Criminal Negligence – USS Boise

The Los Angeles class submarine, USS Boise (SSN-764), has been waiting pier side since 2015 for routine maintenance.  The Navy has now announced that a 2024, $1.2B maintenance contract has been terminated and the vessel will be retired.
 
Boise was commissioned 1992 and served around 22 yrs until being abandoned pier side by the Navy in 2015 where it has been rotting since.
 
A perfectly good, world class submarine abandoned by the Navy because they prioritized new hulls over maintenance of existing ones.
 
We’re in a pre-war arms race with China and the Navy does this?
 
I’m not a lawyer but this is unforgivable criminal negligence, dereliction of duty, and fraudulent management of the nation’s resources by a decade of Navy leadership.  Every CNO since 2015 should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed.  It’s depressing how many of my posts end with that sentence, isn’t it?

Bye Bye Boise

The Military is not a Business

ComNavOps continues to see examples of the military-as-as-business mindset and this is horribly wrong.  The military is not a business.  It’s not subject to business case studies.  Because it’s not a business, there are [many] times when it will be run inefficiently and that must be accepted.  For example, a business study of ship manning would point to the minimum number of sailors necessary to operate the ship.  Combat, however, demands excess crew for damage control, casualties, etc.  Inefficient but necessary.
 
It seems that the higher up the officer, the more likely they are to approach the military as a business case.  I guess this is because so many officers pursue degrees in business related studies.  By the time an officer gets to flag rank, they’re damn near accountants instead of professional warriors!
 
The military is a combat case, not a business case.  Understand it.  Accept it.  Embrace it.
 
Here’s yet another example.  This one is from a retired admiral, VAdm (Ret.) Jeff Trussler, arguing for restructuring the submarine Navy as a service provider.
 
Note:  The phrase ‘as a service’ refers to a business model where a product or service is offered on a subscription basis rather than being owned outright by the customer.
 
He points out, correctly but with zero understanding of the real issue, that the submarine fleet is overworked.
 

The U.S. submarine industrial base that builds and sustains our existing fleet is not keeping pace with operational demands. Combatant Commanders’ requests for submarine capability in theater go unfulfilled.[1]

He then sets out to offer a business solution instead of recognizing the real problem is the Combatant Commander’s incessant and unjustified requests for submarines when, in reality, the submarines need to be undergoing maintenance and intensive combat training not answering useless requests from the Combatant Commanders so that they can increase the public perception of the importance of their little fiefdom.
 
Trussler suggests a ‘service’ model for submarines.
 

The “as-a-service” model—already proven in air and space—could offer a solution by using conventionally powered submarines to improve the readiness, lethality, and availability of our fast-attack SSN fleet. The goal is not to replace nuclear-powered SSNs but to ensure they remain focused on their most critical missions while using diesel-electric submarines for two key roles:
 
Providing platforms for research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) of new undersea technologies. This would reduce the risk and cost of fielding new capabilities by thoroughly testing their performance and tactical applicability before pulling an SSN offline for months of installation, testing at sea, and removal.
 
Expanding training opportunities. U.S.-trained civilian crews operating conventionally powered submarines could act as adversary forces in exercises, helping undersea, surface, and air forces refine their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) skills. These platforms could also support personnel training and qualification pipelines, ensuring crews receive adequate at-sea experience before deploying on SSNs.[1]

And, of course, he makes the usual bogus claim that this will free up nuclear subs for more important tasks.
 

… by freeing SSNs for high-end missions.[1]

We’ve already debunked this mythical claim (see, “Free Up Ships for More Important Duties”).
 
He then goes on to make a cost comparison claim (without any reference or link and the claim is highly suspect).
 

According to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, operating a Virginia-class SSN costs approximately $1.6 million per operational day. In contrast, a conventionally powered diesel-electric submarine can operate at a significantly lower daily cost—approximately 40% less than an SSN.[1]

He also proposes operating these non-nuclear subs with civilian crews.
 

By offloading lower-risk missions to commercially operated submarines with Navy-trained civilian crews, uniformed personnel can stay focused on high-end warfighting while maintaining operational proficiency.[1]

 
Discussion
 
There are several questionable aspects to this entire concept of submarines as a service.
 
For starters, no references are provided for any of the claims made in the article which makes verification and understanding of the claims difficult or impossible.  As an example, the claimed operating cost for a Virginia class submarine of $1.6M per day seems unbelievable under any reasonable assumptions.  Nuclear subs have no daily fuel costs so that pretty much leaves the crew salaries as the major operating cost.  Salaries for a crew of 135 would be something on the order of $55,000 per day.  Food would be, what, several hundred dollars a day?  So, where does the rest of the $1.6M per day come from?  My guess would be that someone is piling occasional maintenance and overhaul/refit costs onto the operating cost and perhaps other not-really-operational costs like nuclear fuel/reactor disposal costs, base facility costs, etc.  Without an itemized breakdown, I have no idea but $1.6M seems ridiculous.  This is one of those cases where you can make the number anything you want by manipulating what you choose to include or exclude in the category of operating costs.
 
Another example of unsubstantiated claims is,
 

… improve the readiness, lethality, and availability of our fast-attack SSN fleet.[1]

There is absolutely no documentation or logic to support the idea that operating a few non-nuclear subs will increase fleet readiness, improve lethality, or increase SSN availability.  Logic would suggest there is no relationship, at all, between a few non-nuclear subs and the SSN fleet.
 
