Dutch-Belgian MCM Mothership

The Dutch-Belgian mine countermeasures (MCM) mothership project offers a glimpse at one vision of future mine countermeasures.  MCM motherships have been frequently discussed and proposed for US Navy mine clearance efforts.  In fact, the original purpose of the Afloat Forward Staging Base was supposed to have been to act as an MCM mothership.  However, that usage appears to have fallen by the wayside as the ship searches for a new mission (see, “AFSB – Looking For Something To Do”).  Regardless, let’s take a look at the Dutch-Belgian MCM mothership project and see if there are any lessons from the project that are applicable to US Navy MCM needs.

 

In no particular order, here are some observations, good and bad, collected from a YouTube promotional video[1] narrated by the program manager:

 

Ship Size – The mothership is 82 m long (269 ft) with a displacement of 2800 tons.  Maximum speed is 15 kts and range is 3500 nm (speed basis unknown).  Base crew is 33 with a capacity of 63.  Contrast this with the Freedom class LCS MCM which is 378 ft long with a displacement of 3500 tons and a maximum speed of 40 kts.  Clearly, in the quest for multi-mission modularity, the LCS was grossly overbuilt for the MCM role.  Overbuilt means wasted money and resources.

Dutch-Belgian MCM Mothership

 Buzzwords and Graphics – The mothership project managers refer to the MCM equipment as the ‘toolbox’ which is, presumably, a marketing buzzword suggesting modularity.  This kind of buzzword fascination serves no beneficial purpose and contributes to a feeling of undeserved superiority and arrogance.  In other words, when exposed to buzzwords on a daily basis, people begin to believe the hype and fail to ruthlessly examine the concepts and execution, believing that the system is inherently superior.  We’ve seen this with the LCS, Zumwalt, Ford, F-35, etc.  …  all abject failures due, in large measure to a failure to ruthlessly examine and critique the projects at early stages.  The projects were protected by their buzzwords.  No one wanted to be seen contradicting or criticizing the magnificent buzzwords.

 

Similarly, today’s digital public relations graphics are hugely detrimental to programs.  Again, they convey an awe-inspiring sense of superiority and accomplishment that blinds program personnel to the flaws in the product.  It may not seem like it but glitzy graphics are one of the causes of project failure.

 

Hosting – The mothership can host two UAVs, two RHIBs, and two unmanned surface vessels (USV).  While that technically meets the definition of a mothership, in that it plays host to a smaller craft, it is a very small complement for a mothership.  I would have preferred to see a mothership capable of hosting a dozen USVs and a dozen UAVs (although I’m dubious about the value of small UAVs for MCM work).  That would make the mothership a significant MCM asset. 

 

Hosting merely two USVs and two UAVs of dubious utility is a very minimal capability. The two RHIBs are, presumably, for personnel movements and, perhaps, diver platforms for addressing single mines which serve no useful purpose in combat mine clearance operations.  That leaves just two USVs which are far too few to be effective in combat mine clearance.

 

Launching – One decidedly positive feature is the presence of two separate davit based USV launch mechanisms, port and starboard.  This provides redundancy and speed of operations as opposed to a single launch point.  One of the major failings of the LCS MCM variant was the installation of only a single UUV/USV launch point which has become a logistic and efficiency choke point with individual launches and recoveries requiring one to two hours per evolution.

 

Communications – The program manager emphasized that the mothership needed extensive communications with the various unmanned vehicles.  The concept of operations calls for a stand off distance of 12 nm from the minefield and the UAVs are intended to act as communication relays as well as providing surface mine visual detection.  The downside of all the communications is that it provides the enemy with a positive location.  Extensive, continuous communications will be detected regardless of any claims of line-of-sight or low probability of intercept.

 

Sonar – The mothership has a mine and obstacle avoidance sonar in recognition of the reality of operating near a minefield and never being 100% sure that you’ve avoided all mine threats.  This is lacking in the LCS MCM, I believe.

