The Navy is currently a flaming hot mess. It’s not even debatable and I won’t bother
listing all the problems. President
Trump appears to recognize this to an unknown, but significant, degree and has
issued a memo calling for various actions to improve naval shipbuilding
capabilities and capacities.
The memo is a fascinating blend of solid, beneficial
concepts and technical and legal challenges.
It also fails to address, or even mention, the root cause of the Navy’s
shipbuilding woes. Let’s take a closer
look.
The very first sentence recognizes and states the problem
(well, one of the problems) quite forcefully and succinctly.
In plainer terms, it states that the Navy’s ship acquisition process is a steaming pile of crap and, very importantly, identifies at least a couple of the major contributing factors. Excellent!
It goes on to say,
That’s nice but it’s like calling for world peace – a noble goal but pointless without specific, effective actions and none are listed. Miss America calls for world peace every year but I’m pretty sure it’s still a problem.
We then see a vague recognition of part of the problem.
This is saying that the days of trying to incorporate non-existent, leap ahead technologies are over. That’s a great sentiment which I heartily endorse. Now, ruthlessly enforce it. However, there is also a potential pitfall here. If we never incorporate new technology, we’ll never advance. There needs to be a corresponding directive to make use of one-off prototypes specifically to evaluate and develop new technologies.
Now, here’s a stunner.
This has long been one of the President’s pet peeves and he appears to be trying to act on it. I fully support this but the inertia and incompetence in Navy leadership is not going to take this lying down. This will be vigorously opposed . Unless the President has the complete agreement and backing of SecNav and CNO, this will not happen. A great way to get such agreement and backing is to start firing people until people can be found who are on board with the President.
The memo repeatedly calls for foreign involvement in the
shipbuilding process, both directly and indirectly. This is a concept that has some appeal, under
certain, limited circumstances, but has a great deal of potential to run afoul
of legislative roadblocks. Beyond that,
what the President is calling for has been attempted and resulted in the
spectacular failures of the LCS and Constellation. Repeating a set of actions and expecting a
different outcome is the definition of insanity. This needs to be very carefully thought out
and managed and the Navy has emphatically demonstrated they have no such
management capability. Wholesale firings
of the existing flag ranks would go a long way to solving this.
Another major problem is addressed.
This is recognizing the destructive impact of the Navy’s never-ending change orders. Again, though, the embedded inertia of incompetent leadership will make this nearly impossible to enforce. Remember , the Constellation was going to a parent design with only minor changes and, yet, before it was cancelled, almost all commonality with the parent design had vanished. I enthusiastically support this but it will require ruthless enforcement. My suggestion is that any program manager who proposes a change order be summarily fired.
Here’s one of the major challenges that we mentioned above.
The President is going to find that getting Congress to go along with any attempt to utilize foreign shipyards is going to be poorly received and strongly opposed. There are also practical concerns with technological security. Still, under certain circumstances this could be beneficial. I’d prefer to build up our own shipbuilding capacity rather than rely on foreign involvement.
The memo calls for establishing a new public shipyard for
maintenance and support. Challenging but
outstanding!
Here’s another good idea.
Outstanding!
And finally, a major, major action calling for a gutting and
rework of NAVSEA.
This is saying what ComNavOps has been saying for some time – that NAVSEA is a failed organization of total incompetents. Outstanding, outstanding, outstanding!
Discussion
This memo has lots of good stuff in it and the Navy would be
far better off if they can be implemented.
The reality, however, is that any changes will be actively opposed and
unless SecDef and SecNav are willing to engage in wholesale firings, most it
will never occur.
I’m also dismayed that SecDef Hegseth did not implement all
of this on day one of his tenure. This
reinforces my belief that he is a failure, perhaps not as bad as some but
certainly a major disappointment. One
could read this memo as a criticism by the President of Hegseth and interpret
it as Hegseth failing to the point that the President felt he had to step in
and take over.
The aspect of all this that the memo failed to address is
that the root cause of the Navy’s failures is irredeemably incompetent
leadership from the flag officers. That
is what the memo should have led with and the solution is easy – fire them
all. Since Hegseth refuses to engage in
wholesale housecleaning, the actions called for in the memo will be vigorously
opposed and Trump and Hegseth will have only themselves to blame for their
disappointment when this fails to materialize.
