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Monday, March 18, 2024

Foreign Ships Are Magnificent

Without a doubt, the US has shipbuilding problems with every recent naval ship program coming in badly over budget, over schedule, riddled with quality problems and non-functional equipment, delivered in only partially complete condition, unfit for combat, and sometimes actually damaged and yet the Navy has accepted and commissioned every ship. In contrast, it is almost an article of faith among naval observers and commentators that foreign ships are magnificent wonders of naval accomplishment, being cheap, quick to build, and testaments to naval technology and quality.  In fact, one of the most commonly proffered solutions to US naval shipbuilding problems is to have our ships be built by foreign companies, either in foreign countries or by having foreign builders come to the US and establish facilities.
 
Are foreign ships and shipbuilders really miracles of modern naval construction, as so many believe?  Let’s dig a bit deeper and see.
 
The first problem in trying to assess foreign ship construction programs is that there is almost no information available.  The US publishes data on naval vessels in a variety of government reports, public forums, blog postings, and general news sources.  In contrast, there is almost no publicly available information on foreign ship acquisition programs.  That leaves us to reason out the situation from the snippets of information we can find.
 
Let’s look at some examples of foreign ships and shipbuilding problems and see if we can discern a pattern.
  
 
HMS Prince of Wales – The Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier Prince of Wales, commissioned in Dec 2019, suffered a propulsion system breakdown in Aug 2022 resulting in damage to the shaft, propeller, and rudder.  Repairs sidelined the ship until Jul 2023.
 
HMS Queen Elizabeth -  The Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, commissioned in Dec 2017, suffered a propulsion system breakdown in Jul 2019 and had to abandon a scheduled NATO exercise.
 
Helge Ingstad – The Norwegian frigate suffered a collision and subsequently sank due to faulty design and construction flaws that allowed flooding to pass from compartment to compartment through shaft seals.
 
HMS Triumph – In 1988 the Royal Navy Trafalgar class submarine, then under construction, had a large section mistakenly welded into position upside down.
 
Baden-Württemberg F125 Frigate – In 2017, the German frigate failed its trials and was rejected by the German Navy.  Problems included a permanent list, faulty radar, improper fireproof fuel tank coatings, excessive weight, subsystem interface defects, and hardware/software integration
 
New Zealand/Canada ANZAC Frigate Upgrade – The $375M original cost has jumped to $639M.  Project planning began in 2006 with contracts being awarded in 2014 and completion occurring in 2022/23.  That’s a 17 year upgrade project!  The work was performed in Canada.
 
Type 45 Destroyer - The Type 45’s advanced propulsion system was found in 2010 to be unreliable, especially when operating in the heat of the Persian Gulf.  HMS Dauntless was laid up in 2016 to undergo a major refit that would solve the propulsion problems.  The project took twice as long as estimated and was not completed until June 2022.
 
Digital modelling was used to de-risk some of the issues but in practice, the work proved more complex than expected.[2]
 
Soviet/Russian Ship Quality – Construction quality problems have been well documented by interior photos, tour observations, post-Cold War reports, etc.
 
For But Not With – Foreign ship builds widely use the ‘for but not with’ method of construction which delivers ships without necessary weapons and sensors but allows the builder/country to claim reduced costs.  Some foreign ships also are known to reuse weapons from a retired ship – not necessarily a bad thing but, again, it results in artificially low cost claims when compared to purely new construction.
 
Austal – The Australian shipbuilder, Austal, built a facility in the US to manufacture the Independence variant LCS and that turned out to be a disaster with cost overruns, schedule slippages, specifications not met, and a host of design and quality issues.
 
FREMM/Constellation – The US Constellation class frigate, based on the parent FREMM design, had to be extensively redesigned to meet US survivability standards.  This is especially eye-opening given how lax and minimal US standards have become!  This suggests that a significant portion of the supposed lower foreign costs may come from significantly reduced standards.
 
French Frigate Misfire – In 2018, a French frigate’s attempted cruise missile strike on suspected Syrian chemical weapon sites failed when the missile salvo failed to launch.  A second frigate had to take the tasking.
 
