9 ms·

The real scandal isn't that the Ford is having (lots) of problems with it's new technology. That can happen. It's not even that a decision was made to put multi

The real scandal isn't that the Ford is having (lots) of problems with it's new technology. That can happen. It's not even that a decision was made to put multiple novel, unproven systems into a major warship. The biggest scandal is that the US Navy accepted delivery of the Ford and commissioned it when it was non-functional. This should be ending swathes of careers at the top of both the US Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

teilo 7y ago
Based on the scuttlebutt I've been hearing from Navy insiders, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the entire organization is a mess right now.
- krapht 7y ago
  Yup. How many times does this engineering mistake have to be made? "Let's save time and money by not building a prototype and do our testing of the system on the actual ship itself!" Whenever someone thinks: let's cut corners on "x" to save money and time, it has always come around to bite me. And now they are far behind schedule, and they ended up having to build a carrier replica at the drydock to do testing anyway.
  - cle 7y ago
    It keeps happening b/c so many people have the same attitude as GP: find scapegoats and fire them! That will fix the systemic problems...right?! No, it won't.
    - vkou 7y ago
      It will if the scapegoats are admirals. From my conversation with navy folks, unless a scandal sinks an admiral, the organization does not take it seriously, and will not make any institutional changes.
      - cryptonector 7y ago
        +1 But if the only scapegoats are lower down in the chain then the result will be devastating to morale. The SecNavy has to fire one or more admirals here, and soon.
        frankharv 7y ago
        As a yard worker, In some ways I feel sorry for NewportNews Shipyard. These elevators are designs the Navy brought to them. Not something they designed. They built it to spec and it did not work. Now the blame game. As someone above noted, The Navy did not even build a land based prototype. Now whose fault is this mess? I had thought it would be the catapult system that failed. Instead it is too powerful and they are still tuning it. They are worried about the stress on the nose gear. Some birds are still restricted in weight last I heard.
        fock 7y ago
        the most probable cause is there aren't any contractors available anymore in the US who are able/willing to build such things. This is really sad.
      - cle 7y ago
        If the systemic mechanisms and incentives haven’t changed, is the problem really solved?
      - PaulAJ 7y ago
        Voltaire: "in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng#Honorific_eponyms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng#Honorific_eponyms
  - user5994461 7y ago
    Some of the systems might be unique, if not new technology or specifically designed and made for this use case, with the R&D sponsored as part of the project budget. There might not be a prototype, because the delivered item is the prototype. Sure, it should be tested before being shipped, but it doesn't help when it ultimately doesn't perform as expected and there is no alternative at hands.
  - JJMcJ 7y ago
    > not building a prototype Old saying, "Fastest way to build a six inch reflector telescope is to build a four inch telescope first." That is, learn in the simplest possible context. Like companies that won't build an MVP or even a non-sellable proof of concept. Finding out a key software library doesn't work three weeks before launch day, for example.
  - chiph 7y ago
    They did build a land version of the EMALs launch system. Here it is launching a F-35. There must have been a design change between when this was built & tested, and when they installed it on the Ford. Which would be the wrong thing to do - always install upgrades/changes in test before production. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDAQtlmtCe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDAQtlmtCe8
    - phonon 7y ago
      All these technologies "worked" before they were installed. They are just not yet reliable enough.
  - chiefalchemist 7y ago
    "“I think when the Navy started off, they had a really good plan,” Paul Francis, of the Government Accountability Office, told the Senate in 2016. “They were going to build two ships, experimental ships.” But in 2005, having assured itself that “optimal manning works,” the Navy decided to skip the experimentation and move straight to construction. From this point on, whenever the Navy tried to study the feasibility of minimal manning, its analysis was colored by the fact that—on these ships, at least—it had to work. Dozens of littoral combat ships were on their way. The Giffords was the 10th to deploy." Taken from: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/future-of-work-expertise-navy/590647/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/future-...
  - Nomentatus 7y ago