 

Shock Testing – The mothership was tested for resistance to nearby explosive shocks although no details were provided as to test conditions.  As you recall, the LCS failed its shock testing quite badly with the explosive loads having to be reduced and the final tests cancelled due to anticipated damage.  Being shock resistant is just a common sense requirement for a MCM vessel.

 

Mine Hunting – The mine hunting concept involves at least two to three passes.  The individual steps are:  detection, identification, and destruction.  This is a very time consuming process and is, essentially, a one-at-a-time process as opposed to sweeping.  The process is suitable for small area clearance with no time constraints but would be unsuited for combat clearance of large areas in short time frames.

 

 

Additional information is available in a Naval News article [2]

 

 

Conclusion

 

So, what does all this offer the US Navy in the way of lessons?

 

There are aspects to like about the Dutch-Belgian MCM mothership such as multiple launch mechanisms, mine detecting sonar, limited size, limited speed, and single function.

 

There are also aspects that are detrimental such as the very limited vessel capacity, the inclusion of UAVs that serve no real MCM purpose, the limited number of launch/recovery stations, and the need for incessant communications.

 

Considering the benefits and detriments, it is possible to design a conceptual MCM mothership for the US Navy.  An MCM mothership should have the following characteristics:

 

• Host at least a dozen USVs capable of conducting sweep operations as opposed to one-at-a-time hunting.
• Speed should be limited to around 15 kts which is sufficient for the task and avoids over-building and unnecessary costs.
• Physical dimensions should be minimized to the extent possible.
• No aviation capabilities beyond Scan Eagle type UAVs and even that should be justified by a CONOPS that can actually benefit from them.
• Very long endurance and range.

With the demise of most/all of the Freedom class LCS, the Navy is  woefully short of MCM assets and the LCS is not even a capable, effective MCM asset if it was available in numbers.  We desperately need a new MCM ship and a mothership, as described, would be a good start.

As a reminder, the Allies used over 250 minesweepers for the Normandy assault.

 

 

_______________________________

 

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCrfvHAKJwg

 

[2]Naval News website, “This Is What The Future Belgian & Dutch MCM Motherships Will Look Like”, Xavier Vavasseur, 27-May-2019,

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2019/05/this-is-what-the-future-belgian-dutch-mcm-motherships-will-look-like/

Warriors, Not Saints

Red State website, a conservative news site, recently presented a political article [1] entitled,

 

“We Want to Elect Warriors, Not Saints” 

 

The article is behind a pay wall and concerns politics so, as regards this blog, it is of no concern.  It is only the title that caught my attention and it did so because the concept embodied in the title is applicable to so many organizations and endeavors other than electoral politics.

 

Consider the words, ‘warriors, not saints’.  This is, at its core, a choice between good enough and perfect.  Another way to phrase it would be a choice between practical (or pragmatic) and theoretical (theoretical because nothing is saintly perfect).  Yet another manifestation would be a choice between brutally effective and unachievable.  Real world versus perfect.

 

Consider the Navy’s many instances where this stark choice comes into play in its many variations:

 

We hold ship captains to ridiculously high standards of perfection and fire many COs for minor, non-combat related transgressions, real and imagined.  Captains have been fired because mothers of disgruntled sailors have complained about their precious babies being unhappy.  This leads to a quest for saints as captains instead of warriors who can win battles.

 

We embark on decades long, unimaginably expensive ship and aircraft designs that chase perfection instead of ‘good enough’ … and we never achieve it.

 

We promote based on ideals of perfect social enlightenment (gender, diversity, environmental, inclusiveness, etc.) while ignoring combat mindsets and capabilities.

 

We seek perfect global naval harmony by dumbing down our capabilities (the LCS was justified, in part, because it wouldn’t intimidate lesser navies) instead of ramping up our warfighting and not caring whether it makes smaller allied navies uncomfortable.

 

We seek to eliminate confrontational, fighting spirits while promoting ‘get along, go along’ mentalities.

 

The Navy needs warriors, not woke saints because when war comes, it is the warriors that will fight and win while the woke saints are cowering behind their platitudes and PowerPoint presentations.  We need to recognize, accept, and embrace the reality that war is a foul, ugly, dirty, brutal business and warriors have to function in that environment.  Saints may make admirable examples for us to aspire to in our spiritual lives but they don’t win wars.  We need to shift our focus away from saints and back to warriors.