As noted, there is almost no information, good or bad, about SKorean and Japanese naval ship quality.  Unfortunately, SKorea and Japan are two of the commonly suggested foreign shipbuilders that we should use/emulate.
 
 
Discussion/Conclusion
 
Any one of the above cited incidents could be explained away as a one-of-a-kind occurrence but the overall pattern clearly demonstrates that foreign shipbuilders suffer the same kinds of quality and design problems that American ships and shipbuilders do.  There is nothing magic about foreign ships or builders.
 
Claims of cost savings inevitably fail to account for extensive subsidies, reuse of equipment, ‘for but not with’ practices, lower standards, etc.  Thus, foreign cost savings claims are highly suspect, bordering on false.
 
The most interesting data point is the Austal manufacturing effort.  A foreign shipbuilder came to the US, supposedly bringing the many miracles of foreign shipbuilding, built a facility and, contrary to what so many expected, suffered the exact same problems that US builders do.  The main thing that changed when they came to the US was the degree of public scrutiny.  All their failures and shortcomings were publicized.  Thus, the idea of bringing a foreign shipbuilder to the US to construct a facility is almost guaranteed to produce no improvements.  A foreign builder in the US would be subject to the same laws, regulations, work force issues, and so forth that US builders are and those issues would have the same negative impacts. 
 
The pattern of incidents also suggest that foreign builders build to lower design standards than US builders which leads to impressions of lower cost.  Given the steady lowering of US standards, this is shocking that foreign navies/builders would have even lower standards.
 
In short, I would have no great objections to using a foreign shipyard for US naval construction but I would expect no improvement in quality, cost, or schedule issues.  There is nothing magic about foreign shipyards other than their greatly reduced public visibility.
 
There is also the issue of security.  One would have to assume that any technology or design specifications that were sent to a foreign builder would wind up in China’s hands and that’s a concern.  Of course, it’s not as if our home-grown security has prevented the Chinese from acquiring all the information they could want so maybe security isn’t that big of an issue!
 
A separate aspect of the consideration of foreign shipbuilders is that of competition.  The number of US naval shipbuilders has steadily dwindled to a precious few which, without a doubt, has led to non-competition and all its associated ills.  The use of foreign shipbuilders would, if nothing else, provide a degree of competition that has been lacking.  It’s not even debatable that competition is a positive that helps drive improvements and reduced costs.  I find this to be the most persuasive argument for foreign shipyards, by far.
 
As with so many things in life, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence but, upon closer examination, it isn’t really.
 
 
 
 
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21 comments:

  1. This would be a scenario where I agree with your premise more than your argument. Toss European comparison out the window, especially the British. The Brits are like us. Their yards exist only because they have a navy. Other European yards fare a bit better still having good value added shipbuilding which is somewhat comparable to naval shipbuilding. Offshore, Icebreakers, Ferries, Cruise ships, yachts. There issues seem to lay more in not having real war experience a sea since WWII. Japan and Korea would be the best to look towards mostly because they face the active naval threat and are the 2 navies most closely bred out of their post war interaction with the USN. I think Austal is a good case to look at as their Australian yard has moved toward defense focus and their commercial business has moved to the Vietnamese and Philippine yards. Their U.S. operation seems to be hitting its challenges now with their financial scandal and opening up their steel line. EPF and LCS have gone relatively well for them for time and schedule. As far as LCS they in the end beat out Fincantieri for more hulls although Fincantieri also got the Saudi work. Even them, Austal got the EPF line extended and the EMS ships added.

    We lack a plan and strategy when spewing out the bad ideas. What might we do:
    T-AGOS - The SURTASS ships would be good to build in Japan. They already build their ships in partnership with the U.S. as the sonar is the same and requires some security. Australia is getting a lighter version of the sonar. Their could be an AUKUS like partnership here or at least have Japan build the ships. They've built one much more recently than we have.

    The other build opportunity might be in icebreakers. Let Bollinger build the heavies underway, but get the mediums going abroad.

    The rest should be getting fixed domestically.

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    1. "Offshore, Icebreakers, Ferries, Cruise ships, yachts"

      None of those are warships so any observations about them are irrelevant.

      "LCS have gone relatively well "

      You can't be serious! Go through the archives and read the posts about the Independence-LCS problems. Read the DOT&E and GAO reports.

