Perception is reality.
A lie told often enough becomes truth.
Flawed reality, when experienced long enough, becomes normal and right.
We have lived with a badly broken naval acquisition and operating system for so long that our flawed reality has become the norm. Indeed, for many of us, it is the only reality we have ever known. Many of us did not live through the 600 ship fleet of the 1980s and no longer believe that it’s possible to build, operate, and man a fleet of that size.
Consider,
Fleet Size – We’ve come to believe that it is not possible to acquire, man, and operate a 600 ship fleet despite the fact that we actually did it in the 1980s. It’s an historical fact and yet many of us don’t believe it’s possible.
Construction Time – We’ve come to believe that several year ship construction times are normal. We’ve come to believe that the Zumwalt’s 10 year (and counting!) construction time is normal. We’ve come to believe that the Ford’s 12 year (and counting!) construction time is normal. We’ve come to believe that the 3-4 year construction time for a small, simple LCS is normal. We’ve forgotten that the first nuclear powered carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), was built in just 3 years. We’ve forgotten that the first in class USS Spruance (DD-963) was built in 3 years.
Development Time – We’ve come to believe that exaggerated development times are normal. We’ve come to believe that the 20+ years it’s taken to field the F-35 is normal. We’ve forgotten – or never lived through and never experienced – that we developed and fielded the F-14 Tomcat in five years. We’ve come to believe that the Zumwalt’s 16 year development and construction (which isn’t yet over) is normal. We’ve forgotten that we created, developed, and built dozens of new ship classes in just a few years during WWII.
Cost – We’ve come to believe that staggering costs for aircraft and ships are normal.
How many posts on this blog have resulted in a slew of comments stating that something I’ve proposed isn’t possible because ‘reality’ won’t allow it? Of course our current broken reality won’t allow good things … it’s broken! The problem is we’ve come to accept this broken reality as real and right. Well, it may be reality but that doesn’t make it right!
What ca we expect when you have an acquisition workforce that does not know what it takes to design an affordable, effective, reliable and maintainable ship. Turning it all over to Contractors, whose incentive is only to make money, will not provide you the ships we need. On top of that the Admirals can only see their careers and future employment. Lastly the politics of the budget, which does not factor in combat effectiveness, just runs over the few remaining people that know to design and build a ship requires a knowledgeable and experienced workforce that is allowed to work without constant budget drills or requirements changes. Those of us that know what it takes do not accept it, we jsut can't find an effective way to fight the MICC.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if The Air force can design and build their new fighter quickly as they intend to do. If they can do it there will be no excuses. Sorry, there will be, but they will be even more feeble than the current excuses.
ReplyDeleteI think a part of the problem with the political end of the process is that we've gotten away from having military people (who at least in theory understand the needs) in senior political office. 18 of our first 21 presidents (all but Adams, Quincy Adams, and Van Buren) served in the military, and 21 of our first 25 (add Cleveland to the list of non-serving), many as general officers. Ike is the last general/flag rank officer to serve as president, and before him the last was Benjamin Harrison. And most who served in WWII or subsequently did token non-combat service.
ReplyDeleteCivilian control of the military is our formula, and it has generally worked very well, particularly to prevent the kinds of endless juntas that have plagued so many of our neighbors to the south. But when those civilians have no idea how the military works, and try to force concepts that may work in the civilian world but are unfit for military purposes (to pick equally on both major parties, I'm looking at you, Robert McNamara and Donald Rumsfeld) we end up fighting Vietnams and Afghanistans and Iraqs, buying weapons systems that don't work and cost absurd amounts, and focusing our personnel on everything but warfighting.
To forestall anyone from putting words in my mouth, I'm not advocating ending civilian control of the military. I don't want to live in Argentina. But we need to find a way to get military judgement back into play in making military decisions. And our current raft of senior officers in all services seems so bought into the current system that I don't see it coming from them.
Experience in the Military is one thing and I agree with that. However career senior military people have become purely political people that cannot make decisions or provide a vision other that what is in it for me? Look at the irony of McMaster not spe3aking out about the last Adminisitration. Look at Powell (RIP) that never said why we got into IRAQ. Look at Mattis and Kelley that stay quiet. I wouldn't hire an Admiral or General EVER.
Delete"we've gotten away from having military people (who at least in theory understand the needs) in senior political office."
DeleteThat's a true statement ONLY if you are referring to the office of President. We've had - and currently have ! - former generals in the office of Secretary of Defense which is the number two spot in the military. At a quick glance, it looks like most SecDefs served in the military.
Clearly, military service does not automatically confer military competence.
"That's a true statement ONLY if you are referring to the office of President. We've had - and currently have ! - former generals in the office of Secretary of Defense which is the number two spot in the military. At a quick glance, it looks like most SecDefs served in the military."
DeleteBut at least two who didn't did IMO great harm.
"Clearly, military service does not automatically confer military competence."
Absolutely not, and it's getting even worse now that military competence is not at the head of the list of factors in promotion and retention of officers.