 

We need to embrace mean, dirty, functional, and effective and abandon saintly and perfect.

 

Warriors, not Saints

 

Indeed !

 

 

 

___________________________________

 

[1]Red State website, “We Want to Elect Warriors, Not Saints”, Brandon Morse, 5-Oct-2022,

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2022/10/05/we-want-to-elect-warriors-not-saints-n637856

Hypersonic Missile Target Set

The Navy (and US military, in general) has latched on to hypersonic weapons and, as is typical of the Navy, with absolutely no supporting evidence or testing that demonstrates that hypersonic weapons will be effective enough to justify their cost and other negative impacts.  We touched on this in a previous post (see, “Conventional Hypersonic Prompt Strike Missile”).

  

Speaking of cost,

 

Based on internal Defense Department estimates on the number of weapons planned, that amounts to about $106 million per missile for the Army and $89.6 million for the Navy.[1]

 

One time use missiles that cost a hundred million dollars!  How can that possibly be justified?

 

Here’s a cost for integrating – not producing! – hypersonic missile components:

 

Lockheed Martin won $347 million to integrate at least eight of those glide bodies with guidance systems, rocket boosters, protective canisters, and so on, arming a battery of four Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) launchers.[2] [ed. = $43M each]

 

The 2021 GAO Annual Weapons Assessment report cites a program cost of $3.96B ($FY21) for a quantity of 11 missiles ($360M each) without specifying what’s included in the cost.

 

While there are no reliable unit cost figures for hypersonic weapons, yet, it is clear that they’re going to be very expensive.  The first reference, citing a cost of $90M per missile for the Navy, is the most authoritative estimate that I’ve been able to find.

 

Now, with that kind of staggering cost in mind, how do we justify hypersonic weapons?

 

Well, one way would be if the destructive effects were several levels beyond devastating - a near nuclear bomb level of destructive power from a single weapon.  However, the destructive effects are nowhere near that level.  They will either depend on kinetic energy alone or use a conventional warhead which limits the size of the explosive power to conventional levels although that would be added to whatever kinetic effects there are.

 

As we’ve repeatedly demonstrated via calculations, kinetic energy, alone, is rarely sufficient to produce a useful destructive force.  Kinetic energy is also a tricky phenomenon to effectively harness.  For example, the bullet through paper analogy that I’ve often cited renders kinetic energy unusable.  Even when a physically substantial target is hit, the kinetic energy is likely to be gradually released (on a relative time scale) as opposed to the instantaneous release from a conventional explosive.  The gradual release ‘dilutes’ the destructive effect of the kinetic energy release/conversion.

 

Here’s an illustrative example of the kinetic energy effects of a hypersonic weapon.  The data is all speculative as there are no publicly available specifications, that I’m aware of.

 

Mass of common glide body = 900 kg

Velocity = Mach 5 = 3800 mph = 1699 m/s

 

     k.e. = 0.5 * mass * (velocity)squared

     k.e. = 0.5 * 900 * (3800)squared

     k.e. = 6,498,000,000 J

 

By comparison, a kg of TNT releases 4,184,000 J.  Thus, the hypersonic weapon is equivalent to 1553 kg of TNT (3417 lb).  A Tomahawk missile has a 1000 lb conventional warhead so a hypersonic weapon would be equivalent to 3.4 Tomahawk missiles.  That’s substantial, to be sure, but it’s nothing approaching near nuclear bomb type of destruction.

 

Of course, if the warhead is heavier or lighter or the speed is greater or lesser, that would change the calculation.

 

The point is that while a weapon that is equivalent to 3.4 Tomahawk missiles is potent, it does not justify a hundred million dollar price tag when that hundred million dollars could buy 50 Tomahawk missiles.