    Reminds me that the first U.S. ship to ship night naval battles with the Japanese in WWII were tragic (for the U.S.) 'cause the American super-fancy new-tech Mark 14 torpedoes hadn't been properly tested; that would have been "too expensive." So they were just made and deployed - and since defective, didn't trigger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo So "this engineering mistake" indeed has to be made ad nauseum, it would seem. As Einstein said, only space and human stupidity are infinite.
    - fock 7y ago
      back then the US had still a solid industrial base outside of a oligopolic, capitalistic industrial-military-complex which is only interested in making money by milking the government (as opposed to making money in the long-term by supporting a solid, diverse array of industrial ventures)
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  The Navy has been hemorrhaging actual engineers for decades now. Most of the real engineering work is done by contractors (hired to build something) and contractors (on site technical staff who don't actually answer to the Navy). The Navy is left with uniformed personnel and manager bureaucrat types, neither of which have the engineering expertise the organization needs. The results should not surprise us.
  - aaronbrethorst 7y ago
    Same with the FAA. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/podcasts/the-daily/boeing-737-max.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/podcasts/the-daily/boeing... Same with any other part of the US government. It doesn't pay people what they're worth, so they can't attract enough good talent.
    - mr_crankypants 7y ago
      Local governments, too. In my neck of the woods, there are departments that have to make do with whole teams of low-skill employees because, while a more skilled person could do the work of at least four lower-skill workers, they would also require two lower-skill workers' worth of salary, and you just can't be paying any one person that much money because that would be Government Waste.
      - tastygreenapple 7y ago
        In America, it's probably more accurate to blame government labor unions for the preference of more lower skilled workers to fewer higher skilled workers
        mr_crankypants 7y ago
        How often do labor unions campaign to impose salary caps on their own members? The very idea seems out of character.
        7y ago
- orf 7y ago
  Care to elaborate?
FireBeyond 7y ago
> the US Navy accepted delivery of the Ford and commissioned it when it was non-functional. This should be ending swathes of careers at the top of both the US Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries. It'll be bonuses at Huntington. "Congratulations, you got the Navy to sign off even though it's not complete!"
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  This is true for most of the defense contractors I've worked for. It's one of the chief reasons I left that sector and eventually the US.
hindsightbias 7y ago
Like the F-35, it’s virtual disarmament by DoD proxy
rootw0rm 7y ago
I still have an HII access card for when I worked on the USS Chosin and USS O'Kane right underneath the Coronado bridge. I was still in the custody of the San Diego sheriff's department at the time. Many of the few hundred of us that worked there were either currently in a halfway house or ex-cons. None of us received any safety training on asbestos, yet we handled a-cloth every single day. We only had rudimentary safety equipment. Some guys would cut asbestos cloth with a hand grinder, sending fluff everywhere. Equipment marked "TOP SECRET" was covered with a simple piece of butcher paper...assuming it hadn't torn or fallen off. It was pretty much a shit show.
- vaguesortof 7y ago
  That's not butcher paper it's fire retardant paper. Granted the cabinet was probably metal....
  - rootw0rm 7y ago
    yah, you're right, but it looks and feels enough like butcher paper that it says "NOT FOR FOOD SERVICE" all over it =)
- jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
  Holy shit :o
  - rootw0rm 7y ago
    I'd share more about what was possible with the access I was given, but I've endured enough federal investigations for this lifetime.
- godzillabrennus 7y ago
  The United States government and "unconventional" approaches to labor for building military equipment is not new. One of the most interesting stories to me is how the Mafia helped break some bones of laborers during WW2 to ensure the USA was victorious. They knew they couldn't operate without a free society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak Lots of other ways that the Mafia helped in Italy. https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret-Alliance/dp/0760324573?sa-no-redirect=1 https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret-Allian...
atoav 7y ago
This sounds a lot like the classical result of politics shoving contracts to private companies who then look how to fulfill them with minimum spending. Gains are privatized and losses socialized — as usual.
throwaway3627 7y ago
Robert Reich's latest video shows what's wrong... too much spending on whiz-bang military toys while cutting Social Security and Medicare. https://youtu.be/BGIJxNPFpAQ https://youtu.be/BGIJxNPFpAQ

teilo 7y ago

Based on the scuttlebutt I've been hearing from Navy insiders, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the entire organization is a mess right now.

