We just read about the USS Boise (SSN-764), which has been
idled since Jan 2015 awaiting dry dock availability and is finally beginning
its maintenance period. The optimistic
unrealistic hope is that Boise returns to service in late 2023 or sometime in
2024 which would be an 8-9 year period of idleness. You would hope that this is some sort of sick
April Fool’s joke but it isn’t. This is
the sad reality of our naval maintenance effort.
Was Boise just a bad luck, bad circumstances, fluke? How is the rest of the SSN submarine fleet
doing as regards maintenance?
According to a just released CRS report, 37% of the SSN
fleet is currently idled in, or
awaiting, depot maintenance, overhauls, and dry dock availability and are
non-operational.[1] That’s 18 of the 49
SSN subs in the fleet that are sitting idle, leaving just 31 operational SSNs
in the US fleet.
China doesn’t need to worry about our submarine fleet … it’s
sitting idle.
Sure, we couldn’t keep SSNs, arguably the most lethal
component of our military, in service but we made sure we kept building LCS so
that we could retire them as they completed construction and we made sure that
we built all the Zumwalts and we pushed the Ford through despite having utterly
unreliable catapults, traps, and weapon elevators.
New hulls … yes!
Maintenance … no.
 |
| Our Submarine Force? |
Not only did we push the Ford through but we committed to 3 more of the same design !!
ReplyDeleteOnce again, the problems start with the people picking the people making these terrible decisions. Are there any fighting sailors left? We need to promote them, and not the political, careerist, powerpoint wielding jockies.
ReplyDeleteThe nation's civilian ship building is practically dead thus there is no spare capacity to meet unplanned demand surge.
ReplyDeleteWorse! Under current model, shipyards have no incentive to improve as they can make money regardless.
Following link is China's type 003 aircraft carrier during its construction. It is alarm to see a huge container ship under construction next to it:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-10/china-is-close-to-launching-new-aircraft-carrier-report-says#xj4y7vzkg
"The nation's civilian ship building is practically dead thus there is no spare capacity to meet unplanned demand surge."
DeleteYes, we know that and it's been noted many times. Now, what solutions do you have?
HOPELESS!
DeleteTemporarily, can ask S. Korea and Japan to help. In the long run, still need to build domestic civilian ship building.
DeleteThis all sounds alarming to me and I'm not even American. I'm beginning to wonder whether war with China would be a cakewalk - for China. Is there any balancing bad news about their fleet?
ReplyDeleteWith a free press, free culture, and Freedom of Information act, we can readily see our flaws. China publishes almost nothing that is critical of their capabilities so we have no idea what their specific problems are. Rest assured, however, that they do have problems, many of them severe. We just don't hear about them.
DeleteOne published example is their struggle with indigenous aircraft engines. This is a severe problem and results in poor performance for their aircraft. They're working to solve it but they aren't there yet.
I have no doubt they have similar problems with ships and weapon systems. Again, we just don't hear about them.
We've noted their habit of stealing intellectual data and designs and pointed out that hurts their long term ability to understand and further develop their systems.
Yes, we have problems but so do they - likely as bad or worse.
FDR's Reconstruction Finance Corporation (actually started by Hoover) was able to finance enormous infrastructure projects during the 30s without government spending. The vast majority of pre-war aeroplane manufacturing was created using it. So was the TVA which powered Oak Ridge to create the bomb.
ReplyDeleteThis same financing technique could be used to fund an enormous shipyard construction project. These yards could be "dual use" during peacetime with civilian contractors making ships for civilian use (their subsidy: no capital costs for building this infrastructure). During war, they can be put to use building warships.
Time to get creative!
"Reconstruction Finance Corporation (actually started by Hoover) was able to finance enormous infrastructure projects during the 30s without government spending."
DeleteFrom my vague understanding of it, that's only very loosely correct. The RFC was established to prop up smaller banks by making loans to the banks. That may have indirectly aided infrastructure projects.
We currently have various govt agencies that fill the same niche, for example, the Small Business Administration, FDIC, etc.