Civilian submarine crews are a suspect idea.  How do we handle secrecy and security with civilians?  We don’t even share our submarine technology with our military allies so it’s hard to imagine sharing it with a civilian crew regardless of how many non-disclosure agreements you make them sign.
 
How does the chain of command work with civilians?
 
The entire premise that non-nuclear subs would free up SSNs for more important tasks is completely bogus.  Aside from having previously demonstrated that there are no ‘more important’ tasks sitting around for lack of a sub, the harsh reality is that we have more than enough subs already.  Heck, we’ve got a dozen or more subs sitting idle, pierside, just waiting for their turn at maintenance.  As an example, the Los Angeles class submarine, USS Boise, has been waiting, idle, for over eight years for maintenance.  If we think we need more subs, the solution is to our idled fleet back in service.
 
Another fallacy is that non-nuclear subs can be used to test equipment and develop tactics for nuclear subs.  They’re two different beasts.  They operate differently.  They have different noise levels, different speeds, different endurance, different dive depths, different sizes, different maneuverability, and so on.  Sure, if you want to test a new coffee maker, a non-nuclear sub is fine but if you want to test, say, a new sonar, you need the platform it will actually be installed on to get realistic and applicable results.  We already do far too much simulation testing and we’ve seen the flaws in that when we sent weapons to Ukraine and most failed or had significant flaws.
 
Having said all that, there’s nothing wrong with buying a foreign non-nuclear sub for adversary training but to embark on an entire new type of submarine because Combatant Commanders whine is stupidity on a plate.
 
We need to stop approaching the military as a business case and start viewing it as the often intentionally inefficient warfighting organization it is.
 
 

Reporting for Duty!

 
_______________________________

 
[1]Naval News website, “Submarines “As-a-Service” Will Get More Players on the Field Today”, VAdm (Ret.) Jeff Trussler, 7-Jun-2025,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/06/submarines-as-a-service-will-get-more-players-on-the-field-today/

USNS Wally Schirra Maintenance

Here’s an interesting piece of potential good news.  According to a press release, the Lewis and Clark class dry cargo ship, USNS Wally Schirra, T-AKE-8, completed a several month maintenance overhaul in Korea at the Hanwha Ocean Co. (previously Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering) facility.[1]  If this turns out to be a viable option, the flexibility to obtain maintenance at a foreign yard increases our maintenance capacity and improves fleet availability.
 
What wasn’t spelled out in the press release was the actual cost compared to budget or the adherence to the planned schedule.  The work was originally supposed to be completed in Dec 2024 but ran into March 2025 when the scope of the work was increased due to additional maintenance requirements discovered during the course of the project.  Thus, it appears that the schedule overrun was an add-on approved by the Navy rather than an inability to meet the original schedule.  It was also not revealed whether all of the maintenance items were addressed within the allotted time frame – typically, US ships in US yards leave their maintenance periods with significant work unaddressed due to time pressures – a practice that simply kicks the maintenance can down the road and causes worse problems in the future.  For example, the USS Port Royal grounding was, in part, directly attributable to the failure to complete work on a faulty navigation system.
 

USNS Wally Schirra Entering Hanwha - that is
one beat up looking ship!

 
A Navy press release gives a hint of the scope of the work: 

ROH [Regular OverHaul] conducted aboard Wally Schirra in the Republic of Korea included dry docking, and more than 300 work items that addressed hull corrosion and a full rudder replacement.
 
“Hanwha addressed extensive deterioration and damage to the hull, propeller, rudder, and rudder post/steering gear,” said Cmdr. Patrick J. Moore, commanding officer, MSC [Military Sealift Command] Office-Korea. “Notably, Hanwha engineers reverse-engineered the damaged rudder, completely replacing the unit when blueprint were not available.[2]

A concerning item is the replacement of the rudder and the lack of a blueprint to do so.  How is it possible for the Navy to not have a blueprint for the ship’s rudder?  That’s mind-boggling.
 
That aside, if the work was completed on time and on budget, that’s a tremendous accomplishment both for the Korean company and for the general Navy maintenance effort.
 

USNS Wally Schirra Leaving Hanwha - that's what
a ship should look like!

 

Hanwha Ocean is currently executing an overhaul on USNS Yukon.
 
If obtaining maintenance from a foreign company turns out to be a viable and effective option, the beneficial impact on Navy readiness cannot be overstated.  This would increase our maintenance capacity, increase ship availability, increase readiness, and improve overall ship quality. 
 
Of course, there is always the issue of sensitive/secret equipment and how to ensure the security of that equipment while in a foreign yard.  It’s probably not that significant an issue for logistics ships but warships are crammed with sensitive/secret equipment.  Still, even being able to obtain additional maintenance on the logistics fleet would be a tremendous help.  I love to be able to say this:  well done, Navy!
 
If nothing else, maybe we can pull into a foreign dock and get the rust removed from our rotting ships!
 