We didn't actually reach 600 in the 80s and we made a curve with production increases and extending service lives of what we had. Historically, this is the norm. Navies got built quickly when needed. Naval powers were maritime powers and just used their existing workforce, supply chain etc. to build up the navy quickly. We should be doing so now, but we are no longer a maritime power in the traditional sense. We could still have and maintain a 600 ship fleet with the same amount of money we will spend regardless. There is just a need to get practical.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is the military's insistence on having ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT systems for all its new weapons systems. To use the F-35 as an example, its developers insisted it use an ALL NEW engine instead of sharing the F-22's; an ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT maintenance system (the now infamous ALIS) instead of what the USAF, USN, and USMC used for aircraft currently in service; an ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT sensor system (the EOTS) instead of reusing the F-14's infrared sensors, or licensing for domestic production the Rafale or the Eurofighter Typhoon's sensors; causing many delays as these ALL NEW, ALL DIFFERENT systems were designed and debugged.
ReplyDeleteThis desire to be Revolutionary instead of Evolutionary- for publicity purposes, instead of for practicality- is costing us more than we can imagine.
The F135 is a derivative of the F119 engine and used many similar technologies, but adapted to different power requirements. In fact, the first F135 prototype was built from a Frankenstein combination of an F119, an F100-200 and an F100-229. In addition, one of the first monikers for the engine was F119-JSF.
DeleteWhile I don't like to use wiki as a source, in this case, it suffices to describe the lineage and overall architecture of the design.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_F135
brainski
But to be clear, I do wholly concur with your original point about evolutionary design rather than attempts at revolutionary design. The revolutionary designs nearly always overreach, requiring extensive rework (evolution) to correct all the faults which are unavoidable in development and difficult to troubleshoot when interacting in a complex system.
Deletebrainski
"The F135 is a derivative of the F119 engine..."
DeleteI know, but it's obviously not derivative enough, considering its development greatly delayed the F-35's entry to service. If the USAF and USN agreed to use the F119 for the F-35A and C- to hell with the USMC delusion it needed STOVL fighters that could off its amphibious assault ships, which then needed the F135 to provide the necessary thrust at low altitudes, the jarheads could either fly attack helicopters off those ships, fly the F-35C off USN supercarriers, of drown themselves- they'd save a lot of time and money.
One of the things that notably sped F-14 development up was the reuse of the already-developed-and-tested AWG-9 from the failed F-111B project. They also used some points of the F-111B design (which Grumman had been General Dynamics' partner in) as negative references - that is, approaches they knew to be developmental dead ends. Mike Ciminera talks about it at some length in one of his books and one of his talks.
DeleteAnother interesting thing about that program is that it started as an unsolicited offer from Grumman to the Navy - Grumman realized that the F-111B was never going to make weight in 1966 and began work on an alternative design referred to internally as "303", offered it to the Navy in 1967 leading to the VFX program, the contract was awarded in February of 1969, first flight in December 1970, carrier suitability trials completed in November 1973, official fleet introduction and first deployment in September of 1974, most of the really bad bugs with the TF30s worked out by about 1976/1977 (though of course problems remained for years due to poor compressor stall margin, etc).
Unfortunately, the Navy was penny-wise and pound-foolish with the F-14 more or less from the get-go, pulling out of the Advanced Technology Engine program after the prototype tested in 1973 wasn't perfect (for a large performance loss and at a net cost of money even before you account for all the TF30-related crashed), not adopting NASA's improved control laws to improve spin resistance and maneuverability for something like 15 years, taking about ten years to develop and adopt the F101DFE/F110 engine, taking an absurd amount of time to develop the avionics and sensor upgrades that were intended to lead to an F-14C by the late '70s but which actually led to the F-14D in 1991(and even there, it only got done at all because Hughes was able to piggy-back off the work done for the F-15E's APG-70 radar to develop the AWG-9 into the APG-71).
Compare this to how quickly the Air Force moved to address issues with and make improvements to the F-15. Note that they stuck with the ATE program, had it ready to go not long after the Navy pulled out (again, costing both services money due to reduced quantities and contract penalties), and fixed the remaining issues faster than the Navy was able to either fix the TF30 (which never completely happened) or develop and acquire the F101DFE/F110. They also got avionics and sensor upgrades done more quickly.
"started as an unsolicited offer from Grumman to the Navy"
DeleteFirst, let me say, nice comment. It's informative, helpful, and furthers the discussion.
Regarding unsolicited bids, this used to be the norm. In the pre-WWII years on and through, companies used to routinely invest in their own prototypes for possible sale to the government. I don't know when the practice began to end.
Presumably, the practice ended due to the government buying fewer aircraft in fewer 'lots'. Whereas before, companies were pretty much guaranteed to win sufficient numbers of contracts to justify their own internal development, now the issuance of very few contracts (and winner-take-all, on top of it!) means the chance of recouping internal investment is very poor so companies have little incentive to engage in internal development.
I've outlined how to remedy this situation. It's not difficult but it does require a different approach than the massive winner-take-all once every 2-3 decades.