DeleteCNO: You are describing only how the RFC began. As WWII approached, the RFC created many offshoots (which its board still controlled) like the Defense Plant Corporation (DPC) which financed the construction & tooling of over 2,500 defense plants and the majority of naval shipyards, the Defense Supplies Corporation (DSC) which financed enormous investments in non-strategic defense materials, the Metals Reserve Corporation (MRC) which financed the construction of dozens of steel plants, aluminum plants (and the dams required to power them) and stockpiled all other strategic materials from overseas suppliers, and the Rubber Reserve Corporation (RRC) which financed the construction of the entire synthetic rubber industry. In reality, these "corporations" were all banks, but FDR couldn't call them that because of political problems that would create. They were government directed, but with private investors. They were not "piggy banks" Congress could access for current spending. Only productive, but long-term investments which would take 30 to 50 years to pay back were funded.
DeleteThen, as now, these investments would never have been possible using current year tax revenues or short term private bank loans. It required very long term investment which only a National Bank could really do (not a Central Bank, but a National Bank). The other advantage is these investment decisions all completely bypass Congress because no government funds are required during normal (non-war) operations.
The Navy we both want, with sufficient infrastructure to support it in peacetime AND DURING WAR has to have a bold, government-directed financing to build it out.
"sufficient infrastructure ... has to have a bold, government-directed financing to build it out."
DeleteAs you note, the RFC and it's derivatives were govt banks by other names. I note that they were also authorized to buy stock. That presents serious potential problems when the govt can dominate the stock market and determine winners and losers. The degree of conflict of interest that presents is mind boggling!
That aside, I'm extremely skeptical about any govt operated agency. The problems range from weaponized FBI, DOJ, and IRS to simply sheer waste and inefficiency such as the Social Security, Post Office, and Veterans Administration to name a few. I also note that the govt operated shipyards are inefficient, ineffective, and have been allowed to degenerate horribly.
All that and you'd have me believe that a govt banking system that operates without Congressional oversight would be a good thing that wouldn't be mismanaged, weaponized, and abused???? That seems unlikely in the extreme.
Having noted all that, the concept of federal govt involvement in some fashion to promote strategic industries is worthy of discussion and consideration. My preferred approach is to let the market accomplish it with the injection of a more pro-infrastructure set of taxes and regulations. For example, Biden's refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline and various other energy projects (while penalizing existing energy industries) is an example of politics taking priority over a strategic imperative (energy independence). Similarly, our regulations which make rare earth mining and refining impossible is misguided in the extreme.
Note: this is not a political complaint; both parties have fostered unwise regulatory burdens.
There is much (all we need, perhaps) that can be accomplished simply by revising our regulations so as to encourage private industry to develop our strategic resources and needs. We don't need to set up yet another massive federal agency that will inevitably be abused and mismanaged (have you ever tried to fire a federal worker for cause? pretty much impossible).
You are one tough customer, CNO. You never like any of my ideas. ha ha ha
DeleteYou've absolutely got the right general idea and, just as importantly, you've offered a solution. Whether it's the right or best solution is what we need to discuss. After my various points and possible objections, do you still believe that a RFC type organization could accomplish what you want? If so, how would you see it succeeding where every other large govt organization can be considered a failure? That's not argumentative, that's a sincere question about methodology. How would you structure such an organization so as to avoid the seemingly inevitable pitfalls of being a govt entity?
DeleteThis is how you develop really good ideas. You float an idea, examine the possible problems and objections, refine the idea, and eventually you'll either decide it wasn't a good idea or you'll develop it to the point that it is a good idea. Don't give up. Think through the possible pitfalls, correct them, and keep going until you're left with a good, workable concept!
"You never like any of my ideas."
DeleteNow you know what I face with every post. There's always people waiting to try (unsuccessfully!) pick apart whatever I write. I admire anyone who's willing to put their ideas out in public. It takes courage to expose one's ideas to potential criticism. My hat's off to you for doing so!
CNO: Government is perfectly suited to organize a public bank to gather private investment and direct it towards long-term, but low yield projects which enhance the general welfare. The investors are required to fund the bank with Treasury Bonds which yield an enormous income to fund projects. As Alexander Hamilton stated in his 1st Report to Congress: Our massive debt can be converted into capital which will create actual production.
DeleteAll around the country, we can finance dozens of shipyards with drydocks, cranes, and all the facilities needed to build ships during war. During peacetime, these same facilities can be LEASED to private companies to produce merchant shipping. No federal employees will be created. The lease terms can be generous BECAUSE we can finance it over 30 years or even more. That is a massive subsidy which will help create a skilled workforce which can compete with other subsidized countries AND be in place in case of war. It will take decades, but just as in the past, the loan will eventually be repaid.
