I know I’ve been preaching to the ‘choir’ about this already…
The U.S. Navy has wasted $1.84 billion since 2015 on rehabilitating its Ticonderoga class guided-missile cruisers, funds the service would rather have spent on newer technology, according to a government watchdog report.
The Government Accountability Office released its “Navy Ship Modernization” report Monday, noting that the Navy’s cruiser rehab program has had “weak oversight” and been “plagued with problems like scheduled delays, wasted costs and poor-quality work.”
Full article, HERE, from Navy Times (which is NOT friendly to the Navy, by the way).
The ‘short’ answers are Congress and Congress. The push/pull on budgeting and ‘games’ with who/where the upgrades were to be done have yanked ships and crews all over the place, in addition to some of the units going ‘cold iron’ for over a year.
Additionally, there are ‘periodic’ upgrades to systems that occur on an every other year basis, both to software and hardware onboard the ships. Sooooo, the ‘contract’ might say something like ACB 7, when the fact is there are two more iterations of that build, and one or two or three iterations of hardware also.
Which means the contractor has to go back and get a contract mod, get new funding, retrain workers, etc.
To ‘my’ knowledge, we do not have a single class of ships that all have the same systems and hardware aboard! That is how screwed up this mess is, in addition to the lengths of time (scheduled 2 years, taking 4 years) in the yards.
That pushes the next ships further out, lather, rinse, repeat…
But the Fleet is supposed to meet ALL of its commitments worldwide, plus exercises, plus training commitments, etc. because those are ‘mandated’ by on high.
Grrr…
Things that come back to bite one in the arse, hard:
1. Deficit spending.
2. Liberal social experiments on your warrior class.
3. Dumbing down education decade after decade.
So now there’s not enough money, not enough volunteers, and not enough smarts to fix it all.
Democrats = Idiocracy.
To ‘my’ knowledge, we do not have a single class of ships that all have the same systems and hardware aboard!
So you wouldn’t be able to TAD a crewman from one ship to another as they would have to retrain on the TAD ship before they would be useful. It also makes me wonder about munitions, as they wouldn’t necessarily be transferable.
I used to run development programs at a fortune 500 company. The Execs played budget games. At one point I figured I lost 6 months every year due to the impact of these games. Put a project on hold and when funding is restored 1 Jan it takes a while to get people back on the job and remember where they were. About the time we start running smooth, we get a budget cut. Repeat until September when budget for rest of the year is cut because someone is not making their numbers.
This is what happens when all you do is play with numbers and don’t focus on results. You are better off doing 1 of 3 programs and getting it done come hell or high water than trying to penny-pinch your way on all 3.
IMHO.
That was the story of my years at Rocketdyne on the Space Station project. Half the year was spent dealing with budget changes and schedule slip. I swear Congresscritters think if you feed a pregnant woman half the food she needs you can stretch her pregnancy out to 18 months, or you can get a baby in 3 months by getting 3 women pregnant.
But, these are the same people who think the following is a valid math problem: “If an orchestra of 40 musicians can play Beethoven’s First Symphony in 45 minutes how long will it take 65 musicians to perform the piece?”
Why on earth–and how do you–“scheduled delays”? What purpose does that serve?? I never worked in the public sector, always been in the private sector in healthcare, which certainly has it’s own issues, not getting on THAT soapbox, but scheduled delay??? WTH?!?!??
Uniformed Navy can take some of the blame as well. Change in commands means change in priorities. O-7 and above refuse to hold the line and are as big of political beasts as their civilian counterparts.
As far as embracing new technology,the USN has a terrible track record getting anything new on time and on budget. From the LCS, electromechanical arresting gear to the rail gun literally billions of dollars have been wasted.
All- Good, valid points! Gerry- I have ‘stories’…sigh
And if asked what’s required to fix the issue all the corrupt people involved will say more money is needed.
The empire is failing, things fall apart, the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the Navy…
Dan- Exactly!
Tree- Pretty much…sigh
I hate to see the CG’S go away , I am a “plankowner” on one that is sked for decomm in 2025. I’ve got a soft spot for the Tico Aegis cruisers , big top heavy looking ugly bastards. Got to meet Wayne Meyer the “Father of Aegis” several times in Bath Maine , great guy , nice man to talk to about anything. DGUTS !!!
Here’s a question to keep you up nights: If the Navy, and FedGov in general, were being run by our enemies; how could we tell the difference?
Let me as a question about shipbuilding. Where is the majority of the expense? Is it in the hull and the stuff that makes to move through the water? Or is the cost in everything else that makes it a warship? Understand now that much of the mechicanical and electronic equipment is on both military and non military. So, is it cheaper to upgrade and existing hull or start from scratch with a new hull?
Heh, back in the late 70’s when I went to work as a field engineer at a Very Large Defense Contractor, I was told that I could expect to work on the system I was hired to work on for about 7 years. When I retired 20 years later I was still doing upgrades on that system – even as the ships it was on were being sold off.