FY2022 INSURV Report

The FY2022 INSURV report has some interesting tidbits.  The report lacks any specifics but does offer a nice view of general trends.
 
Among other types of inspections, INSURV conducts various types of trials as listed below:[1,p.5] 

• Acceptance Trials (AT) - verify the readiness of ships, craft, and submarines for preliminary acceptance by the Navy
• Combined Trials (CT) - verify the readiness of ships, craft, and submarines for preliminary acceptance by the Navy
• Integrated Trials (IT) - verify the readiness of ships, craft, and submarines for preliminary acceptance by the Navy
• Final Contract Trials (FCT) - for surface ships to determine if additional deficiencies have developed since AT, to validate correction of significant AT “stared” deficiencies, and to provide an assessment of readiness for “Fleet Introduction”
• Guarantee Material Inspections (GMI) - for submarines to determine if additional deficiencies have developed since AT, to validate correction of significant AT “stared” deficiencies, and to provide an assessmentof readiness for “Fleet Introduction”
• Special Trials (ST) - when significant ship systems or capabilities remain incomplete until after Post-Shakedown Availability (PSA)
• Retrials (RT) - address specific deficiencies for previous unsuccessful trial events

In 2022, INSURV conducted 23 trials: 12 ATs, 2 CTs, 3 FCTs, 1 GMI, 3 RTs, and 2 STs.  The trials involved 9 surface ships, 2 submarines, 2 combatant craft, and 5 service craft. 
 
Here are some specific trial results:
 
 
USS Ford
 
USS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) completed AT [acceptance trial] in May 2017. The ship was unfinished and had significant deficiencies affecting many mission-critical systems.[1, p.9]
 
The Type Commander presented the ship for a comprehensive ST [special trial] in June 2022. The ship's material readiness was poor with one unsatisfactory and 13 degraded scores among 18 functional areas. There were one unsatisfactory and three degraded scores among the eight major demonstrations. Seven starred deficiencies that were CNO-waived for delivery were either uncorrected or not assessed during the ST.[1, p.10]
 
We see from this report that waivers were used in order to authorize a flawed and inappropriate delivery and were never corrected!  The Navy is knowingly and voluntarily accepting incomplete and damaged ships and it is the CNO who is personally responsible for this. 
 
 
Independence LCS
 
INSURV conducted two acceptance trials (LCS-30, LCS-32).  According to the INSURV report, “both ships had starred deficiencies and below-average IFOM scores”.[1]
 
 
JOHN LEWIS Fleet Replenishment Oiler (T-AO) Program
 
INSURV conducted an acceptance trial on John Lewis (T-AO 205), the class lead ship.  According to the INSURV report, “The lead ship has four starred deficiencies, a number of other significant deficiencies, and a relatively low IFOM score.”[1]
 
 
Overall
 
The INSURV report also presented inspection results of functional areas for various types of ships.  The FY2022 results were compared to the 6-year average score to determine whether overall ship readiness was increasing or decreasing.
 
Surface ships had 21 functional areas evaluated and in 2022, 11 areas were worse, 3 were unchanged, and 7 were improved.
 
This demonstrates that the condition of our fleet is steadily declining.
 
 
Conclusion
 
Of special note is the fact that no ship deliveries were rejected by the Navy despite many serious problems being noted and many ships were accepted with known deficiencies and incomplete work!  What is the point of conducting trials and inspections if we’ll never reject a ship, no matter how incomplete or damaged it is?  We could simply eliminate the entire INSURV function, save the money, and achieve the exact same result of accepting everything!
 
Waivers are one of the root causes of the fleet’s problems.  The existence, and use, of waivers has made it easier to skip over problems than to do the hard work of producing acceptable products.  Waivers are destroying the fleet.
 
The common saying is that the rot starts at the top, right?  Well, this is absolutely the case, here.  The CNO is personally authorizing waivers in order to accept flawed ships.  He, and he alone, is damaging the Navy and costing taxpayers money.  This is dereliction of duty and he should be court-martialed.
 
 
 
______________________________

 
[1]INSURV Annual Report, 1-Mar-2023

INSURV Annual Report

Congress, fed up with Navy attempts to classify and hide readiness data, put into law a requirement for the INSURV inspections to be summarized and submitted in a public, unredacted, annual report.

 

Title 10 USC Section 8674 requires an annual report not later than March 1 each year setting forth an overall narrative summary of material readiness of Navy ships, overall number and types of vessels and for in-service vessels, material readiness trends.[1, p.1]

 

By law, ships are required to undergo an inspection every three years, at a minimum.  However, as noted in the report,

 

As of 30 September 2021, there were 185 of 362 (51.1%) vessels, subject to inspection, that exceeded a 3-year inspection periodicity.[1, p.4]

 

Over half the required inspections have not been performed.  So much for the Navy’s adherence to the law.