Our historical example is Jefferson’s shuttering of Hamilton’s 1st Bank of the US. His Treasury Secretary, Gallatin (who also HATED the idea of a National Bank), completely changed his mind once he assumed his post and did an audit. He begged Jefferson not to close the bank specifically because of the damage it would do to the Navy. This poverty led to Jefferson’s “mosquito fleet” which was almost powerless to fight the War of 1812. Immediately after the war, Jefferson stated, in effect, “I screwed up” and Pres. Madison (a strong ally of Jefferson) immediately created the 2nd Bank of the US; in large part to rebuild our shipyards. It worked then, it can work now.
PS: Sorry you have to put up with the slings and arrows! I happen to love your ideas.
I'm not intimately versed in the methodology of financing but I'm missing something in your concept. A bank offers loans using its own money with the idea that the borrower will repay the loan with interest, thereby providing the bank with a profit. The key concept is that the bank must have a huge reserve of cash to parcel out in the form of loans.
DeleteYou seem to envision a situation in which the federal bank will be unfunded by taxpayer dollars and will, instead, get its cash reserve from 'investors'. Why will these investors invest in the bank given that there will be little or no return on the investment? What am I missing?
"No federal employees will be created."
Of course there will ! No govt entity can run without a legion of bureaucrats and that's one of the [many] reasons why govt organizations always fail. A federal bank will need accountants, lawyers, financial analysts, loan officers, managers, HR personnel, and thousands of other employees.
Picture in your mind the typical investor in Municipal Bonds:
DeleteInsurance Companies, Pension Funds, International Dollar Funds, Wealthy Investors, etc... They love investments like this. Zero speculation, tax free and backed by the Federal Government. It is an almost risk-less investment (even better than Munis which currently represents $4 Trillion just to build roads & bridges!) Nothing crazy. Just long, slow, boring, but extremely safe returns for decades. All tax free.
Investors can offer their current Treasury Bonds to the Bank to get a slightly better return. Those same bonds yield a regular income to the bank which covers their operations and funds disbursements to contractors, who build shipyards, dredge rivers, dig irrigation canals, improve harbor navigation, etc... The various leasing fees, port fees, and service fees return to the bank as profit from these projects. As Hamilton described when he invented the system, if you have to pay 6% interest, we can charge 7% so there is enough to pay the interest on the debt and a little extra to eventually pay down the principal over decades.
The point of this system is not to make a speculative profit, but to create prosperity for our population and to enhance our security. As you document every day on this blog, the current dockyards are woefully under-capitalized, yard workers constantly suffer unemployment, and we've ended up giving the big Wall St. banks $16 Trillion in bailouts anyway.
BTW: As has always been done in the past: The SecNav has to submit his shipyard plan to Congress for approval before submitting it to the board of the bank for funding. By law, these projects HAVE to be turned down by private banks before the government bank can fund it.
Isn’t the navy operating on the on the principle that 1/3 of the fleet is in maintenance and 1/3 is in work up and 1/3 is deployed if so it would make for 1/3 of the sub fleet to be in maintenance right?
ReplyDelete"would make for 1/3 of the sub fleet to be in maintenance right?"
DeleteNot quite. You're misunderstanding the concept a bit. The Navy attempts to use a rotational process where a ship deploys for a period of time then returns for maintenance and training, and then prepares for the next deployment. So, yes, a percentage of the fleet is supposed to be undergoing maintenance. What you're missing is that the ships undergoing maintenance in this model are still available to surge in the event of an emergency.
The problem the submarine fleet is experiencing is that a third of the fleet is in long term (multi-year) maintenance and CANNOT surge. They're not part of the regular deployment cycle. They've become idled ships that have lost dive certification and cannot operate due to serious material deficiencies.
These idled subs are in addition to the subs undergoing the regular deployment/maintenance cycle.
The problem is not limited to subs. We have hundreds of aircraft sitting idle waiting to undergo extended depot level maintenance.
Some of the things that the navy does are hard to understand like lack of NGFS, lack of armor on ships, no 5th gen fighter, inattention to mine clearing and no serious ASW prep, etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteBut the maintenance issues are on another level.
This is complete and utter dereliction of duty.