Let’s hope for the best but the sad reality is that most of
this is a fantasy because they won’t take the necessary first step of mass
firings.
_________________________________
The United States Navy has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures …[1]
In plainer terms, it states that the Navy’s ship acquisition process is a steaming pile of crap and, very importantly, identifies at least a couple of the major contributing factors. Excellent!
The Department of War shall restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base ,,,[1]
That’s nice but it’s like calling for world peace – a noble goal but pointless without specific, effective actions and none are listed. Miss America calls for world peace every year but I’m pretty sure it’s still a problem.
It will use proven, reliable, and affordable technologies and ship designs …[1]
This is saying that the days of trying to incorporate non-existent, leap ahead technologies are over. That’s a great sentiment which I heartily endorse. Now, ruthlessly enforce it. However, there is also a potential pitfall here. If we never incorporate new technology, we’ll never advance. There needs to be a corresponding directive to make use of one-off prototypes specifically to evaluate and develop new technologies.
Within 60 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall provide to the President, … a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81 ...[1]
This has long been one of the President’s pet peeves and he appears to be trying to act on it. I fully support this but the inertia and incompetence in Navy leadership is not going to take this lying down. This will be vigorously opposed . Unless the President has the complete agreement and backing of SecNav and CNO, this will not happen. A great way to get such agreement and backing is to start firing people until people can be found who are on board with the President.
The Navy shall not impose iterative design changes upon the original mature parent designs within the above programs implemented pursuant to the plans developed under subsections (a) through (b) of this section. No changes from parent designs shall be made without the approval of the Secretary of War ,,,[1]
This is recognizing the destructive impact of the Navy’s never-ending change orders. Again, though, the embedded inertia of incompetent leadership will make this nearly impossible to enforce. Remember , the Constellation was going to a parent design with only minor changes and, yet, before it was cancelled, almost all commonality with the parent design had vanished. I enthusiastically support this but it will require ruthless enforcement. My suggestion is that any program manager who proposes a change order be summarily fired.
… for purposes of waiving the general prohibition on Armed Forces shipbuilding in foreign shipyards.[1]
The President is going to find that getting Congress to go along with any attempt to utilize foreign shipyards is going to be poorly received and strongly opposed. There are also practical concerns with technological security. Still, under certain circumstances this could be beneficial. I’d prefer to build up our own shipbuilding capacity rather than rely on foreign involvement.
… establish a Component Repair Center to receive new and refurbish old components and parts as required by the submarine repair industrial base.[1]
Outstanding!
Reforming Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall submit to the President, through the Director of OMB and the APNSA, a review of NAVSEA, including recommendations for implementing personnel, organizational, and structural reforms. The objective of these reforms should be to: introduce results‑based accountability for NAVSEA leadership, determined by speed of delivery of vessels and systems; reduce bureaucracy and red tape; eliminate competing priorities among different NAVSEA components, which often result in delayed, cost-prohibitive, or overly complex vessels and systems; and prevent NAVSEA from imposing redesigns or iterative design changes upon original mature parent designs.[1]
This is saying what ComNavOps has been saying for some time – that NAVSEA is a failed organization of total incompetents. Outstanding, outstanding, outstanding!
https://news.usni.org/2026/08/13/presidential-memo-rebuilding-the-united-states-navy-and-americas-shipbuilding-industrial-base
As I said with respect to war, it's impossible to separate from politics. In the practical sense, "fire them all" is the easiest and the president certainly has the authority. Exercising that option as a naked and dramatic display of power could lead to a loss of that power.
ReplyDeleteA speculative possibility is that this declaration of intent will lead to a politically safer method of eliminating many admirals. It might be politically impossible to fire them outright, but if they refused to follow orders, leak their gripes, or simply resign in protest, there's a pretext that even died in the wool bureaucrats can't dismiss (in fact, it's their natural methodology).
And yes, I think firing/cashiering the 80% of the GOFOs that should be would provoke a massive political crisis simply because the 40% of the country that hates Trump is (mostly) willing to fight literally anything he does. You can see this in the response to this memo. People are trying to say the Ford works well, when it's patently obvious it does not.
To correct myself there it looks like the latest MSAR says the Ford was able to generate 172 sorties/day over 4 days where the goal was 160.