 

If there are 362 ships subject to inspection once every three years then 121 ships should be inspected each year.  The reality is that only 79 INSURV inspections were performed in 2021.[1, p.4]

 

Inspections are required, by law, to be minimal notice inspections so as to assess true readiness rather than giving ships time to scramble and cross-deck equipment and personnel for inspections purposes.  In reality, the Navy has defined minimal notice as 30 days notice.[1, p.13]  That’s not exactly a surprise, come-as-you-are inspection, is it?  Again, this is the Navy working to hide readiness issues.

 

Without going into the gory details, inspections are now scored on a 0-1 scale which was presented numerically in the report as well as a color coded assessment of SAT/DEGRADED/UNSAT for ease of comprehension.  From the report,[1, p.14]

 

UNSAT (0.00 – 0.59)

DEGRADED (0.60 – 0.79)

SATISFACTORY (0.80 – 1.00)

 

The results are depressing for surface ships.  Of 17 surface ship inspections in 2021, the functional area inspections[2] were assessed as DEGRADED for 12 of the 20 areas, overall.  Bad as that is, it’s actually slightly worse than 2020 which ‘only’ had 11 of 20 areas assessed as DEGRADED.

 

On the plus side, for 11 submarine inspections, only 1 of 17 functional areas was assessed as DEGRADED.  Numerically, however, the 2021 results were an overall slight decrease in performance.

 

For carriers, the results were grouped across multiple years due to the small sample size.  The latest group (2018-2021) had 9 of 18 functional areas assessed as DEGRADED.  Overall, this is unchanged from previous years/groups.

 

The shining star of the inspections was the Military Sealift Ships.  From 21 inspections, only 1 of 11 functional areas was assessed as DEGRADED.

 

 

INSURV also conducted 23 ship trials of various types.

 

Based on these trials results, INSURV assessed that the following programs performed well on trials:

 

-INDEPENDENCE Littoral Combat Ship (LCS 2)

-SPEARHEAD Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF)

-LEWIS B PULLER Expeditionary Support Base (ESB)

-VALIANT Yard Tug (YT)

 

The remaining programs experienced significant deviations from OPNAV trials requirements or declining trial performance during this fiscal year. Three ships (CVN 78, DDG 1000, LCS 15) were unable to complete FCT requirements prior to their obligation work limiting date (OWLD). The VIRGINIA submarine program did not present any boats for CT in FY21 even though five boats, scheduled for delivery since 2019, have yet to be delivered. One craft (APL 67) had an unsuccessful AT and required a Retrial prior to delivery. Four additional vessels (LCS 17, LCS 19, LCS 22, and DDG 119) required Retrials because they had significant incomplete capabilities, uncorrected deficiencies, or unperformed demonstrations during FCT; two of these trials (LCS 17, 19) were not conducted. The LCS 1 program ceased new ship deliveries after LCS 23 because of a combining gear design flaw. The Ship to Shore Connector craft had propeller and cushion vane design flaws that limit its amphibious warfare capability. The DDG 51 program had continuing design concerns with its anchor windlass. The National Security Cutter program delivered a ship without two warfighting systems because of procurement delays.[1, p.9-10]

 

 

One of the things that stands out in this report is the number of failed inspections and trials that required retesting and yet were not performed.  Waivers are handed out like candy.

 

Another thing that stands out is the number of ships that have been delivered physically incomplete and yet accepted by the Navy.

 

This report is an excellent assessment of the state or our fleet readiness.  In this age of suppressing information, it is refreshing to see Congress step up and insist, via law, that basic oversight information about the taxpayer’s Navy be made available to the taxpayer.  I thank and commend Congress for this.

 

 

 

__________________________________

 

[1]Navy Department, Board of Inspection and Survey, INSURV Annual Report, 1-Mar-2022

 

[2]Functional Areas are things like navigation, damage control, main propulsion, etc.

LCS Waiver Trials

GAO has a fascinating report out about the Navy’s acceptance of the first two LCSs despite significant uncompleted construction work (1).  ComNavOps has reported on this before but this report contains the entire ugly story.  The report describes the contract terms as they affect delivery of the ships and their acceptance by the Navy.  It also identifies the responsible parties within the Navy at the various stages.  For instance,

 “During builder’s trials, inspectors from the Navy’s Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion, and Repair (SUPSHIP) are generally responsible for observing and identifying deficiencies.”

“During acceptance trials, the responsibility for identifying deficiencies falls upon the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV), an independent organization whose inspectors evaluate the newly constructed ship and report on its material condition to Congress and Navy leadership.”

INSURV conducts two inspections:  one for preliminary acceptance and another following post-delivery outfitting and availability periods to determine final acceptance.  Serious deficiencies are referred to as “starred” and must be corrected by the builder or waived by the Chief of Naval Operations.

Here’s the summary of results from the acceptance trials for LCS-1/2.

LCS-1 Acceptance Trial Part One

Newfound Starred Deficiencies = 21

Uninspected Systems = 63

Incomplete Certifications = 19

Incomplete Compartments = 2%

LCS-1 Acceptance Trial Part Two

Newfound Starred Deficiencies = 31

Uninspected Systems = Not Assessed

Incomplete Certifications = Not Assessed

Incomplete Compartments = Not Assessed

LCS-2 Acceptance Trial Part One

Newfound Starred Deficiencies = 39

Uninspected Systems = 83

Incomplete Certifications = 12

Incomplete Compartments = 31%

You’re probably thinking, this can’t be true.  It must be another humor piece.  No construction program could be this bad.  Sadly, it’s not.  This is real.  Keep reading. 