      Delete
  2. "As noted, there is almost no information, good or bad, about SKorean and Japanese naval ship quality. Unfortunately, SKorea and Japan are two of the commonly suggested foreign shipbuilders that we should use/emulate."

    There might be a blind spot because you (and me) can only speak English, so we only get news from English speaking countries and adjacent. I suspect there's plenty of information about the Korean and Japanese navies that just never gets translated into English.

    It's also a case of "no news is good news." Why *would* you hear about their ships, if they're not in an accident? Those countries aren't at war, so they can't win any glorious naval battles. They're just quietly going about their job, going on patrol and acting as deterrence. The Japanese Kongo destroyers, for example, have been active since the early 90s, with no major incidence that I know of.

    Sometimes countries are just better at different things. Korea and Japan are also great at building subways and high-speed rail, which is something the US really struggles with. I don't exactly know why, I just accept it.

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    1. "There might be a blind spot because you (and me) can only speak English"

      If there was any information, we'd see it translated and repeated in English. There is simply no information, good or bad, to be had.

      "It's also a case of "no news is good news."

      You can't be serious! No news generally means an authoritarian or dictatorial government is suppressing the news. According to your belief, NKorea and China would have the highest quality militaries in the world because we see the least amount of news about them. Russia was also a 'no news' country until they started losing ships in Ukraine so that disproves the no news theory.

      "with no major incidence that I know of."

      Which doesn't prove they have no problems. All It proves is that they issue no information.

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    2. I was specifically talking about Japan and Korea (South), which are not authoritarian governments suppressing the news. If one of their ships had a major accident, we'd hear about it. But you might not hear about more mundane stuff that nobody bothers to translate.

      We've heard plenty about issues with the Nkorea, Chinese, and Russian militaries even before the Ukraine war. Like the Kursk submarine sinking, or the problems with the Kirovs, or the latest thing about Chinese rocket fuel being replaced with water. Even the most authoritarian governments can't really cover up a ship sinking.

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    3. "If one of their ships had a major accident, we'd hear about it"

      If it was a big enough incident, yes. What about the [possibly] thousands of mundane quality issues, cost overruns, schedule slippages, etc.? Would we hear about those? Maybe, maybe not. The fact that we've not heard about ANY suggests that the news is being suppressed unless you believe that Japanese and SKorean shipbuilding is without any errors or problems whatsoever. Since that's a ridiculous belief, the only logical conclusion is that routine problems are not being advertised. The question then becomes, what level of problems exist?

      "We've heard plenty about issues with the Nkorea, Chinese, and Russian militaries"

      What Chinese naval shipbuilding issue(s) have you heard about? I haven't heard about any. Rocket fuel is not a shipbuilding issue. What NKorean shipbuilding issue(s) have you heard about? Again, I've not heard about any. There have been some Russian reports, mainly in response to a catastrophic occurrence but I've not heard of any quality, cost, or schedule issues.

      "Even the most authoritarian governments can't really cover up a ship sinking."

      No, they can't, however, that's the least common form of failure. What we want to know, in the context of this post, is whether a country's routine quality, cost, and schedules are better than ours, as so many believe, or about the same. A sinking is almost an irrelevant data point, depending on the cause.

      You seem to want to believe that no news automatically means good things. If you went to a car dealer and they wouldn't give you any information would you believe that means that the car is perfect? That's what you're doing here, with ships.

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    4. Do you seriously believe that there is some conspiracy in South Korea and Japan to cover up the problems with their shipbuilding? They have just as much freedom of the press as we do.

      No doubt there are small issues like the ones you listed, that we just don't hear about, either because they're not newsworthy or no one bothers to translate that news into English. But from what I can see, those countries are building ships faster and cheaper than the US does, with basically the same technology and design. It's not surpising, since they also build a lot of fishing and cargo ships so there's a lot of experienced shipbuilders there.

      North Korea is easy, they just don't build ships at all! All of their navy is leftovers from the 1960s.

      China, I don't know. We did hear about their issues with the aircraft carrier they bought from Russia. I think the actual performance of their new stuff is either completely unknown or classified. All I know for sure is that they are building ships much, much faster than we are, while spending a roughly similar amount of money on their military overall.