Your comment also touches on the issue of existing versus developmental technology. I've advocated for using ONLY existing technology. Using yet-to-be-developed technology NEVER works. The lesson could not be clearer and yet the Navy persists in attempting it.
Very nice comment.
"Your comment also touches on the issue of existing versus developmental technology. I've advocated for using ONLY existing technology. Using yet-to-be-developed technology NEVER works. The lesson could not be clearer and yet the Navy persists in attempting it."
DeleteIn terms of development risk and effort, I agree with your comment, but the one example that I can offer as a counter argument is the USS Nautilus which paired cutting edge nuclear reactor with a known submarine hull form. The Navy also took the correct approach and didn't let the development become a protracted effort, but focused on a practical implementation. The Navy started the reactor design at Bettis in 1947, but a working prototype want completed until 1953 one year after the keel laid down. The ship was commissioned in 1954.
As much of a monumental effort that was involved in that program, it invoked a huge risk (and cost) that shouldn't not be emulated without good reason. Regular ongoing technology development is critical and most remain outside of main production efforts until such time as the technology is well understood, and demonstrated in a meaningful environment. In addition, demonstration platforms sand opportunities should be made available without pinning entire block buys on unproven, conceptual technologies. Generational development efforts for aircraft, ships or missiles that take 20 years to come into fruition erode both the fleet and the industrial base by slowly delivering outdated technology.
brainski
"counter argument is the USS Nautilus which paired cutting edge nuclear reactor"
DeleteThat's not quite right. By the time Nautilus was launched, land based nuclear power plants had been in operation for some time. For example, the Oak Ridge X-10 reactor became operational in Oct 1943. Similarly, the Hanford B/D/F reactors were operating in 1944-45. The Savannah River R Reactor began operation in 1953.
Other early reactors include CP-1, Clementine, F-1, EBR-I, NRX, RBMK, Borax-I, HTRE, Calder Hall, Obninsk, OMRE, SL-1, UHTREX, GCRE, MSRE, etc.
Ultimately, the Navy built a Nautilus prototype reactor, S1W on land, inside a submarine hull frame and it went critical in Mar 1953. The reactor simulated voyages throughout the rest of the year and was used for training operational practices development.
By the time Nautilus was laid down in 1952, the US and the Navy had built and operated many nuclear power plants.
By the time Nautilus was launched in 1954, the Navy had operated an exact land based version of the nuclear power plant for nearly a year and knew exactly how it would perform.
Far from being a counter-example of using non-existent technology, this is the perfect example of having a proven technology in hand when the Nautilus was conceived and built.
Thank you for the information on the early reactors, some of which I was not aware. Without trying to be argumentative, I still contend that not having a working prototype of the main propulsion plant before committing to a design (laying down the keel in 1952) is a major risk activity and while land based reactors existed, the technology, materials and construction were still quite novel and none had been used to power a mobile vessel of any kind.
DeleteThank you for your response and overall for this blog which I find informative, well run and curated.
brainski
"I still contend that not having a working prototype of the main propulsion plant before committing to a design (laying down the keel in 1952) is a major risk activity"
DeleteIt was not without any risk but it was a very low risk program. Reactors had been in operation for around a decade and an exact land based duplicate had been constructed and would be operational for many months prior to launch of the sub. Sooner or later, you have to take a leap, however small, when you introduce a 'new' technology which is what a nuclear powered sub was. I believe the risks were well managed. The general technology was well understood with a decade of experience and the exact duplicate further mitigated the risk.
In contrast, consider the current examples of the Zumwalt AGS, the Ford EMALS, the LCS modules, etc. NO prior examples existed and there was no base of operational experience. These were truly high risk programs that, predictably, failed.
Another difference that you are failing to recognize is that the Nautilus was a one of a kind prototype. In the worst case, if the experiment had completely failed, what would did the Navy have at risk? A single prototype sub.
In contrast, the Zumwalt, Ford, and LCS were PRODUCTION programs, not single prototypes and risked the failure of the future of the Navy. We committed to 55 LCS before any of the module technology existed (and none of it yet exists !) and are retiring ships that have never had a module installed. We committed to 32 Zumwalts before the AGS ever existed and the program collapsed and we now have three useless ships that cost $9B each. We committed to a run of Fords before the EMALS, AAG, and weapon elevators ever existed and now we have multiple Fords built or building that are non-functional.
The point is that one can afford a bit of risk (not that there was any in the Nautilus program) in a single prototype because the penalty for failure is small. In contrast, taking large risks on pre-committed PRODUCTION programs is insane.
So, even if you still feel there was excessive risk in the Nautilus program, the penalty for failure was very small.
If you haven't already, you might be interested in the post on post-WWII submarine development as an example of well managed technology introduction and risk management: Submarine Prototypes
"The point is that one can afford a bit of risk (not that there was any in the Nautilus program) in a single prototype because the penalty for failure is small. In contrast, taking large risks on pre-committed PRODUCTION programs is insane."
DeleteI fully concur.
brainski
I think that we are being failed by our leadership in pretty much every field, from the military to government to corporations to the media to frickin' major league baseball.