Deletehttps://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Selected_Acquisition_Reports/PB_2027_MSARs/CVN_78_MSAR_FY2027_PBv2.pdf
Is that a reasonable demonstration? I don't know, but I guess it's not patently obvious that it doesn't work. If they have it working to the point they can conduct normal operations at a higher level than the Nimitz's, that's pretty good.
170 per day for 4 days = 680 launches.
DeleteBye Bye NAVSEA, welcome back BuShips.
ReplyDeleteNotice the AAG was left out of rip out and replace for the Fords in our future, does this mean it works?
The only foreign ships the Navy will buy will be Maya or Sejong the Great class, since they're deluxe Burkes, ;-)
"AAG was left out "
DeleteI did notice that. All reports indicate that the AAG is an even bigger failure than EMALS. I assume (well, hope, actually) that AAG is included but simply wasn't listed in a brief memo. Heck, if the memo listed everything wrong with Ford, it wouldn't be a memo - it would be a book!
"The only foreign ships the Navy will buy will be Maya or Sejong the Great class"
DeleteWhile this is a popular and appealing notion, do you see the immense difficulties associated with trying to do that? Aside from legal issues, there is security. How do we get a foreign yard to build a ship without revealing to them our technical secrets? I assume that any foreign yard is riddled with Chinese (among others) spies.
Hand in hand with that is the specific equipment and software. We would need to specify all new US equipment, computers, and software. I suppose we could have a foreign yard deliver an empty shell of a ship but then we'd spend twice as much ripping holes in it to install equipment in already sealed compartments. That doesn't seem wise.
As I said, the notion might be appealing to some but the practical difficulties are almost insurmountable.
The concept might work for non-critical, generic vessels like cargo ships but it would be very difficult to have a foreign yard build a warship. Think about the reverse. Would China allow us to build a warship for them and see all their secrets? Of course not!
My suggestion was in fun, under the theory that any foreign
Deleteship will be modified into a Burke or Burkette by the Navy.
Might as well start with the IJN's Maya, a deluxe Burke
with better paint.
Check SeaForces.org for Maya fit out, it is all USN.
Several years ago, I was researching the USS Ford problems and found comments by someone who recently left the program. He wrote that the flywheels are the problem. As I recall, there are 12 of them. The system works great, but after a couple months they begin to break and can't be fixed at sea.
ReplyDeleteSo the system can pass tests and produce good numbers during the first month, but into a deployment the overall launch capability begins to degrade as the flywheels break. After a few go down, its time to head home.
I just googled this issue and found this from 2017.
Animats on June 7, 2017 | parent | context | favorite | on: How not to build a ship: the USS Ford
The EMALS system's big problems seem to be with the motor-generator-flywheel system used to power them. The ship doesn't generate enough power to drive the catapults directly from ship power. They have to wind up a flywheel, and then dump that energy using a generator when launching aircraft. The hardware for that weighs 12 tons. Whatever problem they're having has resulted in damage to the motor/generator windings, requiring pulling out the rotating component. This is apparently a difficult repair.
That has to create huge stresses on the windings. You wind up the flywheel, and then suddenly apply field current to activate the generator. They may be trying to ramp up field current slowly to reduce the stress. Some articles mention problems with a voltage regulator causing machine damage. Maybe the rotating machinery can't take a full-power turn-on.
Details on the system seem rather vague. Some published articles say there are four motor-generator-flywheel sets; others say only two. Isolating failed units electrically for maintenance is apparently difficult. Unclear why.
This unit "passed factory acceptance testing" in 2008.[1] These problems should have been discovered and fixed years ago. The manufacturer is Kato Engineering, part of Emerson Electric, acting as a subcontractor to General Atomic. They make a range of generators for various applications. So this is coming from a company with a long history of making generators. But generators are usually continuous-duty, not something that experiences shock loads like this flywheel rig. Apparently nobody insisted on some serious testing like running this thing through 50,000 cycles into a dummy load.
The linear motor of the catapult itself seems to be working OK.
The new arresting gear shouldn't have been a problem. That's mostly a paddles-in-water brake, something that's centuries old. How did that get screwed up?