 
 
 
__________________________________

 
[1]Naval News website, “Hanwha Ocean completed its first MRO on US Navy ship”, staff, 13-Mar-2025,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/03/hanwha-ocean-completed-its-first-mro-on-us-navy-ship/
 
[2]Navy website, “USNS Wally Schirra Completes Major Maintenance at South Korean Shipyard”, Grady Fontana, 13-Mar-2025,
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/4118860/usns-wally-schirra-completes-major-maintenance-at-south-korean-shipyard/
 

Amphibious Shell Game

As we know, the Navy considers ship maintenance to be a low priority task and even that may be underestimating their disinterest in maintenance.  I truly believe that the Navy’s philosophy is that the quicker the ships wear out, the sooner the Navy can justify new ships to Congress thereby securing – or, dare they hope … increasing? – their budget slice.  The astounding part of this is that the demonstrated lack of interest includes ships the Navy actually wants: surface warships. 
 
Worse than the lack of interest in maintenance, there is a major chunk of the fleet that the Navy doesn’t really want and that is amphibious ships.  They offer nothing for the Navy; they’re purely to mollify the whining of the Marine Corps to Congress.  Thus, the Navy has even less interest in providing maintenance for amphibious ships.  Here’s some notes from a GAO report, as described in a Breaking Defense website article.[1]
 

Half of the Navy ships the Marine Corps would use to make amphibious assaults are in “poor condition,” and some of the vessels have been unavailable for operational or training use for years at a time, according to a pointed new watchdog report.[1]
 
… the report found that as of March this year, nine of the Navy’s 10 dock landing ships were in “poor material condition,” as were five of the seven amphibious assault ships and two of the 13 amphibious transport docks.[1]

Am I being fair and factual in suggesting that the Navy has little interest in amphibious ships and even less interest in maintaining them?  Well, let’s see what the report has to say.
 

The report notes several factors that contributed to the problem, including “challenges with spare parts.” But a summary of the report also noted that in order to “save money, the Navy proposed early retirement for some ships and cancelled critical maintenance on them.[1][emphasis added]

Here’s another damning tidbit.
 

The Navy partially concurred with the GAO recommendation that the Navy update its amphibious ship depot maintenance policy “to clarify that, absent operational needs, the Navy should not cancel depot maintenance for amphibious ships proposed for divestment that have yet to reach the end of their expected service life.”[1]

This demonstrates that the Navy has been cancelling depot maintenance for operational ships merely because they’ve been put forward for early retirement.  This is a self-fulfilling prophecy type of situation.  You propose a ship be retired early so you halt maintenance on it.  Then, after a few years you report that the ship needs to be retired early because it would cost too much to bring it up to maintenance standards.  Quite a racket, huh?
 
How does the Navy justify this blatant failure to properly maintain active ships?
 

… the Navy said it’s currently “prohibited by law” from modifying vessels destined for the boneyard, and waivers to do so have a narrow timeline. “However, the statute permits normal Hull, Mechanical, and Electrical (HM&E) work within the five-year window prior to a ship being removed from service. The Navy will schedule this work, including depot-level repair as necessary, to maintain the ship in operational condition.” It also noted the Navy Secretary may grant waivers for that statute in the “national security interests” of the US.[1]

Note the use of waivers?  Those keep cropping up in all types of deplorable situations, don’t they?  And yet we keep handing them out like candy.
 
The Navy clearly has no interest in amphibious ships and uses every machination they can think of to avoid spending maintenance money on them.  This is criminal mishandling of the taxpayer’s investment.
 
 
 
______________________________

 
[1]Breaking Defense website, “Half of Navy’s amphibious fleet in ‘poor condition,’ some ships out for years, GAO warns”, Lee Ferran, 3-Dec-2024,
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/12/half-of-navys-amphibious-fleet-in-poor-condition-some-ships-out-for-years-gao-warns/

Bringing Home the Fleet

In a recent post, a reader, referencing the current ‘3 ships to keep one deployed (3:1)’ model, asked this, 

Can we alter or change the maintenance, training, and deployable cycle we have into something better? Obviously with the shipyard logjam, we couldn't have all ships "up" at once, but could we somehow tinker, and maybe flip that to 2/3 ready, or more?[1]

My initial reaction was slight irritation and disbelief that after all the time I’ve spent advocating ending deployments and bringing the fleet home, people still didn’t understand the concept.  A few more seconds thought and I realized that the question was perfectly apropos because I’d failed to adequately explain the concept.  Yes, I’d talked endlessly about bringing the fleet home and some of the gross benefits that would derive from that (improved readiness, enhanced training, better maintenance, etc.) but I’d never bothered to explain exactly how all these benefits would come about.  What procedures would change to allow this?  What circumstances would change?  How, exactly, would these benefits occur?
 
I’d like to apologize to that reader and rectify my oversight, now, and explain how and why this would work.
 
 
Circumstances
 
Let’s look, first, at the change in circumstances that would result from a switch to home basing the fleet.
 
Miles – The most obvious change in circumstance would be that the ships wouldn’t deploy.  They’d be home based.  Okay, so how does this help?  Well, the home basing means that the ships wouldn’t be racking up endless miles which is another way of saying wear and tear.  A ship at home simply doesn’t wear out as fast as one on a 6-12 month deployment.
 
Support – Being home based means that every ship is within arm’s length of ready maintenance support.  That support takes the form of a ready supply of parts, repair technicians, machine shops, skilled trades, cranes, etc.  There would be no more delayed/deferred maintenance that piles up during an extended, many-month deployment.
 