ReplyDeleteWe need to start using some common sense across the board, and then we will start behaving like a great country again.
Just my two cents.
Lutefisk
Geopolitical strategist and consultant George Friedman, in his latest book, The Storm Before the Calm, speaks of a growing conflict in the USA between elite experts on one side and common sense on the other, a conflict which he expects to come to a head within the decade. He may be right.
DeleteCDR Chip, sounds like the predicted crisis in "The Fourth Turning".
DeleteOh, and I forgot to mention failed leadership in academia. I'm sure with a minimal amount of effort we could come up with more.
Lutefisk
(Don McCollor)...Although not including development time, in WW2, a single Kaiser shipyard launched an escort carrier (CVE) every week for almost a year. A Kaiser yard in CA (partly for publicity) built the liberty ship Robert E. Perry (times vary, but not by much) in 4 days, 15 hours, 34 minutes. At the end of a week, it was standing out to sea with crew and cargo. For development, when the Navy asked for designs for a new smaller landing craft, Instead of blueprints, Higgins (of LCVP fame) submitted a floating fully functional prototype. The Navy and contractors have grown fat and lazy...
ReplyDeleteThe factor many forget is the increasing size of ships and Submarines. With all the talk about Australia buying submarines, many think we could just go back to building 4 SSN's per year. So I did some digging, and was surprised by a few things.
ReplyDeleteHere is the thing, the US used to have three shipyards for building subs not two. Also increase in size of subs is huge.
A Sturgeon class was 4,640 tones displacement
A Los Angeles Class Flight one was 6,082 tones
A Virginia class Block 4 is 7,900 tones
A Virginia Class Block 5 is 10,200 tones
Reference a Benjamin Franklin class carried 16 SLBM's and displaced only 8,251 tones. A Columbia carries the same number of missiles and displaces a staggering 20,000 tones.
You see the same growth with surface ships, hard to believe anybody calls a burke at 9,300 tones a destroyer. Even harder to believe anybody seriously thought a Zumwalt at 12,000 tones could be the most numerous combat ship in the fleet.
If you compare total production of displaced tones, it appears that a yard cuts, folds and welds the same amount of steel as they always have. Unfortunately because the ships are so much bigger you get a smaller number of much more expensive ships.
Example in the 1980's an annual output of 40,000 Tones give you four Los Angels Class boats and one Ohio Class Boat.
Today that only gets you two Virginia Block fives and one Columbia.
They have tried to offset this by keeping ships and subs for longer. The result is a maintenance back log in all the Government yards.
People try to blame the yards, but the truth is the USN didn't do these big mid life overhauls in the past. They built more ships and retired them at an earlier age before major components failed.
The Strategy is failing, nothing will change until we change the plan. They say just give us more money, but that are receiving a record amount of funding.
It was quoted recently that is the US defense budget was the same today as was in 1950, just adjusted for inflation it would be more like $150 Billion not the $760 Billion it is now.
By the way development of the F-16 was started in 1961, planes have always taken a long time to develop, we just used to buy a couple of thousand before the development was complete. People complain about concurrency and forget about crap like the F-4A.
End of rant.
@UNK. I believe you are on to something here with tonnages, I mean, come on, even the new "frigate" Constellation FFX from Italy is looking at 7200 tonnes and not even in the water yet! What's it going to weigh in 5 to 10 years when we keep developing it?!?
DeleteWe need to become a lot more aggressive with what needs to be in the ship, left behind or build more dedicated ships instead of carrying around EVERYTHING! I think that would be a good start!
I have yard tonnages by year somewhere and we still did more in the late 70s and 80s than we did thereafter. It also kept going down through the 90s and 2000s. We still have capacity we could use if we used other yards, especially for smaller surface combatants. We can also ramp the existing yards, but it needs well planned and will be slow.
Delete@Andy. I just wonder if we came up with a common core basic ship that USN would own the design and I don't know, maybe no more than 3000tonnes? could we get more of the smaller shipyards to build modules and/or assembling it? Would be one way to get more shipyards work and build up production capacity in the USA? 7200 tonnes for a frigate is just too much!
Delete"7200 tonnes for a frigate is just too much!"
DeleteI thought that was equal to an early Arleigh Burke class DDG's weigh, and looked it up; I was only over by 1000 tonnes.
But yes, 7200 tonnes is greater than a Hobart class destroyer's displacement. What are those extra tonnes for? Fuel and provisions for long-range patrols? VLS cells capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles? Armor, in case terrorists try to do to the ship what was done to the USS Cole?
If the USN specified, "This is what we want the new ship to do- and ONLY this! We have to make the ship how big, so it can do this? Fine," then the Constellation class won't seem too big- but if the Zumwalt class and the LCS are any indication, I doubt any such thought was put into the ship's design.
"7200 tonnes for a frigate"
DeleteForget the nomenclature. That's irrelevant. Call it a canoe, if you wish. What matters is the size relative to the function. Is it appropriately sized for what it is being asked to do? This is where the CONOPS comes in.