Overall, the Ford series of carriers uses electricity for functions that, on other carriers, involve piping steam around. Most newer Naval ships are Diesel or gas turbine powered, and don't generate steam as a by-product. Nuclear plants do generate steam, which has been convenient for carrier catapults. The new British carrier series (if it gets built) is to be non-nuclear, and they want to use the EMALS launcher on some of the ships (maybe). That's part of a big mess - without a catapult, they have to buy the VTOL/STOL version of the F-35, which has its own problems.
There's an amusing book, "Ships, Machinery, and Mossbacks", by H.G. Bowen, from WWII. Bowen was a U.S. Navy engineering officer and eventually was in charge of most Naval propulsion systems during WWII. He was a real hard-ass on contractors, and often sent back large, expensive items like final drive gears back as rejects. Admiral Arleigh Burke ("31 knot Burke") wrote that his ships wouldn't have been able to go 31 knots without Bowen's work. When it really has to work, you need people like that who can say no.
[1] http://www.ga.com/emals-motor-generator-passes-acceptance-te...
"Most newer Naval ships are Diesel or gas turbine powered, and don't generate steam as a by-product."
DeleteWell, yes and no. It's certainly true that current naval vessels driven by diesel or gas turbine power plants do not produce steam as a by product. But this isn't because of a law of physics. It's a choice -- at least in the case of gas turbines.
Both of these engines, because of the laws of thermodynamics, produce energy in the form of waste heat that is actually significantly larger than the useful mechanical work they perform. In the case of the diesel, this is divided between the cooling water (which isn't really hot enough to do anything useful, at least regarding steam) and the exhaust gas (which is much hotter but there isn't enough of it). However, in the case of a gas turbine, the vast majority of the waste heat is in the exhaust gas, and it is HOT.
Consider the LM2500 gas turbine, which is probably the most common gas turbine in the Navy's ships. According to this web site from GE Aerospace (who makes it)
https://www.geaerospace.com/military-defense/engines/lm2500
the temperature of the exhaust gas is (crudely speaking) around 550 degrees C (It's actually listed as 566 C but it does vary a bit depending on which version of the LM2500 you're looking at). That's more than hot enough to boil water -- even under high pressure. In fact, I believe it's hotter than the water put out by the nuclear reactors in our aircraft carriers, which feed the steam generators that drive the engines and catapults!
In addition, this same gas turbine is sold to the industrial sector to make electricity, including in "combined cycle" configurations, which are built by routing the exhaust gas from the LM2500 into a steam generator, which produces steam that is then run through a steam turbine to make additional electricity.
So we actually have an existence proof about the ability to make significant amounts of steam with an LM2500 gas turbine. Of course some engineering effort would no doubt be needed to ensure the steam generator is robust in combat (against near misses, for example) and perhaps to improve corrosion resistance, but these are largely solved problems and certainly much less risky than trying to make EMALS work on a British carrier!
One additional thought. Using the gas turbine exhaust in this way will ALSO dramatically reduce the temperature of the exhaust that is dumped into the air by the ship, which will probably make the ship at least a bit less vulnerable to heat seeking missiles!
DeleteHeat seeking missiles aren't really a thing for surface to surface applications, particularly antiship missiles. IR usage in air to ground weapons is Imaging Infrared, where the missile sees a thermal image of the target and flies toward it (Maverick, NSM, LRASM, Penguin).
DeleteInterestingly, Russian sources do not appear to distinguish between heat seeking and IIR, and lump them both into the same category of IR, which is why you saw Russian tanks carrying buckets of burning coal on their barrels in an attempt to decoy away Javelin missiles from going for the center mass of the tank.
"Heat seeking missiles aren't really a thing for surface to surface applications,"
DeleteEven if the missile does not guide on only the heat, putting out large amounts of exhaust at over 500C into the air surely creates a very bright "here I am, come shoot me" signal for any infrared detector that might be looking.
So there's that ....
Well, it seems like a really lot of nice intentions but what really matters is the hard work and getting into all the details, if not, it's just another letter....
ReplyDeleteAS for EMALS, yes, it had issues in the past and probably not great BUT JFK is already in the water, Entreprise is being built already and so maybe Doris Miller could be changed but I doubt it because of all the design changes required which is a lot so this would apply for the next batch really.....I see the USN slow walking this one with the builder to just let this pass them and not really spend much time and effort on this....my understanding is even General Atomic isn't super happy about going back to steam. I think the time to do this was years ago, now, it's going to cost a fortune and extend the timeline for the carriers that already are years late to even more to the right.....
