Industry Design

The recent book review post about Electronic Greyhounds noted that the Spruance class was the first ship designed wholly by industry instead of the Navy/BuShips.[1]  This was a radical departure from previous practice and has since become the Navy’s standard practice for ship design.  The subsequent evidence would seem to demonstrate that this is a very bad practice.
 
In theory, there are some potential benefits to an industry-design approach.  The primary advantage would be that industry might have a greater concentration of expertise.  Of course, until it was eliminated, BuShips had a concentration of expertise.  Expertise is simply a matter of ‘doing it’ on a regular basis.  There is no reason to believe that an in-house Navy design group would not be every bit as capable as industry and, indeed, BuShips proved that for decades.  In fact, since every ship would pass through the in-house group, they would accumulate more experience and expertise than industry which would only get to work on an occasional Navy project.  In fact, this ‘occasionality’ manifested itself in the LCS designs which saw not one but (if you can believe it!) two companies design and build warships despite never having done so previously.  Not exactly a concentration of expertise, was it?
 
On the flip side, a highly likely potential drawback is that there is no guarantee that industry will produce a good design (hi, again, LCS!), leaving the Navy to choose between a bad design or cancellation of the project which, given the budget implications, is assuredly never going to happen.  The Navy would much rather [irresponsibly] accept a bad design than risk losing budget money as would happen if the project were terminated.
 
There is also no guarantee that the design will be useful.  Admittedly, this is a shared responsibility between industry and the Navy with, perhaps, the bulk of the blame lying with the Navy which refuses to develop viable CONOPS prior to design in order to ensure usefulness.
 
In addition to risking a poor industry ship design, the loss of in-house expertise has resulted in the loss of institutional knowledge within the Navy about what makes a good ship.  This has resulted in NavSea having no ability to recognize flaws in a design, despite being tasked with exactly that responsibility.  Blindingly simple and obvious examples include the failure to provide cathodic corrosion protection (known and understood since the age of sail) and the omission of bridge wings (standard since … well … forever) in the LCS.  Slightly more advanced failures include inadequate stability and weight growth margins.  The Navy no longer possesses the ability to even recognize a good or bad ship design.
 
 
Examples
 
Let’s briefly consider a few examples of industry designs.
 
LCS.  The sheer number and severity of the changes made to both LCS variants attests to the lack of design expertise resident in both the Navy and the manufacturer.[2]
 
Ford.  The Ford catapult, arresting gear, elevators, weapons, toilets, dual band radar, etc. should never have gotten past the napkin stage of design.
 
Montford Point.  The Mobile Landing Platform is an example of a [apparently] technically decent design that is utterly useless with the ships having already been retired for all practical purposes.
 
Zumwalt.  The Zumwalt is a poor design (seakeeping, electrical system, hull design, non-existent close in weapons, etc.) which is also useless (no main weapon and no viable mission).
 
Burke.  The Early Burkes were barely adequate designs (insufficient close in weapons, no hangar, weak structure, etc.) that were improved somewhat in the Flt IIa and are now sub-par with the Flt III (inadequate margins, stability/weight challenges, sub-optimal radar, etc.).
 
Since some of you are already pounding out replies trying to put all the blame on poor Navy requirements, let me repeat, the poor designs are a shared failing and, depending on the specific case, the fault may lie more with the Navy than industry.
 
 
Spruance
 
In contrast to the preceding designs, the Spruance, as it turned out, was an outstanding design but there was no guarantee that would be the case.  It could just have easily been a poor design and the Navy would have had little choice but to accept it, having ceded all responsibility to the manufacturer.  The Navy gambled and got lucky.  However, depending on luck is not the way to design ships.  Unfortunately, the Spruance was the last good industry design and the Navy has had to accept a string of poor designs ever since. 
 
 
Conclusion
 
History and logic clearly demonstrate that ceding ship design responsibility to industry is a poor practice.  While the possibility of producing a good design exists, the long line of failures makes it clear that the odds of success are very poor.  To be fair, the Navy does everything they can to ensure a poor outcome with constant design changes, idiotic and conflicting requirements, absence of CONOPS, and utter lack of expertise with which to spot and correct problems at the design stage.  To be additionally fair, industry is responsible for basic failures such as inadequate structural strength, overly complex machinery (does anyone know how to design a functional combining gear????), unrepairable machinery (EMALS, for example), missing cathodic protection, stability issues, inadequate margins and allowances, incorrectly calculated weights and metacentric heights, toilets that don’t work, poorly located sensors, rampant stress cracks, and so on.
 
As we discussed, the inability of industry to produce a good design is just half the problem with industry being tasked with design.  The other half is the loss of the Navy’s in-house expertise to the point that they can no longer even spot a flaw in a design.  By ceding design responsibility, the Navy has rendered themselves deaf, dumb, and blind regarding designs.  The Navy has created a fatal dependency (addiction) on industry and are now trapped into accepting whatever garbage industry pukes out.
 
Finally, let me once again repeat, the Navy contributes heavily to poor designs with their idiotic requirements and constant change orders.
 
We absolutely must reconstitute BuShips and return ship design expertise to the Navy.  We cannot afford to keep producing failure after failure.  The Navy has become so gun shy about new ship designs that they would rather continue building obsolete Burkes and Constellation mini-Burkes than risk a new design.
 
Bring back BuShips!
 
 
 
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[1]Capt. Michael C. Potter, USNR, Electronic Greyhounds, The Spruance-Class Destroyers, Naval Institute Press, 1995, ISBN 1-55750-682-5
 
[2]Military.com website, “Navy Engineers LCS Changes”, 27-Jun-2014,
https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2014/06/27/navy-engineers-lcs-changes