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Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Not everybody has a Twitter account, so no, I have never interacted with him. With 2 little kids, I am lucky if I have time for ship photo of the day here - although I do make as much time as I can to listen to naval history.

As for the articles, I thought both showed real world issues, and the historical consequences of not having enough logistics.

We have a shipbuilding crisis that accelerated when Reagan and the Republicans got rid of tariffs / subsidies. We have not only lost most of the infrastructure and the workforce, but it appears we no longer have the institutional knowledge of how to build warships at scale. This is reminiscent of the degradation of the German surface fleet from WW1 to WW2.

Do you legitimately think that Trump or his bros want a "workforce" to exist when they are all finished? Serious question.....
 

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
Let me restate my position then. Konrad’s content is perfect for someone like you.
Brett, which statement below did Randy make that was inaccurate? Even official Navy sources have acknowledged the issues within our shipbuilding and maritime maintenance infrastructure and workforce. I can tell you from personal experience that these issues exist and that we are working on figuring out how to fix them. I feel like you're shooting the messenger here.
We have a shipbuilding crisis that accelerated when Reagan and the Republicans got rid of tariffs / subsidies. We have not only lost most of the infrastructure and the workforce, but it appears we no longer have the institutional knowledge of how to build warships at scale. This is reminiscent of the degradation of the German surface fleet from WW1 to WW2.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Nothing from Konrad can really be considered a “good article.”

From what little I've seen and heard about him he is a bit like Ward Carroll, but with less actual experience and credibility.

We have a shipbuilding crisis that accelerated when Reagan and the Republicans got rid of tariffs / subsidies. We have not only lost most of the infrastructure and the workforce, but it appears we no longer have the institutional knowledge of how to build warships at scale. This is reminiscent of the degradation of the German surface fleet from WW1 to WW2.

I am not sure you can lay all the blame of our shipbuilding industry at a lack of subsidies and tariffs, foreign shipyards have been building first-class products at much less cost for decades now. While there is likely some need for government assistance a company that relies primarily on something like that often does not produce the best product.

And while our shipbuilding industry needs help I wouldn't say we've forgotten to build warships to scale, as DDG's and SSN's continue to be built at a decent rate. I think many of the issues with the FFG's seem to be with the Navy and not the shipbuilder, though from what I've seen they do have issues as well.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
Do you legitimately think that Trump or his bros want a "workforce" to exist when they are all finished? Serious question.....
Judging by the last 2 decades of offshoring and H1B visas, does anybody on Wall Street want a US workforce?

That said, President Trump would be interested in “Lenny, you will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters” by giving them meaningful and rewarding blue collar jobs - and these voters would be highly likely to reward said benefactor and his party.
 

Randy Daytona

Cold War Relic
pilot
Super Moderator
From what little I've seen and heard about him he is a bit like Ward Carroll, but with less actual experience and credibility.



I am not sure you can lay all the blame of our shipbuilding industry at a lack of subsidies and tariffs, foreign shipyards have been building first-class products at much less cost for decades now. While there is likely some need for government assistance a company that relies primarily on something like that often does not produce the best product.

And while our shipbuilding industry needs help I wouldn't say we've forgotten to build warships to scale, as DDG's and SSN's continue to be built at a decent rate. I think many of the issues with the FFG's seem to be with the Navy and not the shipbuilder, though from what I've seen they do have issues as well.
There are some industries that are dual use, have tremendous national security implications, and must be supported at all costs. Shipbuilding is one of them.

The Virginia class subs were first laid down under Clinton, the first Burke under Reagan. We have no ability to surge production. As for new ships, the LCS, Zumwalt, Ford, hardly inspire confidence in being on time or on budget. I agree that the Constellation class frigate’s issues are with the Navy constantly changing specifications.

Interesting article:
 

BigRed389

Registered User
None
There are some industries that are dual use, have tremendous national security implications, and must be supported at all costs. Shipbuilding is one of them.

The Virginia class subs were first laid down under Clinton, the first Burke under Reagan. We have no ability to surge production. As for new ships, the LCS, Zumwalt, Ford, hardly inspire confidence in being on time or on budget. I agree that the Constellation class frigate’s issues are with the Navy constantly changing specifications.

Interesting article:
Burkes did relatively well in construction because we developed a pretty good idea of what we want them to do, and it fit well in the Fleet design. If you dig back far enough though, they had their growing pains…there’s a reason my first ship was first nicknamed “Always Broke.” Once the design stabilized we got pretty good at building them. And the Fleet actually wanted them enough to let the design go through the growing pains. So I’d agree with Flash…there are some designs we do know how to build. The problem is capacity, which is both about infrastructure and the labor force. Where you have a point, is that we don’t have another labor pool and spare yards to tap to increase capacity. FFG is an example of that…the yards that are stamping ships out for us are tapped out, which in what incentivized us to look for someone new…which has been part of the problem.

LCS, Zumwalt and Ford are examples of ships where the Navy tried to get too fucking clever for its own good. Ford…y’all know plenty about the problem of shoving all the experimental technologies into a ship at once. The first two were designed to requirements and missions that made zero fucking sense, the Navy couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted, and the Fleet hated the idea of what the Navy was pushing. We really should’ve just fucking built more Burkes and FFG7s instead of trying to get cute.

Constellation is a bit different…though some themes repeated. It does actually fit the conventional Fleet design pretty well, in the sense it is at its worst still a shit load better than a FFG7, and the Fleet would immediately know WTF to do with it.

Where Navy did screw up is in signing up for a design requirement that made no sense…forcing it to adopt an “in service” foreign design inspired false confidence, because at a minimum we had to rip out all their weapon systems to incorporate ours. Then someone (Congress?) fucked it even harder because a whole lot of exemptions in the original Euro design from “Buy American” got shit canned, forcing them to swap in additional US mechanical and electrical systems too. I’m not sure who screwed up the survivability standards requiring further redesign. From folks I know - the shipyard didn’t do great either. They apparently didn’t actually expect to win, and weren’t actually ready with enough engineers/architects and skilled technical labor in the yard to actually deliver what they signed up for.

Bottom line, the aviation analogy I would use:

We bought a Eurofighter, then declared we’d be able to rapidly onshore the design to build despite:
1) Needing to replace all the avionics, ordnance systems, and radar/EW with US systems
2) not checking if we could just accept their structural standards…it’d be like taking an AF jet and deciding we needed to beef it up for carrier landings then surprise face - it’s a heavy pig
3) instead of going to an established manufacturer like LM or Boeing, deciding to go to a relatively new startup who had only previously built jet trainers.
3A) after picking the new guys, make it even harder for them by telling them midstream that they need to up the amount of the European design using US parts. So…engines, electrical systems, whatever it takes to hit some arbitrary number
 

Duc'-guy25

Well-Known Member
pilot
We bought a Eurofighter, then declared we’d be able to rapidly onshore the design to build despite:
1) Needing to replace all the avionics, ordnance systems, and radar/EW with US systems
2) not checking if we could just accept their structural standards…it’d be like taking an AF jet and deciding we needed to beef it up for carrier landings then surprise face - it’s a heavy pig
3) instead of going to an established manufacturer like LM or Boeing, deciding to go to a relatively new startup who had only previously built jet trainers.
3A) after picking the new guys, make it even harder for them by telling them midstream that they need to up the amount of the European design using US parts. So…engines, electrical systems, whatever it takes to hit some arbitrary number
We did this, it’s called the T-45.
 
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