It’s embarrassing for the Navy to even have to say this but the support would include corrosion control so that our ships don’t look like rusted out garbage scows.
 
Training – Did you know that a deploying group loses capability and readiness as the cruise goes on?  That’s because they don’t do what they’re trained to do while on a cruise.  They aren’t attacking or defending.  Instead, they’re just showing the flag and dozens of other utterly useless tasks.  A deployed group is less combat capable when they return from deployment than when they started.  How backward and unproductive – indeed, counterproductive! – is that!  A group that goes out should come back more combat capable than when they began.  After all, they were at sea and sea time should be all about high intensity, realistic training, not scut work (to borrow a medical term for pointless tasks).
 
The home base circumstance eliminates deployments and the associated, unavoidable degradation of readiness and, instead, allows continuous training.
 

Method
 
This is the key part.  Unless executing an actual mission, every home based ship is constantly doing one of only two things:
 

• Training
• Maintaining

 
That’s it.  Just those two things.  There are no other activities. 
 
In fact, even during maintenance, the bulk of the crew will still be training.  While a ship is in dry dock or tied up pier side for maintenance, the crew is still training (simulators, walkthroughs, courses, etc.)
 
So, what does this mean?  This is what I’ve failed to convey.  Every ship is always ready to surge to a real mission because there is no maintenance backlog because every maintenance item is attended to immediately.  If you haven’t deployed and developed a backlog of hundreds of maintenance items, there won’t be dry dock and pier side maintenance scheduling issues.  Every issue is addressed immediately.  Thus, at any given moment, no ship can have more than a single open maintenance item because every maintenance item is dealt with immediately.  That makes every ship continuously ‘ready’ and readiness is always 100% of the fleet.
 
Relax.  I know there are scheduled – and occasionally unscheduled! – major repairs or overhauls that are required and that results in a certain percentage of the fleet being hard down and unavailable.  We have something like twenty dry docks of various types so say twenty ships are always unavailable.  As of this writing, there are 296 ships in the Navy (includes various logistic and support ships that are active but not commissioned).  So, that leaves around 276 ships that should always be classified as ready and available.   That’s 93% of the fleet in a constant state of readiness. 
 
In contrast, currently, the Navy is attempting to achieve a state of around 75 deployable ships.  Out of a fleet of 296, that’s just 25% readiness and despite having been trying to achieve that for some time now, they’ve failed.  Fifty ships is the current readiness level and that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon.  Fifty ships represents just 17% readiness of the fleet.  No wonder Lincoln only got three escorts!
 
Even ships that are undergoing some kind of pier side maintenance (tear down of a piece of equipment, for example) can be made ready almost instantly with a quick restoration of the affected equipment.  At most, the ship would have a single item in a degraded state which would still classify the ship as ready.
 
Today, ships routinely sail with long laundry lists of down or degraded equipment.  The Port Royal grounding, for example, saw that the ship’s navigation systems and many other systems were down or degraded despite having just come out of maintenance!  Every deployed ship has a long list of down or degraded equipment (casualties, as the Navy calls them).  A deployment is the worst possible thing you can do to a ship as regards readiness and maintenance and the longer the deployment, the worse the situation becomes.
 
With home basing, here’s what a typical ship’s month might look like:
 

• A week spent training for an upcoming exercise and/or general training.
• A week at sea in an exercise which includes 24 hour, intensive training leaving the crew exhausted each night and with no desire or energy to even think about video games, lounges, haircuts, weight lifting, movies, or any other crew comfort activity.
• A week spent debriefing and re-training the just completed exercise.
• A week spent performing preventive/routine maintenance.
• An occasional day sprinkled in addressing any emergent, unscheduled maintenance need.

 
Individual crew members might be sent to a shore training course at any time, subject to instant recall, if needed.
 
 
We see, then, that the keys to making this work are:
 

• Address maintenance issues instantly, as they arise.  No deferred maintenance.
• Constant training.
• Regular, short episodes of sea time conducting realistic exercises.  The short time frames eliminate the need for all but the most basic and necessary crew comforts.  Toilets? – squat over the stern!  Berthing? – hang a hammock somewhere!

 
 
Maintenance

Hand in hand with home basing is the requirement to return to ship-supplied maintenance instead of depending on contractors and shore support.  Yes, there will always be things that require a contractor (Aegis software or hardware support, for example) or shore support (specialized repair equipment, for example) but we need to return the majority of the maintenance responsibility back to the ship’s crew.  What better training is there for a crew than to maintain and repair their own equipment?
 
We need to include much more extensive machine shop facilities, electronic shop facilities, welding shops and equipment, etc. in our ship designs.  Let’s remove the now unneeded crew comfort spaces and replace them with ship maintenance and repair shops.  The crew can collect their mail, get a haircut, visit the bank, and watch a movie on shore since they’ll only typically be at sea for a few days or a week at a time.
 
Returning ship maintenance to the ship will also alleviate the burden on the shore maintenance support resources.  We shouldn’t need shore support to rebuild a pump, tear down a valve, replace seals, etc.  Those skills and capabilities should be inherent within the ship.
 
 
Benefits
 
So, to sum up, what do we gain from home basing the fleet?
 