Corruption is now ingrained in our systems, though. Completely.
ReplyDeleteThe defense contractors know how to pull all the stops on all the contracts, reaching out to people in the system. Untouchable people. Keeping the development money rolling in.
The contract themselves are insane, an entire section on gender locker rooms and milking rooms. Race quotas, gender....
And let us say a common sense and timely contract does somehow gets issued, like Microsoft recently. All Amazon has to do is sue, make the tea money payment to the judge's brother in law or cousin for 'consulting', and the contract stops. For years.
So congress, the SESes and flag officers, and the judges are all united to keep the corruption rolling. There is no place to fix the issue, because all three branches are invested in keeping it flowing.
All rooted in problem that the nation is losing technology competency. As old generation of scientists and engineers retired, new generation are not as competent. Root cause is decades of education moved backward. Pentagon lives on previous stock but increment is very slow.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, there are still way too many "patriotic" but lack of sense angrily think that if we do ***, every thing will be fined.
Education, what can I say?
I don't believe this is even remotely correct. While our educational system is performing poorly, in general terms, the specifics of the kind of high level science/engineering that go into ship/aircraft design is quite competent. The US leads the world in technology development, in direct contrast to your premise. There may be a few, specific areas that some other country leads in but, overall, the US is the world leader.
DeleteWhat is valid is that our design requirements have drastically worsened (cruise ships instead of WARships, for example) but that's a voluntary choice not an educational failing. Because of those choices, we have also lost a great deal of institutional design knowledge but, again, that's a choice not an educational failing.
"While our educational system is performing poorly, in general terms, the specifics of the kind of high level science/engineering that go into ship/aircraft design is quite competent."
DeleteYou need to learn to walk before you run; you need to learn to crawl before you walk. Elementary, junior high, and high school education all need to improve, because as is, those who go into STEM are forced to go from crawling to running, without knowledge of important details like how steel is an iron-carbon alloy, for which increasing the carbon content will increase its hardness at the expense of ductility- I didn't learn the latter until I was given a high school chemistry textbook published in Communist China of all places, as American high schools failed to impart such practical knowledge.
"those who go into STEM are forced to go from crawling to running, without knowledge of important details"
DeleteNot quite. While the level of general knowledge of high school grads is deplorable, those who have the interest and aptitude for more specialized scientific pursuits will have either taken advanced high school courses, learned on their own, or, failing that, can quickly catch up in college.
We're treating students as a homogenous group, all identical, and that's simply not the case. The upper level students will find a way to learn more and will master the required knowledge one way or another. Is this a good situation? No, not at all but neither is it quite the disaster you're portraying.
Construction time, Japan shows what can be done.
ReplyDeleteThe all new design Japanese 5,500t Mogami/30DX/30FFM frigate class, Mitsubishi won the competition against a Mitsui design and contract awarded Aug 2017. Due to an 'incident' with the Mogami at the MHI shipyard the second ship Kumano (FFM-2) built at the Mitsui shipyard will be first in class, construction started Oct 2019, launched Nov 2020 1 year 1 month later and it started its sea trials this October, only 2 years from start of its construction, 4 years 2 months after the contract was placed with MHI, that looks an impressive timescale.
To be remembered that Japan still has the shipbuilding expertize/knowhow from its a successful commercial shipbuilding industry, in 2020 it was third in world in gross tonnage terms after China and South Korea.
The Japanese dates are impressive. However, the US Navy has a nasty habit of commissioning ships that are significantly incomplete which makes the build 'speed' look better than it is. Do you know whether the Japanese have similar practices or is a commissioned ship actually complete and combat ready?
Delete"Do you know whether the Japanese have similar practices or is a commissioned ship actually complete and combat ready?"
DeleteGood question and don't know as my knowledge of Japanese Navy very limited, but as far as know only the USN indulges in these sharp practices as with Ford and Zumwalt. Looked on Wikipedia for similar size ship re 9th and last of the Murasame class destroyers, 6,200t the Ariake, laid down May 1999, launched October 2000 and commissioned March 2002, 2 years 11 months from being laid down and was deployed to Gulf of Aden on anti-piracy patrol September 2002, so it would appear Japanese do not indulge in these sharp practices. Wil be of interest if the Kumano (FFM-2) to be commissioned in a shorter time span than the Ariake especially as by default it will be first in class.
"only the USN indulges in these sharp practices"
DeleteAll navies seem to indulge in shady practices. For example, many (most?) navies include 'designed for but not equipped with' practices of producing seriously underarmed ships. A ship without its design combat fit is NOT a combat ready ship. Believing that a ship will be quickly fitted out with missing equipment when a war comes along is pure delusional thinking. When war comes, there won't be piles of weapons/sensors/equipment sitting around ready to be installed. There won't be any excess equipment and the ships will never get their theoretical fits.
I also note that many ships are built to reduced combat survivability standards. The Danish frigate that sank is one example. The US Navy's Constellation class had to have several hundred tons of extra structure added to meet US Navy survivability standards. And so on. So, maybe someone else can put more tons in the water in a given time period but are the combat ready, survivable tons?