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    5. "there is some conspiracy"

      No, not particularly. They just seem to have no equivalent of our public DOT&E, GAO, CRS, etc. reports and no dedicated naval news reporting such as the many blogs and Internet organizations we have.

      "freedom of the press"

      Freedom of the press does not guarantee openness of information. If the military or government agencies opt not to publicize actual costs, schedules, and quality issues, the press will never know. Consider our 'free press' and how it's manipulated by the government to limit and spin information.

      "small issues"

      Small issues?????!!!! Cost, schedule, and quality are major issues and are EXACTLY the point and focus of the post. So many people claim that foreign shipbuilders can build faster, better, and cheaper despite no evidence that this is true and a great deal of information that suggests that's not true.

      "faster and cheaper than the US"

      There you go making statements of fact that are anything but. Every case I've examined (and documented on this blog) has turned out to have costs on par with US shipbuilding WHEN ALL COST FACTORS ARE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT.

      "All I know for sure is that they are building ships much, much faster than we are"

      Are you sure? Let's consider the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong (Type 002). From Wiki, construction began in November 2013 and the ship was launched April 2017 with commissioning in December 2019. That's six years for what we would consider a mini-carrier. Compare that to the last Nimitz that took six years from start to commissioning. Or, consider the Type 052D destroyer which takes an average of about 2.5 years from launch to commissioning compared to about 2.5 years for a Burke from launch to commissioning.

      Don't confuse production RATE with speed of construction. China's production rate far exceeds ours but that's a matter of choosing to build more ships. The actual construction times appear identical.

      Delete
  3. "sent to a foreign builder would wind up in China’s hands and that’s a concern."

    Does China care? Look type 055 vs Burke.

    Navy talks about S. Korea and Japan, 2nd and 3rd largest ship builders in the world, not European worse than US ship builders. S. Korea and Japan are building advanced destroyers rival Burkes. Japan also builds advanced conventional powered submarines.

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    1. Type 052D vs a Burke earlier than Flight 3. And China is building them about 8 times faster than we are. The Type 055 is what the Zumwalts were supposed to be, and failed miserably at. The 055 is a very interesting light cruiser, regardless of what the Chinese want to call it. And it seems they can at least keep them at sea which the Russians struggle with.

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  4. https://breakingdefense.com/2024/03/frances-naval-group-picked-to-build-4-barracuda-class-subs-for-dutch-military/

    Just today, the Dutch ordered 4 conventional subs from the French for around $6 billion, that's about $1.5 billion a sub, now, not quite sure what's in the details of the order....we always complain about SSNs prices and it is hard to compare BUT these conventional subs aren't so cheap either....and they should be operational in the mid-2030s!

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  5. Won't happen as Congress has banned this:

    https://maritime-executive.com/article/senate-ndaa-bans-allied-manufacturing-base-from-u-s-navy-shipbuilding

    Foreign ship builders to build shipyards in US? It is laughable as any sensible Korean or Japanese know that they won't make money.

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  6. As the great philosopher Kylie Minogue once stated "Better the Devil you know".

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  7. I have proposed that a number of foreign designs be adapted by the USN, but NOT the way the FREMM was “adapted” to the Constellation.

    At a time when the USN comes up short on anti-surface (SUW) and anti-submarine (ASW) warfare, they took a decent (not great, but decent, and could have been really good with a few tweaks) general purpose (GP) frigate and sacrificed a lot of SUW/ASW capability (no hull mounted sonar, for one) to turn it into an AEGIS platform. I still think the idea was to build 20 Connies as far less capable (32 VLS cells versus 122) numeric replacements for the 22 Ticos that the Navy wants so badly to be rid of. No way a Connie can replace a Tico, except in the Navy’s mind.

    My thinking has been tied in part to the shipyard issue. I’m not sure anybody in the USA is much interested in building or refurbishing a shipyard. But the European yards are used to making a living from one-off designs, or at best maybe a 5 to 10 ship production run. But if the USN could promise a 20 to 30 ship production run, I believe a number of European yards would be up for doing something like the French Naval Group did with the Brazilians at Itaguai to build the Riachuelos and ultimately the Brazilian nuke(s).