It is a total misuse of enormous amounts of taxpayer money.
I frankly cannot understand not only how it is allowed to go on, but why professional navy officers would have let it happen in the first place.
Lutefisk
There are many facets to this problem: shrinking public work force, the stigma of skilled trades work that we've foisted on high school students, regulatory burdens, uneven workloads, etc. To be fair, while the Navy is to blame for much of this, it is not entirely the Navy's fault. That said, I would recall to active duty every former living CNO and court-martial them all for dereliction of duty.
DeleteOne major factor I didn't mention was minimal manning. That woefully misguided, idiotic concept institutionalized deferred/bypassed maintenance which made every subsequent maintenance availability ten times harder and longer than it should have been.
Preventive Maintence in some places only happens after the magic smoke comes out. Much more fun to buy new ships, you get to name it, put plaques on it, etc.
DeleteNobody ever names a PM cycle after anything.
Obviously, they need to find A. more public yards, anti BRAC b. Embrace more private yards, like the one proposed to use 2 areas in Ohio on Lake Erie C. Manning. Need to pinpoint all those useless jobs that are pure civilian, like the sexual harassment trainer, the training coordinator for the never ending training tasks half of which are BS, the HR folks, payroll not assigned to a specific unit, drivers on base, cooks on base, etc. and have the federal government act in coordination with a cut in the 4 million federal employees to a like for like switch to someone doing the fake sailor job, aka what should be a civilian job. the CBO estimated what, that over 300k jobs in active duty were really made to be civilian and you make those jobs not be eliminated but assignment changed to say ship manning and maintenance in yards. If you took 200k of the jobs, let's say they were split just like the real services are, think it's 37/25.4/24.6/13 amongst Army/Navy/AF/Marines, that comes out to 74k/50k/49k/26k new slots that can act in soldier/airman/sailor/Marine needed roles. For the Navy, it's manning, manning some mothballed ships too to boost the fleet, but most important, putting 5 figures of sailors into shipyards. Will many accountant sailors quit? sure, they won't go to a yard, but they can be the civvie, and that slot opens up to new persons to work maintenance, which will take training and time if they didnt' have a prior billet that knows this discipline. It won't be fixed overnight, but the military needs better tooth to tail and has to learn to do more with the same amount of sailors. this is a good step, we need more yards, some will be blown up whether we want to hear it or not in a war with today's cruise missiles long range and lack of AA on American soil. But more important, you have suddenly only 15% of subs in dry dock, ditto the rest of fleet, and have more ships out there including some older ones, and you have a much lower chance of an emboldened China taking its shot. This next war will be the perception they can win, and sadly, they have only been getting better #s sent right out to them courtesy of our elected morons whom don't fix it anyway. We almost need a military dictator to be POTUS to fix this issue and be on top of it, DAILY, threatening to fire and wreck careers until its fixed. Fear has its purpose.. Sorry, maybe it's un-American to expect them to do their jobs today.
ReplyDeletehttps://news.usni.org/2023/03/31/navy-estimates-5-more-years-for-virginia-attack-sub-production-to-hit-2-boats-a-year
ReplyDeleteThis article was in USNI news ( March 31 2023 ). In the meantime 1/3 of our attack subs are being refurbished.( On another note: Read where some thought was given about a SLEP of some, if not all, of the Ohio class SSBNs.
What has not been highlighted that only there are only the four public yards and Newport News able to maintain the Navy nuclear ships and subs, SSNs understandably at the bottom of the priority list after the SSBNs and CVNs. Would argue that lack of nuclear maintenance capability is another reason to build much less expensive conventionally powered carriers instead of CVNs that could be maintained at conventional shipyards freeing up the limited capacity to maintain the SSNs and SSBNs e.g. Washington CVN-73 completed its planned 48 month RCOH at NNS in 69 months in May this year limiting its capacity for SSN maintenance.
ReplyDeleteThe Navy built nine nuclear-powered guided-missile cruisers, with the last entering service in 1980, after the Cold War, the Navy decided the expense of nuclear-powered surface cships was no longer justified and canceled any future mid-life refueling, so raises the question why make the exception to go nuclear with the carriers, guessing the strength and influence of the mafia carrier Admirals lobby.
The Washington RCOH was a victim of Covid mostly. Im sure it mightve run longer than planned even withput Covid, since somuch maintenance is being deferred across the board.
