The Freedom class USS (PCU) Cooperstown, LCS-23, was laid down in Aug 2018 and launched in Jan 2020. The ship is not yet commissioned.
The Navy has awarded a $25M contract to BAE Systems Jacksonville Ship Repair LLC, Jacksonville, Florida to perform a post-shakedown availability (PSA). PSA’s are performed to fix all the things that should have been working prior to delivery but weren’t or that broke during trials.
… post-shakedown availability will include correction of trial card deficiencies, new work identified between custody transfer and the time of the availability and incorporation incorporation of approved engineering changes not addressed under the building yard's construction contract.[1]
Why is the Navy accepting ships with known deficiencies (trial cards)? Would you?
Given that an LCS costs around $500M, depending on what you want to include or exclude, the $25M PSA represents an additional 5% of the ship’s total cost, added to the procurement cost for things that should have been corrected before delivery and at the manufacturer’s expense.
Cooperstown’s PSA work is expected to be completed by Mar 2024. Does it really take two years to do a PSA? How incomplete and broken was this ship when it was delivered? And why did the Navy accept it if it requires two years of additional work to finish/repair?
On a related note, despite having been laid down in 2018 and completed acceptance trials (with known deficiencies !) in 2020, there is no commissioning date set, yet. We’re looking at six-plus years or so to build and commission a corvette size ship. WWII Flower class corvettes were commissioned around 9 months from being laid down. Yes, I know COVID issues impacted things but still … six-plus years to commission a modern corvette versus nine months?
I wish I could tell you that this was some kind of one-off fluke but it isn’t. This is routine. Would you buy a car with documented deficiencies (trial cards), take delivery, and then give it right back to the garage to finish/fix it for two years … all at your expense? Of course not! The Navy really needs to learn how to procure ships because they clearly haven’t got a clue.
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When did the PSA process become a thing?
ReplyDeleteIt's always been a part of the delivery process. For example, here's a reference to a ship undergoing a PSA in 1945: Shakedown
DeleteWhat we should be asking is when did it become a routine part of the original construction effort, as it is today, and when did it become a way for the Navy to hide additional construction funding?
A few minor fixes are one thing but when the PSA is being used to complete basic ship construction and fix deficiencies from the initial delivery, that's an abuse of the process and of naval construction funding accounting.
Its just absurd how the process has been mutilated and corrupted. I went to sea my first time, aboard the O'Brien, a Spruance class DD. She did preacceptance trials out of LBNS. Two days, one night out, and ultimately my father, the senior sonar tech at the shipyard, failed the hull sonar due to irregularities in the rubber "window" causing too much flow noise. The CO was fit to be tied, and a whole assembly that was destined for another new DD was shipped from Pascagoula with much haste. But even with going back into drydock for that lengthy process, there was still only 2.5yrs from keel to commissioning. Note that she was only "accepted" after everything worked, and was commissioned just a week later. Now THAT sounds more like how the procurement, construction, and defect repair process, BEFORE acceptance/commissioning, should work.!!!
DeleteFun footnote: during those sea trials, I was 6 yrs old!!!
Maybe the Navy were pushed into it by Fincantieri who said when they deliver Constellation it will be 100% fully operational.
ReplyDeleteCommander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener in January released “Surface Warfare: The Competitive Edge
"One of those ideas, according to Kitchener, is focused on how the Navy transitions newly constructed ships from the acquisition process to the fleet. Today, a new ship completes shipyard construction, sails to its homeport city and almost immediately goes into what’s called a post-shakedown availability — a maintenance period to fix anything that broke during rigorous at-sea trials and to complete work left unfinished by the construction yard, including installing the most up-to-date computer systems. “Wait a second, I just finished the ship; now I’m delaying it another six to eight months before I can start working it up and putting it through to the fleet commander for use,” Kitchener said."
Why Navy as you say never included the requirement in their ship contracts with the shipyards until now talking about it is a total a mystery, Admirals don't come across as very smart.
https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2022/08/18/surface-navy-looks-for-ways-to-more-quickly-field-ships-weapons/
Given how many of the Freedom class LCS's the Navy now wants to retire, what do you imagine this one's service life is likely to be?
ReplyDeleteDo you suppose they might retire it before commissioning it?
Delete"what do you imagine this one's service life is likely to be?"
DeleteWhat time is it now?
"what do you imagine this one's service life is likely to be?"
DeleteSeriously, I think a lot of the retirement issue is tied in to the combining gear problem. The Navy seems to be looking to avoid having to backfit the new combining gear to the older ships. It appears to be a very expesive proposition. The new ships that have the modified combining gear installed during construction may survive a while.
Do you know how lobbyists work?
ReplyDeleteYes. Do you know how horticulturists work?
Delete"WWII Flower class corvettes were commissioned around 9 months from being laid down."
ReplyDeleteThe mid/late war IJN escort ships like the Ukuru class are also noteworthy examples of relatively simple, reliable and sufficiently rugged ships that were constructed as quickly as within four months. Whilst individually they were sound ships, many surviving bomb hits and torpedoes and some surviving ones serving post war as weather survey ships, perhaps they found only limited success in their intended roles as anti air and ASW convoy escorts due to doctrine and other constraints during the war.
The Japanese also realized too late that they needed to mass manufacture these simple, rugged, easy to build, relatively cheap and arguably single specialization warships so that they can free up more expensive and capable destroyers and cruisers for more important duties. They also made the mistake of building fleet carriers throughout the war despite their resource constraints and inability to produce enough warplanes and train enough pilots to man them. That's like building air warfare destroyers and not having missile manufacturing capacity to keep them supplied to be useful long term. Hopefully we don't make that same mistake.
- Loc
"That's like building air warfare destroyers and not having missile manufacturing capacity..."
DeleteIm pretty sure thats EXACTLY what we're doing...