krapht 7y ago
Yup. How many times does this engineering mistake have to be made? "Let's save time and money by not building a prototype and do our testing of the system on the actual ship itself!" Whenever someone thinks: let's cut corners on "x" to save money and time, it has always come around to bite me. And now they are far behind schedule, and they ended up having to build a carrier replica at the drydock to do testing anyway.
- cle 7y ago
  It keeps happening b/c so many people have the same attitude as GP: find scapegoats and fire them! That will fix the systemic problems...right?! No, it won't.
  - vkou 7y ago
    It will if the scapegoats are admirals. From my conversation with navy folks, unless a scandal sinks an admiral, the organization does not take it seriously, and will not make any institutional changes.
    - cryptonector 7y ago
      +1 But if the only scapegoats are lower down in the chain then the result will be devastating to morale. The SecNavy has to fire one or more admirals here, and soon.
      - frankharv 7y ago
        As a yard worker, In some ways I feel sorry for NewportNews Shipyard. These elevators are designs the Navy brought to them. Not something they designed. They built it to spec and it did not work. Now the blame game. As someone above noted, The Navy did not even build a land based prototype. Now whose fault is this mess? I had thought it would be the catapult system that failed. Instead it is too powerful and they are still tuning it. They are worried about the stress on the nose gear. Some birds are still restricted in weight last I heard.
        fock 7y ago
        the most probable cause is there aren't any contractors available anymore in the US who are able/willing to build such things. This is really sad.
    - cle 7y ago
      If the systemic mechanisms and incentives haven’t changed, is the problem really solved?
    - PaulAJ 7y ago
      Voltaire: "in this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng#Honorific_eponyms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byng#Honorific_eponyms
- user5994461 7y ago
  Some of the systems might be unique, if not new technology or specifically designed and made for this use case, with the R&D sponsored as part of the project budget. There might not be a prototype, because the delivered item is the prototype. Sure, it should be tested before being shipped, but it doesn't help when it ultimately doesn't perform as expected and there is no alternative at hands.
- JJMcJ 7y ago
  > not building a prototype Old saying, "Fastest way to build a six inch reflector telescope is to build a four inch telescope first." That is, learn in the simplest possible context. Like companies that won't build an MVP or even a non-sellable proof of concept. Finding out a key software library doesn't work three weeks before launch day, for example.
- chiph 7y ago
  They did build a land version of the EMALs launch system. Here it is launching a F-35. There must have been a design change between when this was built & tested, and when they installed it on the Ford. Which would be the wrong thing to do - always install upgrades/changes in test before production. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDAQtlmtCe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDAQtlmtCe8
  - phonon 7y ago
    All these technologies "worked" before they were installed. They are just not yet reliable enough.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago
  "“I think when the Navy started off, they had a really good plan,” Paul Francis, of the Government Accountability Office, told the Senate in 2016. “They were going to build two ships, experimental ships.” But in 2005, having assured itself that “optimal manning works,” the Navy decided to skip the experimentation and move straight to construction. From this point on, whenever the Navy tried to study the feasibility of minimal manning, its analysis was colored by the fact that—on these ships, at least—it had to work. Dozens of littoral combat ships were on their way. The Giffords was the 10th to deploy." Taken from: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/future-of-work-expertise-navy/590647/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/future-...
- Nomentatus 7y ago
  Reminds me that the first U.S. ship to ship night naval battles with the Japanese in WWII were tragic (for the U.S.) 'cause the American super-fancy new-tech Mark 14 torpedoes hadn't been properly tested; that would have been "too expensive." So they were just made and deployed - and since defective, didn't trigger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo So "this engineering mistake" indeed has to be made ad nauseum, it would seem. As Einstein said, only space and human stupidity are infinite.
  - fock 7y ago
    back then the US had still a solid industrial base outside of a oligopolic, capitalistic industrial-military-complex which is only interested in making money by milking the government (as opposed to making money in the long-term by supporting a solid, diverse array of industrial ventures)
i_am_proteus 7y ago
The Navy has been hemorrhaging actual engineers for decades now. Most of the real engineering work is done by contractors (hired to build something) and contractors (on site technical staff who don't actually answer to the Navy). The Navy is left with uniformed personnel and manager bureaucrat types, neither of which have the engineering expertise the organization needs. The results should not surprise us.
- aaronbrethorst 7y ago
  Same with the FAA. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/podcasts/the-daily/boeing-737-max.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/podcasts/the-daily/boeing... Same with any other part of the US government. It doesn't pay people what they're worth, so they can't attract enough good talent.
  - mr_crankypants 7y ago
    Local governments, too. In my neck of the woods, there are departments that have to make do with whole teams of low-skill employees because, while a more skilled person could do the work of at least four lower-skill workers, they would also require two lower-skill workers' worth of salary, and you just can't be paying any one person that much money because that would be Government Waste.
    - tastygreenapple 7y ago
      In America, it's probably more accurate to blame government labor unions for the preference of more lower skilled workers to fewer higher skilled workers
      - mr_crankypants 7y ago
        How often do labor unions campaign to impose salary caps on their own members? The very idea seems out of character.
        7y ago
orf 7y ago
Care to elaborate?