DeleteAs far as the nuclear cruiser retirements, they didnt get retired strictly due to cost. They were solid ships, but they couldnt compete with the Navys shiny new toys, namely Aegis and VLS. It was another early case of wanting new construction vs modifying and upgrading existing ships. This was much like discarding the Spruances vs going with the NTU... With the Ticos and then the Burkes on the horizon, the cruisers met an early end...
https://twitter.com/SubBrief/status/1679219867163975683
ReplyDelete- BRAC closed 4 of 8 Navy shipyards from 1991 to 1995
- "From the Sea" in 1992 first proposed shifting from blue water ops to littoral and joint ops with other services
- Navy planned on conducting sub maintenance in PRIVATE shipyards but those yards worked, instead, on LCS and DD-21 because new construction was more profitable.
In the comments for that twitter piece, readers suggest reopening Mare Island and Vallejo shipyard.
Just fyi.
$886B Defense appropriation bill passed the House and we can't afford to fix the ships we have? Shameful, just shameful. And the services think they need more money?
ReplyDelete" Under the Navy’s latest long-range shipbuilding plan, by the time the first Virginia nuclear sub would be transferred to the Royal Australian Navy, the U.S. could be down to 46 attack boats. The Navy’s long-term goal is to have a force of 66 attack boats."
ReplyDeleteThis is from a recent USNI article pertaining to AUKUS. Now we have the current situation mentioned by CNO. Some senators are asking questions about SSN production shortfalls.
The SSN shortfall has been known and predicted for at least two decades. It's not a surprise.
DeleteThe incompetence aspect is that the Navy had two decades to address the issue and did not. They could have stopped early retiring Los Angeles class subs but did not. They could have developed a second builder but did not. They could have modified operational patterns to prolong 'dive lives' of subs but did not. And so on. There were many ways they could have addressed the issue but they did nothing. That's dereliction of duty by a succession of CNOs.
"They could have modified operational patterns to prolong 'dive lives' of subs but did not."
DeleteSaid with tongue firmly planted in cheek: Actually, we HAVE modified their operational patterns. Since they're sitting by the pier waiting for maintenance, they're not using up their dive lives. So perhaps once we get them fixed, they'll be usable for a few more years than planned?
Food for thought: Back in January of this year, the CNO stated that,"Following his remarks, Gilday confirmed to reporters that NGAD would enter the fleet ahead of DDG(X) and the next-generation nuclear attack submarine, now known as SSN(X). He stressed that the development would happen simultaneously.."
Deletehttps://news.usni.org/2023/01/18/cno-gilday-next-generation-air-dominance-will-come-ahead-of-ddgx-destroyer
I don't foresee any of these happening as the CNOstradamous said.
If we do not have the yard capacity/capability to accomplish maintenance, whether scheduled or unscheduled (USS Connecticut), how can they expect to churn out the Columbia SSBNs, Virginia SSNs for the US and the RAN? Isn't maintenance and construction done at the same yard(s)?
Can any of the Ohio-class SSBNs service lives be extended, if fiscally feasible, to the extent that production of the Columbia-class SSBNs can be paused to focus either maintenance, Virginia-class SSN production or some sort of combination of the two? Is the SSN(X) development a pressing necessity?
CNO, I think your correct that they (CNOs) knew this was coming. Great job of passing the buck, by the leadership.
"Isn't maintenance and construction done at the same yard(s)?"
DeleteActually, no. At least not for nuclear ships. All nuclear ships (submarines and aircraft carriers) are built by two privately owned shipyards: Electric Boat in New London, Connecticut (with a branch in Quonsett, Rhode Island), which only does submarines, and Newport News in Virginia, which does both submarines and carriers.
Maintenance for nuclear ships is done primarily by four Navy shipyards: Portsmouth in Maine, Norfolk in Virginia (close to but a separate yard from Newport News), Puget Sound near Seattle, and Pearl Harbor. There are a few other Navy facilities that do some maintenance, but these four do the deepest depot maintenance.
What has happened is that during the "vacation from history" in the 1990's, many other Navy shipyards were closed (the famous "BRAC" process). And simultaneously, we have grossly underfunded (for decades) investments needed to keep the remaining ones effective, to the extent that most of the equipment in the Navy yards is now past it's "use by" date.