 

We’ve discussed in previous posts that kinetic weapons (no explosive warhead) depend on the transfer/conversion of their kinetic energy into thermal energy and resulting shock/pressure effects.  In order for this to happen, the kinetic projectile must encounter sufficient resistance to quickly and efficiently transfer/convert the kinetic energy.  This is the bullet/paper problem: a bullet (lots of kinetic energy) fired at a piece of paper, will do very little damage, leaving only a bullet size hole as it passes through the paper and the paper will emerge virtually undamaged because the paper offers insufficient resistance to transfer/convert any of the bullet’s kinetic energy to the paper target.  Similarly, a hypersonic kinetic projectile that encounters a soft target like a ship will likely pass through, causing relatively little damage.  Conversely, a substantial, solid target such as a concrete bunker, fortification, or hardened aircraft shelter will offer sufficient resistance to facilitate the energy conversion and the target will be destroyed.

 

Closely related to this resistance problem is that a hypersonic missile will release/convert its kinetic energy slowly as opposed to a conventional explosive, such as a Tomahawk missile, which releases its energy instantaneously.  When you see videos of rail gun projectiles impacting targets, the targets are, invariably, steel blocks multiple feet in thickness and the projectile produces an impressive fireworks display.  However, how many real world targets consist of steel blocks a few feet thick?  A hypersonic body impacting a real world target, such as a building, is likely going to penetrate straight through the target, releasing/converting only a portion of its energy.  The remainder will be released/converted in the ground as the body continues to penetrate until it stops.  In fact, the body might well pass straight through the building, leaving only a small hole, and bury itself in the ground (the bullet through paper analogy).  What effect that underground release/conversion of energy would have on the above ground structure/target is unknown.  I’m not aware that anyone has done any realistic testing of hypersonic weapon destructive effects.  We desperately need realistic testing before we continue down the staggeringly expensive hypersonic weapons path.  It’s going to be very difficult to justify a hundred million dollar, one time use weapon.

 

A final consideration about target sets is that the hypersonic missile inventory will likely be quite small.

 

The [Pentagon] internal assessment, made available to Bloomberg News, shows an expected total of … 240 missiles for the Navy.[1]

 

Thus, we have to not only take into account the cost of a hypersonic missile but also the inventory level.  With very few missiles, we can’t waste them against anything but extremely high value targets.  We also can’t waste them against heavily defended targets.

 

Moving on, we’ve noted that hypersonics have a fairly limited target set.  With no guidance package, they can only be used against fixed targets.  In order to effectively release/convert their kinetic energy, the target has to be physically substantial.  Even a ship is likely to see a hypersonic weapon pass straight through (this phenomenon was seen often in WWII when large caliber, armor piercing shells would pass straight through a smaller target ship, causing very little damage.

 

What does all of the preceding tell us about the hypersonic weapon target set?  It tells us that valid targets must be: 

• Fixed targets since hypersonic weapons don’t have guidance packages
• Extremely high value targets to justify the cost
• Physically hard targets to trigger an effective degree of energy release/conversion
• Less defended so as not to waste expensive missiles

This excludes: 

• Area bombardment / suppression fire
• Mobile targets
• Physically soft targets such as trucks, tanks, artillery, aircraft, most buildings
• Heavily defended targets

Now, let’s consider how many real world targets fall into the valid target set?  The answer is … not many.  Examples might be a very large headquarters building, hardened aircraft hangars, underground bunkers, nuclear missile silos, and Chinese submarine pens built into mountains.  Even within this set, some of the potential targets are questionable.  For example, is it really cost-effective to destroy a hardened aircraft hangar with a hundred million dollar missile as opposed to a couple of Tomahawks?

 

The harsh reality is that the vast majority of targets are not valid hypersonic weapon targets.  These would include trucks, tanks, artillery, people, ships, aircraft, radars, and almost every worthwhile target one might find on a battlefield. 

 

Thus, hypersonics would seem to be more a one-shot, sniper type weapon for use against very high value, very constrained targets rather than a general warfare weapon.