• Constant training instead of just occasional pre-deployment training every year or so
• Constant maintenance instead of delayed/deferred maintenance at the end of a deployment
• 93% fleet readiness instead of 17% readiness
• No forward exposure offering an enemy a free ‘Pearl Harbor’ opportunity
• Maximum flexibility;  if all the ships are ready and available, our mission options are unlimited

 
 
_________________________________

 
[1]Jjabatie, “Lincoln Escorts”, August 20, 2024 at 2:17 PM,
https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2024/08/lincoln-escorts.html?showComment=1724188632892#c8797956642859824661

SSN Maintenance Backlog

We just read about the USS Boise (SSN-764), which has been idled since Jan 2015 awaiting dry dock availability and is finally beginning its maintenance period.  The optimistic unrealistic hope is that Boise returns to service in late 2023 or sometime in 2024 which would be an 8-9 year period of idleness.  You would hope that this is some sort of sick April Fool’s joke but it isn’t.  This is the sad reality of our naval maintenance effort.
 
Was Boise just a bad luck, bad circumstances, fluke?  How is the rest of the SSN submarine fleet doing as regards maintenance?
 
According to a just released CRS report, 37% of the SSN fleet is currently idled in, or awaiting, depot maintenance, overhauls, and dry dock availability and are non-operational.[1]  That’s 18 of the 49 SSN subs in the fleet that are sitting idle, leaving just 31 operational SSNs in the US fleet.
 
China doesn’t need to worry about our submarine fleet … it’s sitting idle.
 
Sure, we couldn’t keep SSNs, arguably the most lethal component of our military, in service but we made sure we kept building LCS so that we could retire them as they completed construction and we made sure that we built all the Zumwalts and we pushed the Ford through despite having utterly unreliable catapults, traps, and weapon elevators.
 
New hulls … yes!
 
Maintenance … no.

Our Submarine Force?

 
 
 
_______________________________

 
[1]Congressional Research Service, “Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress”, Ronald O’Rourke, 6-Jul-2023, RL32418

Flat Out Lying

Occasionally, I delve into air force matters when warranted.
 
Hey air force (af), I understand spin and I understand differences of opinion but don’t flat out lie to my face and insult my intelligence.  

Air Force officials argue that the roughly $500 million required annually to maintain 32 Block 20 F-22s — which they emphasize are not equipped with the most modern weapons — would be better spent on developing the Raptor’s successor, the secretive Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, further estimated in April that making the Block 20 fighters combat worthy would take about a decade of effort and cost approximately $3.5 billion — a timeline that, ideally, would already see the NGAD system flying.[1]

 
Let’s look at the math on this.  The af is claiming that updating 32 F-22s would cost $3.5B.  Doing the arithmetic, that works out to over $109M per aircraft.  By anyone’s standard, that’s patently absurd.  You could tear the aircraft down to the wheels and rebuild it for that amount.  How stupid do you think I am, air force (I’ll capitalize their name and give them respect when they begin respecting me, the taxpayer)?
 
Liar.
 
Moving on … a decade to convert 32 aircraft?  Really?  Our entire industrial and military might could only convert 3 aircraft per year?  We can build a hundred brand new aircraft from raw materials but updating existing aircraft has a limit of 3 per year? 
 
Liar.
 
The NGAD will be flying in ten years?  Really?  The F-35 has been in development for over two decades and isn’t yet fully combat capable (Block 4 is required for that) and the automated logistics support system is non-existent in any useful, functional form.  But, we’re going to have the as-yet-to-be-defined NGAD flying in ten years?
 
Liar.
 
 
 
_____________________________

 
[1]Breaking Defense, “‘Much better chance’ USAF can retire F-22s in FY24: Kendall”, Michael Marrow, 9-May-2023,
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/05/much-better-chance-usaf-can-retire-f-22s-in-fy24-kendall/

Carrier Dry Docks – Ours and Theirs

The US Navy is embarked on the Ford class carrier construction program.  Setting aside any misgivings about the value of the Ford class, another issue is that the Navy lacks dry docks capable of supporting the carrier.  Only one dry dock is even theoretically capable of handling the Ford class and even that’s not actually possible without future modifications.

 

Only one of the Navy’s 18 dry docks used for maintaining the nuclear-powered carrier fleet can support a Ford-class carrier, Navy officials told USNI News.

 

Dry Dock 8 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard can handle a Ford-class carrier, but only after a temporary cooling water systems is set up. A permanent cooling water system and other upgrades to Dry Dock 8 are scheduled to occur before USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) enters its first planned dry dock availability, Anna Taylor, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokeswoman, told USNI News in an email.

 

The Navy also plans to upgrade a West Coast dry dock to handle the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), Taylor added.[1]

 

Dry dock 8, by the way, opened in 1942.

 

Perusing the various dry dock related contracts, it appears that 2026 is the earliest date that dry dock 8 would be Ford-capable and schedules always slip.

 

In contrast, China has built a brand new carrier dry dock complex at the Sanya naval base in Hainan.  The dry dock is sized to accommodate the upcoming Type 003, Nimitz/Ford type carriers.  They’ve built the dry dock before they built the carrier.  Amazing!  An astounding example of basic common sense that eludes the US Navy.