Agreed. The time for this was a decade ago. I think that if this actually happens, we're going to have to look at some serious life extensions for the Nimitz class. Of course, ending the constant deployments that spin the odometer like a fan would help.
DeleteMass firings are the only way to fix the mess and turn things around. Even with this memo and the thoughts behind it, I've simply run out of hope that the Navy can pull it's head out of that dark constricted space it's stuffed into. The ignorance, the infighting over personal rice bowls, and the absolute lack of drive to create a force actually meant for combat is no longer a bug, it's an institutional feature.
@Ex. In a perfect world, USN should have done a lot more ground testing for sure. Best second option, would have been to build Ford then build 1 last Nimitz class carrier, giving 4 to 5 years for Ford to work on all the issues, redesign some stuff and then gone back to a revised updated Ford class carrier......also agree that I don't see how USN doesn't SLEP some of the Nimitz class carriers.
Delete"I don't see how USN doesn't SLEP some of the Nimitz class carriers."
DeleteI think there comes a point where you simply can't extend the service life of something any further and I think the Nimitz carriers fall into that. For starters, they would require nuclear refueling and that, alone, is extremely expensive and time consuming (and drydock consuming!). On top of that, decades of deferred maintenance have resulted in routine equipment being worn out past the point of "extension": valves, pumps, piping, motors, storage tanks (corrosion), and on and on. The cost to add worthwhile years to a Nimitz would be astronomical - perhaps not quite as expensive as a new build but getting into that range to gain a limited number of additional years.
The time to "extend" the carrier's life was on day one and throughout the rest of the carrier's normal life by performing required routine maintenance EVERY DAY! The corrosion we see on ships isn't just an appearance issue; it's actual corrosion causing weakening of structure.
So, I agree that, conceptually, it would be nice to extend the Nimitz class but I strongly suspect that the time/opportunity for that has already passed.
What's the point of finishing JFK and Enterprise at all if they're not going to be capable warships?
DeleteTaking 10 years to rebuild them into an effective design is still better than having a completed but useless ship. The useless ship isn't just a sunk cost, it's an ongoing waste of resources to man and maintain.
There's a lot of talk, but it remains to walk the walk. Hegesth has talked a lot, but the results aren't showing. He's even CUT the Army's firepower, divesting Abrams tanks and Apache gunships in favor of buying armorless windowless dune buggies.
ReplyDeleteWhile Trump's ideas about the Navy are WAY better than the Navy's, I still hesitate when he starts trying to influence actual engineering because, well, he's not an engineer. Talk of moving the carrier island forward for appearance sake might be an example of interfering in an area he has no knowledge or expertise about. In contrast, calling for a return to steam cats is okay because it's blindingly obvious that EMALS was simply not ready for prime time and should never have been installed into a production vessel. Unless EMALS has improved by a miraculous extent, it should be abandoned. Since the Navy is no longer providing any performance data so I can only assume that EMALS is still woefully unreliable. If the Navy wants me to support EMALS then they have to release reliability data. You can't be simultaneously secretive and expect unquestioning support.
ReplyDeleteOff-topic:
ReplyDeletehttps://news.usni.org/2026/08/14/uss-benfold-was-stalled-in-the-south-china-sea-for-four-days-after-engineering-casualty
This isnt good. Hope its a one-off. This particular destroyer is slated to serve 40 years out to 2036.
I'm not concerned about isolated engineering casualties. Those happen. Ships broke down all the time in WWII. The difference is that they could rapidly effect repairs. The four day repair time is what's disturbing. Admittedly, we don't know the details but it's worrisome that we couldn't repair it faster. Adrift for four days in a war zone is a sure way to die. We've largely eliminated machine shops on ships today. That's idiotic.
DeleteTo lose everything is concerning. It was a given on Knox class frigates but surely not a Burke. And i concur on the repair time. But it had to be very catastrophic. No power period.
Delete4 days in easy range of support and the rest of the battle group. Plus its the second Burke to go dead in the SCS this year. Fire on the Higgins in April. Maybe more to it. Unlikely, but without having data my mind leaps to cyber or EM attack.
Delete