LPD-25 Delivery Deficiencies

The San Antonio (LPD-17) amphibious assault ship class has been in production since the lead ship began construction in 2000.  Now, 21 years later, the bugs ought to have been long ago worked out and the manufacturer, Huntington Ingalls (HII) ought to be delivering polished, problem-free ships on a regular basis, right?  Well, here’s what an Oct 2020 Defense News website article noted from a GAO report about LPD-25, commissioned in 2014:

 

For example, the GAO found that 25 of the 58 systems required to be certified for deployment on LPD-25 were incomplete at the time of the ship’s delivery, and 14 were still incomplete when the ship was transferred to the fleet. Multiple systems were found deficient while the ship was in the fleet, including an advanced electronics system that “controls nearly all systems and equipment on the ship,” the GAO found.

 

“The system has experienced widespread performance failures and the Navy has been unable to repair the ship efficiently, including during the post-delivery period and after the ship was provided to the fleet,” the report found. “As a result, the Navy is in the process of looking at incorporating a new system.” (1)

 

 

I don’t know what the ‘advanced electronics system that “controls nearly all systems and equipment on the ship” ‘ is but it must be big and it must be important. 

 

That the Navy has been unable to repair the system is worrying and is yet another example of the trend of modern systems becoming too complex to operate and maintain and too complex to achieve their anticipated performance.  We’ve seen this with the fleet-wide degradation of Aegis.  Despite this trend, the Navy is continuing to pursue ever more complex systems in violation of both the K.I.S.S. principle and the common sense requirement that combat systems be as rugged, robust, and repairable as possible.

 

Equally worrisome is that the Navy is ‘looking at incorporating a new system’.  The Navy appears to be giving up on what is clearly a very important system.  This, too, is becoming a trend.  For example, the F-35 ALIS software system has been a debacle of sufficient magnitude that the military has given up on it and is trying to replace it.  Note that I am not arguing against giving up on failed systems but it is troubling that so many systems are advancing so far, only to be abandoned.  We need to identify failed systems much earlier in their development cycle instead of allowing them to become part of what should be mature production systems.  

 

LPD-25, San Antonio Class

The LPD-25’s problems are not isolated to one unfortunate ship of the class.  The INSURV inspection for USS Portland, LPD-27, noted,

 

On LPD-27, the Portland, the ship scored lower than any of the previous four ships over the past five years, with deficiencies in main engines, aviation, small boat handling, anchoring, generators and air search radar systems, the report found. (1)

 

Of course, the Navy doesn’t see any problems.  As Adm. Moore enthusiastically described it, the Portland is an amazing success.

 

Portland is the 11th San Antonio class Amphibious Transport Dock ship to be presented to the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) for acceptance. Acceptance Trials are conducted with INSURV and are intended to demonstrate a ship's readiness for delivery through a series of dock-side and underway tests and evaluations.

"The USS Portland is a well-designed ship that is going to increase our Navy and Marine Corps warfighting capability for years to come," said Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command. "The material condition of the ship is fantastic, and the success she had during acceptance trials is a true testament to the men and women that built her." (2)

There you have it.  According to the Adm. Moore, LPD-27 is ‘fantastic’ and an unmitigated success.  It would appear that INSURV/NAVSEA didn’t get the memo from Adm. Moore about just how fantastic the Portland is.

 

Despite endless years of incomplete and damaged ships being delivered to the Navy, the Navy continues to accept these ships and does not require warranties from the shipbuilders.  Why even bother with issuing contracts since the shipbuilders have no intention of meeting the contract requirements and the Navy has no intention of holding them to the contract requirements?  We could save a lot of money by just dropping the charade and simply accepting whatever non-functional crap industry wants to deliver.  It’s what we do now, anyway, but we spend a lot of money negotiating contracts neither side has any intention of fulfilling so let’s stop pretending.

 

 

 

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(1)Defense News website, “US Navy inspections of Ingalls-built ships uncovered significant problems, report shows”, David Larter, Oct‎ ‎8‎, ‎2020

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/10/08/us-navy-inspections-of-ingalls-built-ships-uncovered-significant-problems-report-shows/

 

(2)http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/186111/future-uss-portland-%28lpd-27%29-completes-acceptance-trials.html

LPD-17 - Whose Fault?

LPD-17 - Unfinished Ship

The consensus among naval observers seems to be that the LPD-17 class is a flawed design complicated by shoddy workmanship by the manufacturer.  The list of problems is seemingly endless and all relate back to the poor quality of construction.  While admitting to some slight degree of responsibility, though not much, the Navy would have us believe that they were victimized by the manufacturer and are just as outraged as we, the taxpayer, are.

Consider this …  If you went to purchase a new car and were shown a vehicle that was only 90% complete would you buy it?  Of course not!  You’d refuse to pay until the car was complete and a test drive had proven that it was fully functional.  That’s just basic common sense consumerism, right?

Now consider the following from the Congressional Research Service report, Navy LPD-17 Amphibious Ship Procurement:

Background, Issues, and Options for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke - Specialist in Naval Affairs, March 16, 2011.

“The Navy accepted delivery of LPD-17 with about 1.1 million hours of construction work remaining to be done on the ship. This equated to about 8.7% of the total hours needed to build the ship, and (with material costs included) about 7% of the total cost to build the ship.”

The Navy went car shopping and bought a vehicle that was only 90% complete!  1.1 million hours of construction left to go!  How is it that the Navy doesn’t understand what every consumer in America knows – you don’t pay for an incomplete and non-functional product.

Well, maybe the Navy made a mistake on the LPD-17, first of class.  Maybe they trusted the manufacturer and simply got burned.  Maybe the Navy was the victim and not a fatally stupid consumer.  Again, from the report,

“The Navy accepted delivery of LPD-18 with about 400,000 hours of construction work remaining to be done on the ship.”

So, having created an unacceptable situation by accepting an unfinished ship the first time, the Navy repeated process on the second ship.  In fact, the report goes on to document that the Navy accepted the third ship, LPD-19, also in an unfinished state.

Back to the opening sentence of this post.  Who is to blame for the LPD debacle?  It seems clear to me that the fault lies with the Navy.  Does this absolve the manufacturer of blame?  No, but no one forced the Navy to accept an unfinished ship.  Further, the Navy’s internal inspection group also accepted the ship with all its quality defects.  Again, while not absolving the manufacturer, that puts the responsibility squarely on the Navy.  We’ll cover the failed inspections in more detail in a subsequent post.

In summary, quite the opposite from what the Navy would have us believe – that they were a victim – we see that the Navy is 100% responsible for the LPD problems.  Keep this in mind as you read about the further misadventures of the LPD-17 class.