The labor shortage is one of myriad challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production and maintenance at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats. Combined with shifting defense priorities, last-minute design changes and cost overruns, it has put the U.S. behind China in the number of ships at its disposal — and the gap is widening.
Navy shipbuilding is currently in “a terrible state” — the worst in a quarter century, says Eric Labs, a longtime naval analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. “I feel alarmed,” he said. “I don’t see a fast, easy way to get out of this problem. It’s taken us a long time to get into it.”
That is what happens when corruption is rampant, and the focus is on profit maximization, not getting anything deployed.
Steve
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I do not dismiss the difficulty, but want to point out that being “behind China in the number of ships at its disposal” is both silly and misleading. The situation could be cured by minting a slew of crap ships, but more telling is that a large portion of the best of the Chinese capital ships (including aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers) are hopelessly outclassed by USA firepower from both air and sea.
I am glad most of the ill-conceived plans for ships did not get executed as the plans were misbegotten.
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For those scoring at home, the misbegotten Zumwalts were replaced by another string of Burkes, a design that is now 30 years old.
The equally misbegotten LCS program has been followed by the Constellation class. “low risk, low cost” they promised, because it was based on the existing FREMM ships used by several European navies. Except now the Connies are three years behind schedule, and another DoD procurement cluster.
Does anyone really think that the B-21, being developed at great cost, will ever actually be deployed, in numbers exceeding a handful?
The US Army wanted to buy the Israeli Trophy countermeasure system. “Oh no”, said Raytheon “pay us to develop a knockoff”. Nearly twenty years later, we are still waiting for Raytheon to deliver.
Steve
5 Likes
Regarding USA military industrial Steve reliably comes through with the miserable details that remain fuzzy in my memory.
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