 

 

 

_____________________________________

 

[1]Bloomberg website, “Hypersonic Sticker Shock: U.S. Weapons May Run $106 Million Each”, Anthony Capaccio, 12-Nov-2021,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-12/hypersonic-sticker-shock-u-s-weapons-may-run-106-million-each

 

[2]Breaking Defense website, “Hypersonics: Army Awards $699M To Build First Missiles For A Combat Unit”, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., 30-Aug-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/hypersonics-army-awards-699m-to-build-first-missiles-for-a-combat-unit/

XLUUV Status

As part of the Navy’s wholesale – and uninformed by experimentation – leap into unmanned technology, the Navy has contracted with Boeing to produce 5 Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUV).   The cost estimate and contract was for $379M (FY2016 dollars) for the five vehicles with delivery of the first vehicle to have taken place in Dec 2020.

 

XLUUV / Echo Voyager

We previously discussed the CONOPS aspects of this project (see, “Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (XLUUV) CONOPS”).

 

Shockingly Predictably, the project is hugely over budget [1, p.8] and long overdue.

 

 

XLUUV Cost Overrun
Contract	$379M
Current	$621M
Overrun	$242M

 

 

That’s a 64% overrun and the contract isn’t complete, yet.  The cost will increase further.

 

Apparently, the cost is even higher as the contractor’s portion of the overruns is not included.

 

This cost growth accounts for the government’s liability and does not include cost growth absorbed by the contractor.[1]

 

The Navy also added a smaller, simpler, test vehicle to the contract which, according to the Navy, accounts for $73M of the $242M overrun.

 

 

In addition to being hugely over budget, the project is woefully behind schedule.

 

The delivery of the first XLUUV is now expected to be over 3 years late. The contractor originally planned to deliver the first XLUUV in December 2020 and all five by the end of calendar year 2022.[1, p.8] [emphasis added]

 

Deliveries are now tentatively scheduled for 2024.  History assures us that will be further delayed.

 

Why did all this happen?  According to GAO,

 

The Navy did not require the contractor to demonstrate its readiness to fabricate and deliver the XLUUVs prior to beginning fabrication, as called for by leading acquisition practices.[1, p.10]

 

Illustrating just how far from production-ready the XLUUV was, the contractor has requested a staggering number of deviations from specification.

 

If shipbuilders discover that they cannot build a ship according to the plan in the ship’s specifications, they can request a deviation from the plan. According to the Navy, the contractor has submitted over 1,500 deviation requests since the critical design review in October 2018.[1, p.12] [emphasis added]

 

I guess that design review didn’t cover anything relevant, did it?

 

 

Conclusion

 

For an organization whose stock in trade is the acquisition of ships, this kind of horrendous budget and schedule performance on project after project is appalling.  The situation is all the worse when one considers how small and simple this vehicle is.  People need to be fired.

 

 

 

____________________________________

 

[1]Government Accountability Office, “Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle”, Sep 2022, GAO-22-105974

Putin Syndrome

It seems all too apparent that one of Russia’s [many] problems related to its invasion of Ukraine is that Putin was fed wildly optimistic information in an attempt to keep him happy and keep lesser officials from being seen as the bearers of bad news.  That led to some incredibly inaccurate and delusional assessments of the situation that bordered on pure fantasy.

 

As we know from the many documented examples on this blog, the US Navy (and military, in general) is engaged in the same kind of ‘good news only’ reporting to superiors who are perfectly happy to accept what should be obvious pieces of fantasy.

 

The latest example of delusional reporting and assessment is this report about the ‘success’ of LCS USS Sioux City during a recent five month deployment.  Breaking Defense website reports on the ‘historic’ deployment with the Navy absolutely raving about the success – the ‘success’ being mainly that it didn’t break down.  According to Cmdr. Scott Whitworth, commanding officer of the blue crew,

 

We were able to steam over 28,000 nautical miles and we had no issues with our combining gear during the entire deployment.[1]

 

We were able to achieve speeds above 30 knots. The engineers have done a fantastic job, both civilian and Navy engineers, developing the procedures where we can operate the ship at high speeds and not cause damage to the combining gear.[1]

 

The Navy seems inordinately pleased that it was able to operate a ship for five months without the combining gear breaking down.  Avoiding a mechanical breakdown seems to be the new standard for success in the Navy.  If that’s not delusional, I don’t know what is.  Putin Navy leadership will be given glowing reports about the success of the deployment and they won’t ask any questions … questions like, the design speed of the LCS was 45+ knots so why are you bragging about 30 kts?  That’s at least 33% below the design specification.  That’s what you call success?