Both LCS-1 and LCS-2 were delivered and accepted by the Navy with major shortfalls in completeness and adherence to contract specifications.  LCS-2 had 31% of its compartments not even finished!!!  The report notes,

“We found that LCS 1 and LCS 2 were delivered with a large number of open deficiencies, the majority of which were determined to be attributable to the contractors. Our analysis found that over half of these deficiencies were closed after the ships were delivered to the Navy and were being outfitted, but other deficiencies continued to be unresolved one year after delivery—a point at which the Navy had taken final acceptance of LCS 1 and LCS 2.”

Somewhere around half the deficiencies remained unresolved a year after delivery?  How could that happen?  Here’s the explanation.

“Under the cost-reimbursement contracts, the LCS 1 and LCS 2 prime contractors were only required to give their best efforts to complete quality-related activities—along with the other work specified in the contracts—up to each contract’s estimated cost. These efforts resulted in LCS 1 and LCS 2 not completing final contract trials, and LCS 2 not finishing its acceptance trials—resulting in increased knowledge gaps related to ship performance and deficiencies. In addition, the Navy did not achieve the quality standards on LCS 1 and LCS 2 that are outlined in its own ship acceptance policy, although the policy also contains several notable flexibilities to these standards. In particular, the policy recognizes situations where the Navy may defer work until after delivery and final acceptances and affords the Chief of Naval Operations the power to waive certain quality standards outlined in the policy. The Navy relied extensively on these waivers to facilitate its trials and acceptance processes for LCS 1 and LCS 2.”

The report points out that to this day, almost five years after delivery, LCS-2 has not competed acceptance trials!!!  Clearly, the Navy has no intention of ever doing so.

The report points out that the Navy complied with all relevant rules and laws in accepting the significantly incomplete ships through the extensive use of waivers.  Technical compliance does not, however, excuse horrific program management.  None of us would pay full price for an incomplete car and yet that’s exactly what the Navy did multiple times.  By the way, the Navy did the exact same thing with the entire production run of the LPD-17 class.  No lessons learned by this Navy!

The Navy didn't conduct acceptance trials on the LCS, they conducted waiver trials.

Read the report.  It paints an absolutely stunning portrait of incompetence and mismanagement by Navy leadership.

(1) Government Accountability Office, “LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP - Navy Complied with Regulations in Accepting Two Lead Ships, but Quality Problems Persisted after Delivery”, September 2014, GAO-14-827

If You Can't Fix It, ...

This one almost got by me.  You recall that the Navy’s response to the recent rash of INSURV failures was to classify the results.  If you can’t fix the problem, hide the results, I guess.  Well, apparently the Navy has gone even further and eliminated the pass/fail aspect of the inspection.  Now, every ship passes and the inspection is just an advisory assessment.  Here it is from an interview with Adm. Tom Copeman, commander of Naval Surface Forces (1).

Q. The new INSURV lacks a pass-fail grade. In cases where ships have real problems, aren’t you concerned that the new INSURV isn’t calling a spade a spade?

A. I’m not exactly sure of the exact origin of the pass-fail. INSURV’s function is to determine whether ships are fit for further service or not. We do keep metrics, we do compare ships. We tell them how they do against the class, and they understand how they do against other ships of their class in each of the mission areas. So we’re not hiding anything.

Not hiding anything!?!??  You’ve classified the results and eliminated the pass/fail.  I don’t think you can possibly hide the problem any more than that!  If you can’t fix the problem, classify it and remove the pass/fail.  You can’t have a problem if there’s no more failure!  Every time I think the Navy’s honesty and integrity have reached rock bottom, they dig a trench so that the bar can be set even lower.

As disappointed as I am by the Navy’s actions, I’m more disappointed by Adm. Copeman’s response and tacit approval of this sham.  I had high hopes for Copeman.  As a reminder, he’s the one who wrote the article criticizing the LCS and suggesting a host of good improvements for the surface force, in general.  To buy-in to this blatant PR and feel-good exercise is a poor reflection on him, personally.

(1)   http://www.armytimes.com/article/20130711/NEWS/307110006

Burke Fails INSURV

A Burke class destroyer, the USS McCain (DDG-56), failed an INSURV inspection conducted  in June, according to a Navy Times report just released.  I have no other information about this.  I had been hoping that Navy maintenance and training issues were being addressed and showing improvement but this makes me wonder anew.  Admittedly, a single INSURV failure proves nothing.  Still, it's disturbing that the Navy's backbone ship type would fail. 

This is the first failure I've heard about in some time which had led me to hope things were improving.  Of course, given that the Navy went to the length of classifying these inspections due to the poor PR and resultant public criticism and pressure who knows how many inspections have been conducted over the last year and whether there were other failures?