Now, please don't interpret that as me defending US shipbuilding. I'm not. It's a disaster. However, we all too often hold foreign countries up as shining examples of how to build ships without digging down and really understanding the quality and usefulness of what is being produced.
In fairness to the Danish-built frigates. The frigate in question was Norwegian, the HNoMS Helge Ingstad, built by Navantia in Spain, and sank after colliding with a tanker. There has also been another Navantia-built warship that sank after a ship collision (this time on a parallel course), the Navantia-built GC-23 Naiguata. What is particularly worrisome is that in the public domain we don't have any examples of Navantia-built ships colliding with a solid object and NOT sinking, so we don't know the lower bound of what degree of impact is required to sink them.
Delete"The frigate in question was Norwegian"
DeleteOops! Quite right. My apologies.
The worrisome part is that the report describing the incident cited what appeared to be inherent design and/or construction flaws. For example, flooding occurred from compartment to compartment via the shaft and various connections that should have been watertight to prevent this very scenario but were not. The fundamental manufacturer design appears suspect.
"The US Navy's Constellation class had to have several hundred tons of extra structure added to meet US Navy survivability standards"
DeleteI had heard this before, but it just occurred to me that it may be ENCOURAGING. Given the experience with the LCS survivability, and the formal replacement of the survivability standards, I'd almost thought survivability is whatever you say it is, so the fact they actually had to change the ship for that reason is encouraging.
"the fact they actually had to change the ship for that reason is encouraging."
DeleteOr ............ The ship was so poor in regards to survivability that even the US Navy with its modified and reduced survivability 'standards' felt the need to beef it up to very minimal levels.
Just another perspective to consider. Sadly, I think this view is more likely to be true.
"Sadly, I think this view is more likely to be true."
DeleteDarn. Just when I thought there might be some hidden good news. Silly me ...
Actually, since the threat environment has now returned to a Cold War level, it seems to me like it would make sense to return to the Cold War level survivability standards. Plus maybe an additional standard for cyber attack hardening. Do you suppose there is a chance in h*** that that might happen?
Another thought on survivability. Since the Burke was originally designed during the Cold War, do you suppose there is any chance that they still satisfy the Level 3 requirements?
DeleteMy understanding Fincantieri for Constellation had modify the parent Italian FREMM design to meet the Navy Level II survivability standard for Frigates and Amphibs which required adding 300t of steel, plus allowing for a 5%/400t SLA, Sea Life Allowance for future growth over its lifetime and they also deleted the hull mounted sonar allowing for a longer and finer bow reducing the hulls hydromantic drag (Fincantieri had taken the Navy option to fit a VDS instead of HMS).
DeleteThe above resulted in Constellation's ~500t increase in the FLD compared to the Italian FREMM so its longer in length and increased beam and that was the design they bid with and won the contract.
As far as know the Burke Flight III still built to the highest Level III survivability standard, though only 8% SLA, not the 10% required for surface combatants/destroyers.
"Burke was originally designed during the Cold War, do you suppose there is any chance that they still satisfy the Level 3 requirements?"
DeleteThat's an interesting question with an equally interesting answer. The survivability standard was promulgated in 1988. The contract for the first Burke was issued in 1985, THREE YEARS PRIOR TO THE SURVIVABILITY STANDARD.
As it turns out, Burke meets many of the Level 3 standards but not all. From the OPNAVINST document:
"Ship protection features, such as armor, shielding and
signature reduction, together with installed equipment hardened to appropriate standards, constitute a minimum baseline of survivability."
The most egregious part that Burke does not meet is the requirement for armor. Beyond the ship's structural plating, there is no armor other than some small amount of [Kevlar?] shrapnel protection.
Most of the rest of the standard appears to be met to at least some degree. I would take issue with the redundancy and separation aspects as, for example, two of the ship's three missile fire control illuminators are located right next to each other and are susceptible to destruction from a single hit.
So, the Burkes come close to Level 3 but do not meet the standard. Compare the Burke to any warship built during WWII and you'll instantly see how badly the Burke fails in survivability.
Or consider it this way: being as charitable as possible, the Burkes BARELY meet the MINIMUM level of survivability whereas the WWII ships defined the MAXIMUM level of survivability. Do you see the enormous gap between the two?
DeleteBob Nagele wrote:
“Actually, since the threat environment has now returned to a Cold War level, it seems to me like it would make sense to return to the Cold War level survivability standards. Plus maybe an additional standard for cyber attack hardening.”
Absolutely. From that era, here is some wording from Section 810 of Public Law 95–485, passed on 20 October 1978:
“It is the policy of the United States to modernize the combatant forces of the United States Navy through the construction of advanced, versatile, survivable, and cost-effective combatant ships in sufficient numbers and having sufficient combat effectiveness to defend the United States against enemy attack and to carry out such other missions as may be assigned to the Navy by law. To achieve such policy, the Navy should develop plans and programs for the construction and deployment of weapon systems, including naval aviation platforms, that are more survivable, less costly, and more effective than those presently in the Navy inventory.” (1)
That guidance seems to have been totally forgotten. I don’t see any justification for building a WAR ship to anything less than level III survivability standards.