 

Sanya Dry Dock

China appears to be correctly and wisely addressing its support needs as it builds its navy.  The US, on the other hand, is depending on hundred year old dry docks although the recently begun 20 year renovation program offers some relief if the program is continued from one budget year to the next for 20 years – a dubious proposition, to say the least.

 

 

 

__________________________________

 

[1]USNI News website, “Navy to Update 2 Dry Docks to Accommodate Ford-Class Carriers”, Ben Werner, 30-Aug-2019,

https://news.usni.org/2019/08/30/navy-to-update-2-dry-docks-to-accommodate-ford-class-carriers#:~:text=Only%20one%20of%20the%20Navy%E2%80%99s%2018%20dry%20docks,a%20temporary%20cooling%20water%20systems%20is%20set%20up.

Submarine Readiness

As of this writing, the US Navy has 50 attack subs and is firmly on the downward trend which has been anticipated for decades.  With an imminent war with China looming (according to Navy statements), one would assume we’re taking good care of our subs and cranking out their maintenance availabilities with great haste.

 

The fleet attack submarine breakdown, by class, is : 

• Seawolf 3
• Los Angeles  26
• Virginia  21

So, how is the maintenance doing?

 

“We’re really struggling to get submarines out on time. Over the last ten years, 20 to 30 percent [came] out on time,” said Vice Adm. Bill Galinis … [1]

 

That means 70% to 80% of maintenance availabilities ran over schedule.  That’s not good.

 

As of Thursday, 18 submarines were in some type of maintenance, PEO Submarines Rear Adm. Jonathan Rucker said … [1]

 

With only 50 attack submarines in the fleet, that’s 36% of the fleet in maintenance.

 

What’s causing the problem?

 

The earliest Virginia-class boats are among the hardest submarines to repair on time.[1]

 

“We’ve seen a significant growth in the amount of man days required in submarine availabilities, particularly in the Virginia class,” [Vice Adm. Bill] Galinis said.[1]

 

According to the Government Accountable Office, “Virginia class submarines have returned to operations almost nine months later than expected, on average; Los Angeles class submarines have taken four and a half months longer than scheduled, on average, to return to the fleet.[1]

 

What’s the problem with the Virginia class.  After all, they’re the newest submarines we have so they should have the least maintenance problems, right?

 

The Virginias were designed to operate closer to shore and with components that met rigorous NAVSEA standards for submarine safety, but were not as durable as some of the older components on the Los Angeles-class boats.[1]

 

“Where we were in the beginning of the Virginia class, we had a charge early on to build a design and build a submarine for an affordable cost to make sure we got the numbers we needed.”[1]

 

So, by their own admission, the Navy ‘cheaped out’ on Virginia class subs and now they’re suffering extended maintenance issues and, apparently, poorer quality components.  That’s what happens when you design to a business case instead of a combat case.

 

And now, let’s listen to the Navy rationalize away the problem:

 

“If you throw a rudder over on the Titanic, it takes a while for the ship to turn,” Rucker told USNI News.  “It’s going to take a little bit of time, just because there’s a lag and getting the resources or changing behavior or ensuring that we plan better for what we’re going to do.”[1]

 

The maintenance delays have been on-going for a decade, at least, admiral.  How much more time do you need to ‘throw the rudder over’?

 

 

 

________________________________

 

[1]USNI News website, “NAVSEA: Navy ‘Struggling’ to Get Attack Subs Out of Repairs on Time as Demand Increases”, Sam LaGrone, 21-Sep-2022,

https://news.usni.org/2022/09/21/navsea-navy-struggling-to-get-attack-subs-out-of-repairs-on-time-as-demand-increases

Kings Bay Dry Dock Repair

Arguably, the Navy’s biggest shortcoming is adequate repair and maintenance facilities and capacity.  A major part of that is the system of aging and inadequate dry docks.  A few years ago, the Navy committed to a 20 year, $21B overhaul of its public shipyards and dry docks and, in a somewhat surprising development, has been following through on that commitment by issuing contracts for repair of facilities and dry docks … at least, for now.

 

I desperately like to give credit where credit is due – an all too rare occurrence regarding the Navy – and one such example is the repair work for the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay dry dock in Georgia.

 

From the Department of Defense contract award announcements website,

 

Alberici-Mortenson JV, St. Louis, Missouri, is awarded a $12,969,452 firm-fixed-price modification to previously awarded contract N69450-20-C-0016. This modification provides for the recapitalization of the dry dock at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Work will be performed in St. Marys, Georgia, and is expected to be completed by April 2023. This modification brings the total cumulative value of the contract to $625,470,806.[2]

 

Dry Dock - Kings Bay, GA

 Here's some detail about the work.

Under an IDIQ contract, the joint venture team of Burns & McDonnell and Moffatt & Nichol have been awarded a series of task orders with Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast (NAVFAC-SE) for a $474 million repair project at the Trident Refit Facility, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia.

