USS Fitzgerald, repaired after the Jun 2017 collision, recently completed its first deployment since the incident. Fitzgerald completed three years, almost to the day, of repairs in Jun 2020. Contrast this to the USS Yorktown that had extensive battle damage repaired in three days, as we just discussed. Admittedly, this is peacetime and the urgency is not there but three years to repair a damaged ship does not bode well for war.
While obviously there was significant structural damage- its just steel, cutting, and welding. With a wartime urgency, that damage couldve been repaired in a week or so. My question is, how many of the ships more fragile systems like SPY were misaligned, thrown out of calibration, or otherwise damaged, where lengthy procedures and work were involved to make it battleworthy again??
ReplyDelete"With a wartime urgency, that damage couldve been repaired in a week or so."
DeleteIt could have been repaired in a week or so IF we had sufficient numbers of skilled trades. That's the point of the previous post - that we lack sufficient numbers and are not even recognizing for the problem it is.
Your further point about the sensitivity of delicate electronics is spot on. We saw in the Port Royal grounding incident that a gentle grounding was sufficient to throw the radar and VLS out of alignment. I don't know about the VLS but the Navy was unable to ever fully repair the radar and the Port Royal operated with a permanently out of alignment radar. This is likely the main reason that the Navy tried to early retire the Port Royal despite it being the youngest Ticonderoga in the fleet and a BMD-capable ship, at that.
"It could have been repaired in a week or so IF we had sufficient numbers of skilled trades. That's the point of the previous post - that we lack sufficient numbers and are not even recognizing for the problem it is." YES!!!! Ship yard workers, believe it or not, are proud of the work they do. They too get very frustrated with the bureaucracy and idiocy of some requirements that have been placed on them.
DeleteAs for the Port Royal. Not a gentle grounding. They did not stop the ship until it was FULLY on that reef and the sonar dome was gone. Even when the water intrusion alarms were going off indicating water in the dome, the bridge team did not realize they were doing what they did. A friend was there when the ship was drydocked. He told me there was no sonar dome left. Completely torn off.
"Not a gentle grounding"
DeleteIt was, most certainly, a very gentle grounding. The ship was barely making headway at the moment of grounding. The Navy investigative report listed the ship's speed at grounding as around two knots, as I recall, and described the ship using the phrase, 'soft aground'.
" He told me there was no sonar dome left."
He told you wrong. You need better sources. Here's a link to a photo of the Port Royal in dry dock after the grounding and the entire sonar dome is clearly shown. In fact, it's difficult to even discern any damage!
https://external-preview.redd.it/VUhNPQdHr_6ueaQAYbja6gZGffzuLeMPt5Ef88YeRuQ.jpg?auto=webp&s=d94fd22505e458bae68e5aa6688bb9df82c659c7
Another thing about having repair capacity, shipyards and workers aside- what kind of spare parts stock do we have?? Do we have replacement Aegis arrays in a warehouse waiting? Consoles, cabling... Or even hull plating and structural pieces, in a decent, ready-to-use quantity at shipyards? If the Fitz or McCain were battle damaged, what would the wait time be for parts and pieces in order to get them back to sea?? I read up on the collisions again, and noted that the Navy had to go to Congress to get repair funding for them. How much of that was for labor, and how much was to buy replacement items, that we should already have on hand, paid for???
ReplyDeleteSpare parts? Much like everything else these days....supply chain issues. Even worse because the Navy has decided that "just in time logistics" is the way to go and to place the burden on the manufacturer. I needed a seal for a helo hangar door for a very simple repair...20 ft is all. Took me 6 months to get it as the company had none on shelves (thank you Bill Clinton for charging taxes on product in stock) and for them to retool to make it.
DeleteThe Chinese are batch building 5 Type 052D/DL at this time, taking advantage of the economies of scale that are inherent in the civilian world.
ReplyDeleteWhat we in the West are prepared to accept as reasonable hasn't even slightly slowed down Chinese warship production.
And if you want to look at this seriously, what do you think the Chinese could accomplish in a Yorktown repair scenario?
How the hell can cost overruns and thus profits be maximized in this day and age, if the ship is repaired enough to be fighting fit in 3 days? Obviously, they can't be. The companies that repaired the ship did it for the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, from which they made nice profits for their owners. They certainly didn't make repairs out of the goodness of their hearts.
ReplyDeleteFleet versus fleet combat is so twentieth century. The real naval war is ashore. In recent news Fat Leonard apparently did a gho-gho Ghosn and is on the lam. I guess he has already been smuggled out of the country. Also, Admiral Loveless is now a free man. It looks like they will be winners.
Fat Leonard was captured yesterday in Caracas Venezuela and is on the way back to the US.
DeleteIs he in America yet?
DeleteHow much of these 3 years where spent on actually repairing the damage? How much of these 3 years was spent on updating/upgrading the ships systems? How much of these 3 years was spent simply waiting for parts? How much of these 3 years was spent on analysing the damage to see the possible effects of battle damage and develop some shortcuts/fixes for wsrtime use?
ReplyDeleteIt should be a very useful learning experience having a hull cut wide open in all the wrong ways, crumpled, bent, with widespread water damage and so on, it the possibility is used.
The ship is an older Burke DDG, during a deep survey they could start a wide metallurgical analysis to see how the whole ship structure is faring and what is needed to lenghten the life of the class and if it's really viable.
CNO you have mentioned before the drop in the thickness of steel plate compared building WWII ships, don't know the figures for Yorktown vs Fitzgerald, but no doubt the Fitzgerald's thinner plate contributed to much more extensive damage to ship than would have been the case if it had been built with thicker stronger plate used in Yorktown build.
ReplyDeleteNot many ships left afloat that can say they sank a cruiser. Queen Mary is one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Curacoa_(D41)
DeleteThe Yorktown's extensive battle damage was not repaired in the 3 days. Not even close. The ship sailed out of Peral Harbor 3 days later with no more than band-aids and extensive damage remaining. And even that took a herculean effort. Yes its sobering that it took 3 years to return the Fitz to the fleet, comparing that to the Yorktown repairs is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteNo one claimed the Yorktown was 100% repaired in three days. On the remote chance that you did not read the original post reference to the event, here's the quote from the post that discusses it:
Delete"Yorktown sailed for Pearl Harbor where a repair crew of over 1400 workers swarmed the ship and completed repairs sufficient for combat in 3 days."
Note the phrase, 'sufficient for combat'. No one claimed a 100% complete repair with a shiny new coat of paint and polished brightwork.
The comparison between the Fitzgerald and Yorktown points out the inexplicable disparity between being able to make a badly damaged ship combat-capable in three days versus requiring three years to repair the Fitzgerald.
The Fitzgerald was laid down in Feb 1993 and commissioned in Oct 1995. That's just over 2-1/2 years to build the ship from nothing. That a repair - admittedly a serious one - should require more time than it took to build the ship is troubling, to put it mildly. Yorktown's three day repair effort graphically highlights the major problems we face today in repairing and maintaining the fleet. That's hardly a 'ridiculous' comparison.
Some great comments that highlight the impact of the United States' decline from being the world's greatest builder of ships to having almost no commercial ship building. Without a robust commercial shipbuilding capacity it is impossible to build Navy ships cost effectively and shortages of workers skilled in the trades necessary to repair ships are inevitable.
Delete"shortages of workers skilled in the trades"
DeleteYou've described the problem. Now, what do you see as possible solutions?