It is not often that I can offer good news about the Navy so
I relish the opportunities when they come along. One such bit of good news is the announcement
that Austal is beginning construction of a $128M[2] Auxiliary Floating Dry
Dock Medium (AFDM) for the Navy.
It has a 18,000 LT lifting capacity and a clear deck working area of 90,800 square feet. The craft has an overall length of 694 feet, overall pontoon breadth of 157 feet, and a height of 65 feet from baseline to wing deck.[1]
 |
| Dry Dock AFDM-5 Resourceful Built 1943, sunk in Subic Bay 2018 |
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/06/austal-usa-starts-construction-on-navy-dry-dock/
https://www.naval-technology.com/news/austal-to-build-us-navys-auxiliary-floating-dry-dock-medium/
We really need to look at what we have around the country that might still be available. We need to build, but we also need to try and make it easy for commercial yards to work with the navy.
ReplyDeleteAmazing how cheap ones of these is compared to a ship.
ReplyDeleteThat IS fantastic news!!! Now, how many more can we get, and how many are destined for Guam or Pearl??
ReplyDeleteI wonder why the Navy doesn't look into bringing back Mare Island or Hunters Point back into service. Use those yards for the deactivation of the older subs and ships. That would free up some drydock space for actual repairs.
ReplyDeleteHunters Point is slowly getting developed so far as it can. I think it also has a major contamination problem. Mare Island is still getting used so may not be that much more capacity in government hands.
ReplyDeleteA shame Kaiser cant be reincarnated!!! At least before the last of the Vancouver waterfront gets developed. The Vigor yard that is now building Army landing craft has a toehold still, but theres still enough left to build a small to medium yard. Probably enough to turn out one Connie at a time if laid out right anyway...
DeleteJust heard the news that a debris field has been found where maybe that submarine was missing. Not quite unsuspected really.
ReplyDeleteWondering since this is a naval blog if anything can be learned in this accident:
Shoddy work.
Hubris about no need to test.
Burying bad news and firing those giving the bad news.
Untested new technology.
Faith in monitoring to replace testing.
Anything else?
Id add somthing CNO mentions often- Building to a business model vs a success model... But thats just speculative...
DeleteHow many of these could have been built for what the USN wasted on the LCSs and the Zumwalts and the Fords?
ReplyDelete