 

Alternately titled “Dry Dock Recapitalization,” “TRF Dry Dock Repair,” and simply “Dry Dock Repairs,” the massive effort at the East Coast home of Trident nuclear-powered submarines began with a study, moved into design, and is now in Phase A of construction. NAVFAC-SE’s scope of work encompasses repairs to the massive structure—the largest covered dry dock in the Northern hemisphere—inclusive of building structure and envelope, power, lighting, fire protection, HVAC, plumbing, and support equipment and infrastructure. All existing training and maintenance facilities will be retrofitted, and some new facilities will be constructed to support the next generation of submarines.[1]

 

Dry dock maintenance and repair is desperately needed and far too long overdue.  From a Heritage Foundation report,

 

“The Navy’s attack submarines have also evolved, but the dry docks that service them have not: 17 dry docks can service older Los Angeles-class submarines, but only 12 can accommodate their replacement, the Virginia-class submarine, and only seven can service the newest Block V Virginia-class submarine, which is 83 feet longer than earlier variants and displaces an additional 2,400 tons,” the report reads.[3]

 

The Navy should be ashamed of the state of its maintenance and dry dock facilities and many CNO’s should be recalled to active duty and subjected to courts martial over the decades long neglect but at least the Navy is belatedly beginning to address the problem.  If they’ll diligently and aggressively continue to pursue the repair program then credit is due.  Well done, Navy.  Keep it up.

 

 

_______________________________

 

[1]https://axiasinc.com/naval-sub-base-kings-bay-dry-dock

 

[2]https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/3151585/

 

[3]https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2021/03/19/the-us-navys-shaky-plan-to-save-its-shipyards-is-getting-overhauled/

Sorry, Can’t Do It

The Marine Corps, our national crisis response force, couldn’t respond to an emergency deployment request to deal with the Ukraine-Russia war.

 

As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, the head of U.S. European Command asked for a Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Ready Group to deploy early to Europe as a hedge against the conflict expanding.

 

But the Marine Corps couldn’t meet the request, Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, told the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee today.[1]

 

The Marines couldn’t respond?!?!  Isn’t that their entire reason for existence?  Isn’t that why we have them around? 

 

According to Marine Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, crisis response is the Marine’s responsibility.  As he stated,

 

“Within force design is our ongoing requirement as a Marine Corps and by law to be the crisis response force for the nation.”[1]

 

So what happened?

 

According to Heckl, U.S. European Command chief Gen. Tod Wolters asked that the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group “sortie early to be on station as the Ukrainian situation evolved, or devolved. And we were not able to sortie the ship[s].”[1]

 

So, according to the Marine general, the blame lies with the Navy.  He further states,

 

The 22nd MEU was already prepared to go. However, the maintenance status of the three warships of the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group was “so bad” they were not prepared to leave then or after the invasion, Heckl told Defense One on Thursday.[2]

 

On March 16—a month and a day after the orders came down—most of the MEU departed Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, aboard the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge (LHD 3) and the amphibious transport dock Arlington.  The rest left aboard the dock landing ship Gunston Hall about a week or so later, Heckl said.[2]

 

The Navy owns 31 amphibious ships and the Navy and Marines are telling me that they couldn’t even muster 3 functional amphibious ships during a crisis?  If the three ships designated for the 22^nd MEU weren’t functional, are you telling me that the Navy couldn’t pick three other ships out of the remaining 28 amphibious ships in the fleet?  Is our amphibious fleet in that bad a shape that we can’t find 3 functional ships out of 31?  Or, is our Navy/Marine force so inflexible that only the three designated ships could be used for the 22^nd MEU and no other ships could be allowed to take their place?

 

If the Navy can’t even keep 3 amphibious ships out of 31 functional, why would we give the Navy any more new ships?

 

Whatever the answers are to the various questions, it looks very bad for the Marines and Navy.

 

Here’s what the Marine general had to say about the Navy’s readiness,

 

Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan, … assumes the ships have an 80 percent readiness rate, Heckl said Thursday.

 

“The 10-year running average for the amphib Navy is 63 [percent]. Last month, it was 46 [percent],” he said. “So the number is only valid if the readiness rates are achieved and maintained, which today is simply not the case.”[2]

 

The general threw the Navy under bus, big time.  The question is whether it was with good reason or not.  This is one side of the story – the Marine’s side.  We don’t know the Navy’s side.  Was it 100% the Navy’s failure, as the general claims, or were the Marines also not ready?  Unknown.

 

Regardless, this is a very bad incident.

 

The Navy’s vaunted and much hyped Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP), which was supposed to solve the entire Navy maintenance and readiness problem and which failed instantly with the first aborted carrier deployment, by the way, was intended to prevent exactly this kind of scenario.  The OFRP has been a dismal failure.  The Navy has failed utterly and completely at ship maintenance.  Having ships ready to go is kind of like your only job, Navy.  You had one job and you failed.

 

 

Recommendations

 

Here’s my recommendations as a result of this embarrassing and humiliating fiasco:

 

• Cut the Marines down to one MEU.  Get rid of all the rest.  There’s no point having a bigger force that can’t be deployed.  There’s also no point maintaining a purely defensive, light infantry force – we’ve got the entire Army that can do that job better.
• Cut the Navy shipbuilding budget to zero until the Navy can prove that they can keep the ships they have functional.

