.344790f.html

Given that LPD 17 is scheduled to be named the USS San Antonio, the folks down there are entitled to be concerned, especially because this will be the first ship ever to be named USS San Antonio, which is somewhat surprising, give the size of that fair city - 9th largest in the U.S., I think.  Tim Colton, August 6, 2005.

July 2005

   HOW MUCH WILL THE LHA(R) COST?  Anxious to get started on another nightmare shipbuilding program, the Navy has awarded a $110mm sole-source cost-plus contract to Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, (NGSS), for advanced planning, long-lead-time material, systems engineering and special studies for the first of the next class of amphibious assault ships, designated LHA(R).  Readers will be interested to know that the LHAs that are to be replaced by this new class, all of which were built by Ingalls, only cost $112.5 mm each, all up, although admittedly that was 25 years ago.  More relevant is the cost of the LHDs, all of which were also built by Ingalls.

Note the jump in price from LHD 4 to LHD 5, driven in part by changes in the combat systems.  Note the dramatic jump in price for LHD 8, driven by a number of significant changes - gas-turbine propulsion, all-electric auxiliary systems and a new command-and-control system, for starters.  Note also that LHD 8 (which the Navy never requested but the Congress funded anyway) is really the first LHA(R) and the ships to come are supposed to be essentially the same as LHD 8, but with a plug.  The Navy expects that the shipyard portion of the total cost of LHD 9 will be over $2 billion.  What do you think?  And why don't they just build more LPDs?  Tim Colton, July 16, 2005, corrected July 22, 2005.

   LPD 17 GETS DAMNING INSURV REPORT.  Click here to read the INSURV report on the Acceptance Trials of the future USS San Antonio (LPD 17).  This is about as bad as an INSURV report can get.  Here are some quotes that stand out:

• OF THE 943 SPACES IN SAN ANTONIO (NOT INCLUDING TANKS, VOIDS, ETC.), 25 SPACES ARE GOVERNMENT ACCEPTED

• POOR CONSTRUCTION AND CRAFTSMANSHIP STANDARDS ARE EVIDENT THROUGHOUT THE SHIP

• WATERTIGHT INTEGRITY IS COMPROMISED THROUGHOUT THE SHIP

• CORROSION IS PRESENT THROUGHOUT THE SHIP

• THE CLEARANCE FOR MILITARY VEHICLES WAS DEGRADED IN THE MAIN, LOWER (AFT), UPPER VEHICLE STOWAGE AREAS AND FLIGHT DECK RAMP BECAUSE OF OBSTACLES OR PROTRUSIONS

• VENTILATION SYSTEMS WERE INCOMPLETE SHIP-WIDE.  OF GREATEST CONCERN WAS THE LACK OF PERMANENT VENTILATION IN HAZARDOUS SPACES

• SHIPBUILDER-PROVIDED CREW TRAINING IN THIS SHIPBUILDING YARD FALLS SHORT OF OTHER NEW CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS

• 36 OF 100 WATERTIGHT CLOSURES INSPECTED WERE NOT WATERTIGHT

and it goes on and on like this.

A whole bunch of folks at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems need to be fired, and not just moved to a cushy non-job in California.  It might be a good idea to fire some NAVSEA personnel too, starting with the Public Affairs person who wrote the ludicrous release for PEO Ships that you can read here and possibly all the way up to the PEO Ships himself.   (If this link doesn't work, as apparently it doesn't for some people, go to www.peos.crane.navy.mil and sneak up on it via the news page and then the page for July.  August 19, 2005.)

NGSS put out a release that appears to put all the blame on the Navy and the LPD 17's messed-up design process, saying, among other things, "new technologies are being put into the ship while it's being built, leading to some problems typical of any first-of-class ship".  It's true that the design process was a model of how not to do it, but it's hard to see what that has to do with INSURV comments such as "corrosion is present throughout the ship".  You won't find this release on the Northrop Grumman web site, however, where the big news of the day is that Miss USA visited Newport News and toured the future USS Texas, (another over-budget and behind-schedule Northrop Grumman product.)  Tim Colton, July 14/16, 2005.

Since writing the foregoing, I have received a copy of the special commemorative edition of the Ingalls house magazine "The Shipbuilder"  which gives the impression that these were the most successful sea trials ever.  Read it here: Pages 1-4 and Pages 5-8.  Further comment would be superfluous.  Tim Colton, July 23, 2005.

For comment on maritime news reported in earlier quarters, click on one of the following links:

Second Quarter of 2005

First Quarter of 2005

Fourth Quarter of 2004

Third Quarter of 2004

Second Quarter of 2004

First Quarter of 2004

Fourth Quarter of 2003

Third Quarter of 2003

Second Quarter of 2003

First Quarter of 2003

Fourth Quarter of 2002

Third Quarter of 2002

Second Quarter of 2002

First Quarter of 2002

Fourth Quarter of  2001

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