    I don’t think we will get all-in costs as low as the Europeans claim based on the kinds of cost calculation games you describe. For one thing, based upon the European ships I have visited, I’m pretty sure USN damage control standards are higher and therefore more expensive. And obviously building with all the hardware rather than for but not with (FBNW) costs more money. But having more yards would mean more competition, and that can only be a good thing. And given a long enough run to amortize one-time costs, I think it is entirely possible that significant price decreases could be possible.

    I wonder if yards like Mare Island and Hunter’s Point, which the USN has abandoned but the properties have not yet been repurposed, could be restored. Just spit balling there, I don’t know, but if so, those could be very useful. I could certainly see Naval Group doing a joint venture with a USA yard, like Itagui, at either location to build modified GP FREMMs or Mistrals or Barracudas.

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    1. "I still think the idea was to build 20 Connies as far less capable (32 VLS cells versus 122) numeric replacements for the 22 Ticos"

      Aside from the numbers being close to each other, do you have any documentary evidence of this?

      " if the USN could promise a 20 to 30 ship production run,"

      You mean like the 55-ship LCS run? Or the 32-ship Zumwalt run? The Navy is big on grand shipbuilding plans and famous for cutting them after some builder has committed. What foreign builder in their right mind would want to take on that kind of unreliable project or offer a reasonable price, if they do take it on? If they take on the project, they'll jack up the price to compensate for the inevitable cuts to the program.

      " I’m not sure anybody in the USA is much interested in building or refurbishing a shipyard."

      Because the volume isn't there. We're currently building around 6-8 warships per year. No builder is going to invest in new yards, expansions, or facility improvements with that kind of meager building schedule.

      "something like the French Naval Group did with the Brazilians"

      How would that help us with our cost, schedule, and quality issues? As I understand it, FNG simply sold/transferred technology to Brazil. They didn't build the yard, provide the workforce, or have any hand in the construction.

      " I think it is entirely possible that significant price decreases could be possible."

      Aside from wishful thinking, how would this occur? From what would these imagined savings come?

      "I could certainly see Naval Group doing a joint venture with a USA yard"

      Again, FNG didn't provide any physical assistance and we already have the technology so what would they offer of benefit?

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    2. “Aside from the numbers being close to each other, do you have any documentary evidence of this?”
      No, nor would I expect to see any. Do you really think the Navy would allow something like that to get out? The numbers are close enough to make me question the likelihood that they are coincidental. I can very easily imagine some admiral somewhere saying, “Yes, we got rid of the Ticos. But we replaced 22 of them with 20 Connies, which are also AEGIS ships, so almost as good.”

      “Navy is big on grand shipbuilding plans and famous for cutting them after some builder has committed. What foreign builder in their right mind would want to take on that kind of unreliable project or offer a reasonable price, if they do take it on? If they take on the project, they'll jack up the price to compensate for the inevitable cuts to the program.”

      They’ve already seen production runs cut from 10 to 5 a few times in their own countries, so I would expect them to be wary. Any deal is going to have to be negotiated very carefully. And I don’t think it’s sensible for the Navy to make the kinds of massive wholesale changes that were made in the Connies, which barely resemble the FREMMs.

      “Because the volume isn't there. We're currently building around 6-8 warships per year. No builder is going to invest in new yards, expansions, or facility improvements with that kind of meager building schedule.”

      It's really a chicken and egg situation. We can’t build more ships because we don’t have the yards, and we don’t have the yards because we don’t build more ships.

      “How would that help us with our cost, schedule, and quality issues? As I understand it, FNG simply sold/transferred technology to Brazil. They didn't build the yard, provide the workforce, or have any hand in the construction.”

      Having more yards would mean more competition, which usually drives improvements in cost, schedules, and quality. The invisible hand and all that. What I’m looking for is a way to jump start shipyard building and development.

      “Aside from wishful thinking, how would this occur? From what would these imagined savings come?”

      If you have $1B of development costs up front, and do a 5-ship run, that $200MM of development costs that each ship has to absorb. Do a 20-ship run, and that number goes down to $50MM per ship. That’s a potential $150MM cost reduction per ship.