 

 

 

_____________________________________

 

[1]USNI News website, “Marines Couldn’t Meet Request to Surge to Europe Due to Strain on Amphibious Fleet”, Mallory Shelbourne, 26-Apr-2022,

https://news.usni.org/2022/04/26/marines-couldnt-meet-request-to-surge-to-europe-due-to-strain-on-amphibious-fleet

 

[2]Defense One website, “‘We Should Have Been There’: Marine General Laments the State of the Amphib Navy”, Caitlin Kenney, 29-Apr-2022,

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/04/we-should-have-been-there-marine-general-laments-state-amphib-navy/366314/

Maintainability - Good Idea Going Wrong

Defense News website has an article about Navy ship design plans that almost … not quite ... nibbles around the edge of a good idea and then, like everything the Navy tries, collapses into the trash heap.  Let’s take a look at what the idea is, why and how the Navy is going to screw it up, and how it could, with just a bit of tweaking, be a good idea.

 

 

What It Is

 

The gist of the idea is that the Navy wants to emphasize maintainability in future ship designs.  Hey, that could be a good thing, right?  I mean, how could it not?  The ability to perform maintenance by a ship’s crew can only lead to greater availability and readiness of the ship.  The close brother of maintenance, repairability – allows a crew to conduct repairs in the heat of battle and will enable a ship to stand and fight longer and to recover quicker.  Modifying routine maintenance to make it easier and more efficient would also be a worthy goal.  Reducing the amount of routine maintenance by designing less maintenance-intensive equipment would be a time saver.  These are all worthy goals.  We have the potential for a good idea, here.

 

What enormous benefits we could reap by designing a ship, from the very start, to have easier and less maintenance, more maintenance involvement from the crew, and expanded and easier repairability!

 

So, exactly, is the Navy saying about enhanced maintenance?  Here it is,

 

The U.S. Navy is willing to pay more for new ships upfront if it means saving on maintenance and personnel costs throughout the life of the program, the head of amphibious, auxiliary and sealift programs told industry this week. (1)

 

‘… if it means saving on maintenance and personnel costs’.  Oh, oh.  I’m getting a bad feeling about this.  Please don’t screw up a good idea, Navy.

 

 

How The Navy Will Screw It Up

 

What does the Navy mean by this?  Here’s an example,

 

“Having reliable equipment that does not require a lot of operator action to maintain will enable LAW [Light Amphibious Warfare ship] to handle reduced manning, which, that’s the goal. It may require a larger upfront investment in higher-quality equipment, but we’re willing to do that to offset the sailor cost in the future.” (1)

 

You caught it, right? :  ‘reduced manning, which, that’s the goal’

 

Well, there goes a good idea.  We’re starting to see how this idea is falling apart.  The issue and the emphasis isn’t actually maintainability … it’s reduced manning – the Navy’s long-time Holy Grail.  This was the key characteristic of the LCS (not combat) and a major driver for Zumwalt, and Ford.  All those ships have been abject failures in terms of manning and maintenance.  The Navy has learned nothing and now they’re going to repeat the actions that led to failure

 

Seemingly unrelated side note: The definition of insanity is performing the same set of actions and expecting a different result.  But, I digress …

 

The Navy goes on to explain,

 

… LAW will include sensors and monitors enabling not only conditions-based maintenance, through which maintainers can see how well a system is running and conduct maintenance guided by performance data, but also remote condition-based maintenance. The small crew may not be the recipient of the data, but maintainers in regional hubs could receive the data remotely and help schedule maintenance periods into the ship’s operational plans. (1)

 

Uh, déjà vu!  This is almost word for word the description of the LCS maintenance model.  The LCS was fitted with hundreds of remote sensors that were supposed to continuously send their equipment monitoring data back to regional shore maintenance facilities (EMCON, anyone?  But, I digress …) that would use the data to schedule condition-based, predictive, preventative maintenance as well as routine maintenance.  The concept failed miserably for a variety of reasons.

 

And now the Navy is going to do it again with the LAW.  What was that definition of insanity?

 

So, let’s review.

 

An emphasis on maintainability, crew involvement, and repairability with maintenance enhancements and considerations designed in could have been a good great idea, as we noted.

 

The Navy immediately screwed it up by focusing, yet again, on reduced manning rather than actual maintenance as it relates to combat, damage control, and repairability.

 

 

What Could Be

 

Properly and robustly implemented, enhanced maintainability could give us:

 

• Ships with greatly enhanced combat resilience thanks to easier and faster repairability.
• Ships with longer service lives thanks to enhanced maintenance.
• Ships with greater endurance at sea since they wouldn’t have to put into port for every minor maintenance or repair issue.
• Ships with enhanced combat readiness since equipment that failed would be more likely to be repairable at sea and equipment that is easier to maintain and repair means that the overall ship’s readiness would be consistently greater.

 

You realize what we’re talking about, here, right?  Yes, we’re talking about designing and building ships with greater combat readiness and resilience.  There’s part of your long-sought force multiplier, right there:  just the ability to stay at a higher level of combat readiness!

 

Why, oh why, Navy, can’t you just see and do the right things?  Why do you have to ruin every good idea?  Stop trying to link everything to reduced manning.  That’s already been proven to be a failed concept.  I know it hurts to think but just read this blog.  I’ll do the thinking for you.  I promise, your naval world will be so much better and you’ll look like geniuses. 

 

 

 

______________________________________

 

(1)Defense News website, “Navy willing to pay more for more maintainable ships”, Megan Eckstein, 5-Aug-2021,

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/navy-league/2021/08/04/navy-willing-to-pay-more-for-more-maintainable-ships/