By now I’m sure you’ve heard that the USS Benfold, a Burke
class destroyer, was left adrift, without any power, for four days. Worse, the crew was unable to repair the ship
in that time and had to be towed to port where repairs required an additional
ten days or so.
Ships break down all the time and engineering casualties are far from uncommon. That a breakdown occurred does not bother me as there has been no trend of Burke class engineering casualties that I’m aware of. So … stuff breaks. It happens. No big deal. However, there are a few disturbing aspects to this incident.
Bear in mind that we have no details about what happened.
Repair – It is
disturbing that the crew was unable to restore even partial power during four
days. A ship that can’t repair itself,
at least to a “limp along” capability, is a poorly designed ship. Was the crew lacking machine shops? No qualified technicians? No parts on hand? Lack of knowledge about their own ship?
We know that the Navy has drastically de-emphasized onboard
maintenance and has all but eliminated onboard maintenance and machine
shops. This is a disturbing trend for
warships that can expect to find themselves damaged at sea and out of reach of
immediate assistance. It is vital that
ships be able to repair themselves at least enough to escape the area. Ships did this routinely in WWII. We’ve all but lost this capability today.
Generators – The Burke
class has multiple generators of various types, including emergency generators,
physically remote from each other. Total
power failure should be impossible. Even
an explosion should not be able to take out every generator. I can’t even imagine what kind of failure can
result in total power loss especially since there have been no reports of
explosions, fire, or any other destructive calamity.
We’ll have to wait to find out the details (my guess is that
the Navy will classify the news as seems to be their habit now) but this has to
be a screaming cry to the Navy’s ship designers to modify the design and damage
control procedures to prevent this from ever happening again. Even if the fuel supply were suddenly
contaminated to the point of unusability, I would assume that a Burke has
multiple, isolated fuel tanks. Maybe
not? Again, we’ll have to wait and see.
Repair Time – It is
also disturbing that it required ten days to repair even after being towed back
to port. Again, with no calamitous
event, what go have happened that would require ten days of repairs? Was the time period due to the complexity of
the repair or, alternatively, a lack of repair capability in port (Subic Bay)?
Benfold lost power on July 24. It was towed to Subic Bay on July 28. Power was restored two days later with all repairs completed by Aug. 7 …[1]
Ships break down all the time and engineering casualties are far from uncommon. That a breakdown occurred does not bother me as there has been no trend of Burke class engineering casualties that I’m aware of. So … stuff breaks. It happens. No big deal. However, there are a few disturbing aspects to this incident.
https://news.usni.org/2026/08/17/uss-benfold-leaves-japan-after-returning-from-power-failure-repairs
I beleive it has been pointed out elsewhere the Flight 1 ships don't have the more robust zonal electrical system of later ships. All of our destroyer gas turbine ships from Spruance/Kidd/Tico/Burke have 3 gas turbine generators total where 2 are normally active and one on standby. If a generator is down for maintenance the electrical aspects of the ship are intentionally limited to reduce risk to the system.
ReplyDeleteCVNs, SSN,SSGN,SSBN, and the Zumwalts all have emergency diesel generators.
Higgins to was left adrift. Could be a class wide issue. God Forbid:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2026-04-30/uss-higgins-electrical-indopacific-seventh-fleet-21542697.html
I had forgotten about that one. The HIggins lost power for several hours due to an electrical fire. Emergency generators were brought online and restored basic electrical needs though not combat systems which require more power than the emergency generators could provide. Benfold's issue appears to have been much more serious and there is no report of emergency generators operating. Whether the two incidents have anything in common remains to be seen.
DeleteThere is a big difference between a casualty caused by fire, and a total multi-day electrical failure that the crew could not resolve.
DeleteAll very curious. The Burkes have 3 main alternators, all gas turbine powered. They are in separate compartments so you would not expect all 3 to go down from any single cause.
ReplyDeleteI think I will wait for the report but in simple terms blacking out a ship to the point suggested in the release should not happen. Somewhere in the design there appears to be a single point of failure.
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/4574915/uss-massachusetts-ssn-798-ready-for-fleet-tasking/
ReplyDeleteAs much as it's good to know that the sub had such a great build quality and past the testing, still feels a bit "off" not to do a post shakedown...it might not mean much since the sub seems to be in excellent condition but just doesn't seem right..... it seem like they cutting corners for what? Shave off a few weeks? Maybe a few months?
" good to know that the sub had such a great build quality and past the testing,"
DeleteFirst of all, and sadly, I no longer believe anything the Navy says. You recall the Navy's rave reviews about the LCS and shock testing ... until the DOT&E report revealed that the shock charges had been cut in half and the final, closest test was cancelled due to anticipated damage. In other words, it was an unmitigated failure, contrary to the Navy's claims. I can go on and on with examples of the Navy lying with their claims but you're a regular reader. You know the litany. So, did the sub really have such good trials? With near 100% certainty, NO.
That aside, no vessel can operate for several months and not need some fairly extensive maintenance.
This appears to be a PR exercise to cover the need to free up yard capacity by deferring needed maintenance. The bill for deferred maintenance is ALWAYS paid down the road. There's no such thing as deferred maintenance that doesn't come with added consequences.
Agree. This feels a lot like US corporate management where it's let cut some costs and make time and no one will notice that QC isn't as good.....I really hope this doesn't come back to bit the sailors in the butt one day....to me, it's the continuation of a bad trend because how long before it becomes the norm to do this no matter the condition of the new build???? it's going to be another bad habit by USN.
Delete"dictate ship design"
ReplyDeleteComment deleted for vulgarity, crudity, inaccuracy, political commentary, and personal attacks. Congratulations! You hit the jackpot of rejection.
Hey Com, I wanna ask will you make a in depth very detailed article blog post on redundancy like Iowa with the stuff it has like 4 difference places to steer the ship, 11 places to fire the guns, a crank to keep the fire control working, different ways to restore power like shown in the video of BB New Jersey channel, whatever it is, while I know you have to a degree I really think you should make something very in-depth sense it would help with understanding better ship survivability and ship designing to keep in the fight and keep itself repaired while at sea and how we could unlike our burke which embarrassingly had to be towed.
ReplyDeleteWe've discussed redundancy many times on the blog. Feel free to make use of the archives.
DeleteYou need to bear in mind that the Iowa is immense in size. It has room for many redundancies. All ships should, of course, have some redundancies, however, a Fletcher (or Burke) is much smaller and has limited room for redundancies. Navy ships do have some redundancies although nowhere near enough. Burkes have multiple turbines, multiple guidance radars, etc. The Zumwalt, as an example, was designed with multiple electrical redundancies and cross connections although they failed during the Zumwalt's trials.
We've also extensively discussed the lack of, and need for, on-board repair capabilities.
Honestly, I'm not sure what new information I can present on the topic.
well if you find it way it would be great but thank you man I think it be fun if you made your own blog of how you would design the ship
Delete