      “Again, FNG didn't provide any physical assistance and we already have the technology so what would they offer of benefit?”
      The fact that they have done a deal like this and thus presumably have some knowledge and experience of what it takes. And I don’t see anyone else who has done anything like it.
      I don’t pretend that this is a perfect solution, nor that I have all the answers. I’m just trying to think of ways that might have a chance to get us out of the current quandary. It’s outside the box, but I don’t see a way to solve it without getting outside the box.


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    3. "It's really a chicken and egg situation. We can’t build more ships because we don’t have the yards"

      That's incorrect. While we don't have the capacity to build dozens of ships, we do have more capacity than we're using. For example, in 2015 we built 11 ships and the number of yards and their capacity hasn't changed since then. The Navy's current 30-year plan calls for an average of 13 new ships over the next several years so the capacity clearly exists. The Navy has simply made the baffling decision not to use fully use the existing capacity this year and the last couple of years.

      "If you have $1B of development costs ... number goes down to $50MM per ship"

      That's not a cost savings. It's the exact same total expenditure whether you spread it over one ship or a thousand. This post is about the [erroneous] belief that foreign yards have actual lower costs, are faster, and have better quality.

      "I don’t see anyone else who has done anything like it."

      As noted in the post, Austal did exactly this and failed miserably. Why would FNG or anyone else do better? What's the definition of insanity?

      " I don’t see a way to solve it"

      I've described exactly how to improve our shipbuilding without resorting to foreign builders. Briefly, order more ships, execute a massive maintenance and upgrade program, outlaw change orders, fire every officer connected to a program that comes in overbudget/schedule, wildly reward those who come in on or under budget and schedule, implement warranties and USE THEM, ban trial waivers, stop accepting less than perfect ships. Do all that and we'll drastically improve our cost/schedule/quality issues.

      We always seem to want to jump to foreign solutions (whether it's training or ship construction) instead of first looking at our own resources and options and fixing what we have. I guarantee you we can implement my fixes much more easily than we can get Congress to approve foreign shipbuilders.

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  8. I don't know where I'm going with this so just tossing this thought but maybe we are looking at the ship building process from the wrong angle.
    Do we really have a problem with ships = hulls or really what we "stuff" inside them and where the real cost is?

    Hulls are just steel and bunch of welds, engines have been GE turbines for years so that's a part that I guess is somewhat under control and we could expand that relatively easily BUT the real issue is the rest: helicopters, hangars, AEGIS, weapons, software etc...my guess , that's where the real problems of expansion and costs are.....maybe let's not worry as much about the "easy" heavy metal and worry more about the "stuffing": that's where the real cost savings are and where we should look improve the production time lines....

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    1. You're correct that the hull, itself, is not the issue. However, the issue is not the 'stuff', per se. It's the associated issues: poor design, poor QA/QC, failure to enforce warranties, constant change orders, layers of pointless bureaucracy, program cuts which drive up all subsequent bids/contracts to compensate, miniscule quantities, etc.

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  9. Well late comment but you do seem have stepped around Japan which seems to be knocking out decent ships at an affordable rate. The 2017/18 cost for a Mogami FF (~450 million) looks like a steal compared to the cost of a literally not a combat ship.

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    1. "seem have stepped around Japan which seems to be knocking out decent ships at an affordable rate."

      As stated in the post, that's because there is no useful information, good or bad, upon which to make an assessment.

      "cost for a Mogami FF (~450 million) "

      That is an unsupported statement. If you can tell me to what degree Japan subsidizes their builds both directly and indirectly, what degree of government furnished equipment they use, what standards they build to, what degree of completion they accept, how they account fitting out costs, what their warranty situation is, etc. then you/I will have a basis for a useful assessment of their shipbuilding costs. I know the answers to none of those which is why I skipped an assessment of them.

      Simply accepting a publicly quoted figure is useless and incorrect. If you believed the official Navy cost figures, the $20B Ford (and counting) only cost $12.9B and the not yet completed Zumwalt only cost around $3.9B. Of course, those figures are completely fictitious, in reality.

      Every time I've dug into foreign ship costs, the true (well, truer) cost is significantly higher than the publicly stated cost.

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