 

This deployment represents a failure of the LCS to achieve its minimum design objective regarding speed and yet the Navy is treating the failure as a success. 

 

This is how you wind up with a deluded, hollow Navy and leaders who have no connection to reality.

 

 

 

______________________________________

 

[1]Breaking Defense website, “Navy’s LCS combining gear problem didn’t interrupt ‘historic’ global deployment”, Justin Katz, 5-Oct-2022,

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/10/navys-lcs-combining-gear-problem-didnt-interrupt-historic-global-deployment/

Book Review – “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”

We haven’t done a book review in a while so let’s do one!

 

The Fletcher class destroyer was the iconic destroyer of WWII but have you wondered why?  Why did it become an icon?  What characteristics made it so successful?  How did it evolve?

 

John C. Reilly, Jr.’s book, “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”, answers these questions and many more.  As the name suggests, the book is an exploration of the pre-war evolution of US destroyers which culminated in the Fletcher class and its successors the Sumner and Gearing classes.

 

The book is soft-covered (there is a much more expensive hard cover version available) in an 8-1/2 x 11 inch format which provides ample area for the over 200 b&w photos, most of them quite close up and revealing all manner of detail about equipment.  Each photo is accompanied by detailed captions explaining what you’re seeing.

 

The book begins with a brief history of the beginnings of destroyers and then examines the evolution through the Farragut, Porter, Benham, Sims, Benson, and Gleaves classes and then, of course, the Fletchers along with the following Sumner and Gearing classes.  It is a treat and highly informative to flip through the pages and see the visual evolution of the classes as the form of the Fletcher becomes more and more evident with each succeeding class.

 

Of intense interest are the descriptions of the debates and considerations that went into each succeeding design and how real world experience fed back into the evolutionary process.  The role of the General Board and BuShips in developing designs really stands out and is made all the more emphatic when compared to the absence of any guiding design authority today and the almost random nature of today’s ship designs.

 

A chapter on anti-aircraft (AA) roles, evolution, and impact on tactics and ship design is utterly fascinating.  Diagrams of various AA projectiles is most illuminating.  Passages such as,

 

On 12 June [1940] the General Board forwarded a memorandum to CNO.  This summarized fleet AA firing of 1939-40 and concluded that ‘the firing is generally ineffective, that a large amount of ammunition is expended in obtaining only occasional effective hits, and that anti-aircraft gunnery – as at present developed – does not provide reasonable security against air attack.’[1]

 

emphasize the degree of testing and honesty about results that is sorely lacking today (not withstanding the Navy's pre-war torpedo testing fiasco!).

 

Additional topics such as the development of radar, the role of the torpedo, the rationale for armor, the shift in focus from anti-surface to anti-air, the importance of topside weight, the development of the 5” gun, and more are all detailed through the discussions of the development of the various classes.

 

I look at the development and evolution of the destroyer and can’t help but be impressed by the logic and common sense as well as the feedback of real world experience that inexorably led to the ultimate destroyer, the Fletcher class.  Every new design/class along the way built on the preceding class and represented a marked and steady improvement.  In contrast, we seem to have no steady development and improvement with today’s ship classes.  Indeed, each new design/class seems almost worse than the preceding one!

 

This book is a treat and a feast for the eyes and the mind and I highly recommend it.  A reader will come away with a detailed understanding of ship design, ship evolution, the role of equipment in the development of tactics, and many more aspects of ship development, in general, and destroyer development, in particular.

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  I have absolutely no connection, whatsoever, with the author, the book, or the publisher.  As a point of interest, I picked this book up decades ago for the price of $9.95. I shudder to think what inflation has done to the price!

 

 

_____________________________________

 

[1]John C. Reilly, Jr., “United States Navy Destroyers of World War II”, Blandford Press, 1983, ISBN: 0 7132 1026 8

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