Two areas that I find particularly lacking are the concepts of 1) cyber hardening, and 2) compartmentalization and interior armored bulkheads. During WWII, the USS Pittsburgh (CA-72) was able to survive the loss of its bow in a storm and sail from the Ryukyu Islands to Guam with no bow, thanks to the watertight integrity of its internal bulkheading. As a somewhat humorous aside, the bow remained afloat, was towed back to Guam, and was nicknamed the “USS McKeesport” (a suburb of Pittsburgh). I wonder what would be the chances of controlling damage in such a way on any modern Navy ship.
(1) “Department of Defense Appropriation Act, 1979.” (PL 95-485, 20 October 1978) United States Statutes at Large, 92 (1978), 1623
" I don’t see any justification for building a WAR ship to anything less than level III survivability standards."
DeleteI wonder what the last ship built to Level III standards was? As I described above, it was not the Burke.
Further, the Level III is the MINIMUM standard. WWII ships, while not built to a formal OPNAVINSTCRAP document, nevertheless far exceeded the Level III MINIMUM requirements. We should not be building to Level III MINIMUM standards but, instead, to COMBAT standards as was done in WWII.
"As it turns out, Burke meets many of the Level 3 standards but not all."
DeleteThat's interesting. I didn't know that. But my actual concern was more with the EMP protection aspects of the standards. The newer versions of the Burke (the IIA and III versions) are structurally very similar to the original design, but much (most?) of the electronics is new. If the Navy and builders have stopped paying attention to EMP hardening, then China can destroy the key electronics and totally disable an entire theater fleet with a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude. The ships could be helpless and dead in the water, and all the physical survivability standards would be irrelevant.
If you subscribe to the delusion that China would NEVER attack us at sea (far from any civilians) with a nuclear weapon (even though they have recently threatened a nuclear attack against Japan -- in actual Japanese territory filled with civilians) then consider the fact that there are also non-nuclear EMP weapons, although with shorter ranges so it would take more than one to take out a whole fleet.
Nuclear EMP? MAD is still a thing, and China isn't retarded.
DeleteOn the other hand, "conventional" EMP attacks would be absolutely devastating to modern US ships and you can bet the Chinese are aware of that.
Additional thought on the survivability thing. I wonder if it might have been better (for the frigate) to simply update the Perry design (as CNO described in an earlier post). The Perry's are known to be quite robust. They've survived both cruise missile attacks and mines (although not the same ship). And I'm not aware that any of them sank after a collision with another ship!
DeleteIt may not be big enough to carry AEGIS, but do we really need AEGIS on a frigate? That, of course, depends on how we intend to use it (CONOPS).
"Nuclear EMP? MAD is still a thing, and China isn't retarded."
DeleteI'm not so sure. An EMP attack would be a single weapon, far out at sea, at very high altitude. It would produce NO physical damage and cause no deaths or injuries. If you were President, would you really be prepared to launch Armageddon over that?
I recently come across an article about naval engineering of the 80's stating that civilian naval construction costs in US tripled those of Japan and doubled Europea ones. Maybe that is an indicator of the high costs and times of US Navy building.
DeleteSadly I cannot find the article right now.
JM
@Bob Nagele
DeleteI don't know, but that's more than enough to make it too risky.
What happens when the world's headlines are "Chinese nuclear attack on XYZ", how would the USA (or, say, Japan) react?
Remember that from a foreign point of view Americans are very unpredictable: almost nobody there expected Bush the Second to actually invade the Mideast after 2001.
Maybe Biden (or whoever) would chicken out.
Maybe not.
If you were China, would you risk nuclear escalation to take out a fleet with plenty of very well known vulnerabilities?
"Who knows what those crazy Americans might do?"
@Lonfo: I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this. Remember, deterrence is a psychology experiment. We're not trying to figure out what would deter US. We need to figure out what would deter Mr. Xi. Since neither of us can read minds, we just don't know.
DeletePersonally, I'd prefer to harden the ships against EMP rather than GUESS whether Mr. Xi will be deterred by an implicit threat to unleash Armageddon if he fires off a nuke that disables all the ships but doesn't actually kill or injure anyone.
@Bob Nagele
Delete@Lonfo
You're both discussing an event in isolation (or nearly so). The use of a nuclear weapon has immense ramifications. If you want to discuss this, do so from an objective, 'big picture' perspective to determine whether the isolated event would/would not occur. For instance,
1. Is this in the context of a war? If so, how would it impact the overall conduct of the war?
2. Would such a use give the US 'free license' to use nuclear weapons wholesale?
3. Would/could the US blanket China with EMP in retaliation?
4. What would the world response be and how would that factor into the likelihood of use? Would such a use cement the formation of a worldwide alliance against China?