FireBeyond 7y ago

> the US Navy accepted delivery of the Ford and commissioned it when it was non-functional. This should be ending swathes of careers at the top of both the US Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries. It'll be bonuses at Huntington. "Congratulations, you got the Navy to sign off even though it's not complete!"

blaser-waffle 7y ago
This is true for most of the defense contractors I've worked for. It's one of the chief reasons I left that sector and eventually the US.

hindsightbias 7y ago

Like the F-35, it’s virtual disarmament by DoD proxy

rootw0rm 7y ago

I still have an HII access card for when I worked on the USS Chosin and USS O'Kane right underneath the Coronado bridge. I was still in the custody of the San Diego sheriff's department at the time. Many of the few hundred of us that worked there were either currently in a halfway house or ex-cons. None of us received any safety training on asbestos, yet we handled a-cloth every single day. We only had rudimentary safety equipment. Some guys would cut asbestos cloth with a hand grinder, sending fluff everywhere. Equipment marked "TOP SECRET" was covered with a simple piece of butcher paper...assuming it hadn't torn or fallen off. It was pretty much a shit show.

vaguesortof 7y ago
That's not butcher paper it's fire retardant paper. Granted the cabinet was probably metal....
- rootw0rm 7y ago
  yah, you're right, but it looks and feels enough like butcher paper that it says "NOT FOR FOOD SERVICE" all over it =)
jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
Holy shit :o
- rootw0rm 7y ago
  I'd share more about what was possible with the access I was given, but I've endured enough federal investigations for this lifetime.
godzillabrennus 7y ago
The United States government and "unconventional" approaches to labor for building military equipment is not new. One of the most interesting stories to me is how the Mafia helped break some bones of laborers during WW2 to ensure the USA was victorious. They knew they couldn't operate without a free society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmMcD96bHak Lots of other ways that the Mafia helped in Italy. https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret-Alliance/dp/0760324573?sa-no-redirect=1 https://smile.amazon.com/Mafia-Allies-Americas-Secret-Allian...

atoav 7y ago

This sounds a lot like the classical result of politics shoving contracts to private companies who then look how to fulfill them with minimum spending. Gains are privatized and losses socialized — as usual.

throwaway3627 7y ago

Robert Reich's latest video shows what's wrong... too much spending on whiz-bang military toys while cutting Social Security and Medicare. https://youtu.be/BGIJxNPFpAQ https://youtu.be/BGIJxNPFpAQ