5. How would disabling a carrier group but not destroying it be of overall benefit to China's war effort?
6. Would the benefits - whatever they might be - be sufficient to offset the many negative consequences for China?
7. Would such a use serve to harden and focus US resolve and make China's actions less likely to succeed?
And so on. Answer those questions and you'll likely have a pretty definitive answer about the likelihood of China using a nuclear EMP. These are the kinds of questions China has to consider when pondering this action.
Side question: Even in a high altitude nuclear burst, does the radiation spread around the world causing global effects? I don't know anything about the effects/behavior of high altitude nuclear explosions.
Other side consideration: if there's a Chinese nuclear strike (for EMP purposes or whatever) anywhere near the Pacific and the US response isn't judged satisfactory, Japan develops nuclear weapons in a flash.
DeleteYou can bet the farm on this one.
"...through the construction of advanced, versatile, survivable, and cost-effective combatant ships..."
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, while well intentioned, the wording softened and gave the Navy an "escape", by throwing in "cost-effective", among other things.. If it had just said survivable ships, there'd be no other factors to have to balance. Of course the technicalities in the wording of this arent going to have any REAL effect on ship design, but its just these kind of vagaries from the civilian leadership that give the Navy such a long leash to make epic blunders...
One thing I've noticed about a lot of defense procurement in general (and seemingly US Navy warship procurement specifically) is terrifyingly bad project management.
ReplyDeleteThe urge to make all kinds of major capability and doctrinal changes in one leap combines the technical risk of lots of ambitious failed projects that exceeded the capability of the technology (1950s fighters were terrible for that - the Avro Arrow for instance being completely sunk by its weapons system, and many other fighters were designed around an expectation of engine reliability and performance that wasn't there).
Is this driven by the career cycle of the officers that run such programs trying to time project timelines for their own promotion/evaluation cycles?
I can't help but suspect that if USN admirals had been in charge of PLAN procurement, they would have tried to leap from the Type 052 to the Type 055, skipping 30 years (and the careers of many different officers) of development, evaluation, and iterative progress, ending up with something as bizarre and useless as the multi-turret tanks of the 1930s.
Instead, it went Type 052 (roughly similar to 60's/70's destroyers in terms of armament and design) -> Type 051B (closer to 80s non-VLS ships) -> Sovremenny (arguably first experience with more capable air-defense ships) -> Type 052B (indigenous AAW design and switch to modern indigenous powerplants) -> Type 051C (phased array radar and VLS) -> Type 052C (Aegis-style fixed array radars) -> Type 052D (multi-purpose VLS).
Notes:
1) Until the Type 052C where they're closing in on the mature/definitive layout of the Type 052D, there are only 1-2 ships of each intermediate class - if there are any design problems, they'll plague a ship or two, not the whole fleet
2) Construction/development time of the designs overlap, but are usually not simultaneous (unlike the LCS) - It looks like enough lessons were learned during the design and construction of the Type 052B that both the Type 051C and Type 052C were started at the same time
3) Take advantage of competition once the technical risk/requirements have been solidified - the Type 051C and Type 052C sure look like competing designs from rival shipyards (Dalian for the former, Shanghai for the latter)
4) Once a winning design emerges, crank them out and spread the work around - both shipyards build the definitive Type 052D and Type 055
Did the USN need to go through 7 iterations of LCS? Well, no - but they would have benefitted from starting with a handful of tentative evaluation/proof of concept machines to hammer out a new and untested doctrine before committing to large numbers of hulls right from the get go. Just like it would have made sense to stagger or alternate buying from Lockmart and GE/Austal so that each subsequent run can adopt improvements/lessons from the preceding class.
Instead, there are almost certainly mistakes that were being made simultaneously on both the Freedoms and the Independence classes because of their concurrency.
The USN might benefit from a system similar to the old Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction position to provide overarching guidance on the service's ship designs instead of letting each run in its own silo of ignorance.
The long construction time is bad enough, but what is more vexing is the excessively long time (and ever-climbing cost) to work out and fix the flaws in the initial design – witness the LCS, Zumwalt, Ford-CVN designs. It is as if the company / shipyard(s) building these ships intentionally screw things up so that they will continue to receive the funds from Congress to fix the problems that should never have been allowed to occur, in the first place. This is very puzzling, given that the US Navy had many excellent post-WW2 designs that served their roles well for many years. Also, in this day and age of computing power, I fail to see how such technological tool cannot be used to simulate the performance of ship systems and sub-systems in various (battle) conditions prior to first steel cutting. The problems with LCS propulsion system are shocking, as other navies have built and used CODAG propulsion WITHOUT any issues. There should be a Ship Bureau (with power) that drives the process, incorporating battle strategies from the Pentagon into ship designs and weapons R & D, QC & QA the building process, and finally supervising sea-trials of whole ship and its weapons/propulsion/sensors. If things don't work to specs, the builder(s) must be penalized and made to fix the problems at their own costs. In real world, construction companies are forced by contract to fix their mistakes at their own costs; but when it comes to building defense equipment, such practice is thrown out the window, allowing companies to milk taxpayer fund. What is good for a company's shareholders is NOT necessarily good for the country!
ReplyDelete