8 ms·

Navy cancels ship briefings after damning internal report

71 points by jseliger 3y ago

ungreased0675 3y ago
>But today, the version being built at a shipyard in Wisconsin shares only 15 percent commonality with the original design How is this in any way acceptable? The procurement strategy was to buy an existing design in order to speed up the process. I would bet tradeoffs were made doing it that way instead of a clean sheet design. Now, after the fact they throw away the design and make something new? The Navy is likely to get the worst of both approaches doing it the way they are.
- fblp 3y ago
  I'm also wondering how incentives / leadership structure were setup to make this "scope creep" possible.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > how incentives / leadership structure were setup to make this "scope creep" possible It’s partly a function of use it or lose it funding. If the Navy gets budget, it’s incentivised to start spending it aggressively. Planning only burns so much cash, so there is a built-in incentive to jumpstart production alongside design and then patch everything with costly retrofits.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      If the DRS is adopted the "use-it-or-lose-it" dichotomy should shift away due to a faster budget cycle
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        DRS?
        alephnerd 3y ago
        It's the new proposal by the PPBE Reform Commission in the senate [0] [0] - https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Commission-on-PPBE-Reform_Full-Report_6-March-2024_FINAL.pdf https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Com...
  - callalex 3y ago
    They won’t even accept a simple audit of the budget.
- nradov 3y ago
  Part of the reason is that the only way to get the acquisition of a major new weapons system approved by Congress is to drastically underestimate the cost. This gives Congresspeople political cover to vote aye. Everyone involved knows that costs will explode later, and by that time the program has become too big to fail. Everyone knows we need a new frigate and it's too late to start over from scratch without endangering national security. The other reason is that this program is constantly chasing a moving target. The national security establishment is getting increasingly freaked out about the risk of a naval war with China. The original inexpensive European frigate design was largely designed for lower threat environments, mainly European coastal defense against Russia plus gunboat diplomacy in Africa and the Middle East. Now the US Navy needs something that can fight and survive against a superior force in the Western Pacific, so many of the combat systems are getting upgraded. And even with those upgrades it's still dangerously short of VLS cells. If Navy leadership knew in 2018 what they know now then they might have chosen a different approach.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    Arguably, the root cause is just that the marginal economics of antiship missile defense are now unfavorable (historically the idea was that you would shoot down the planes carrying them and deny targeting, but that's not very realistic now). That's not a problem against traditional opponents, but against an economic peer, it means you have great pressure in your quantity of antiship defences. The problem is that for every VLS cell the US can float, the Chinese can build 4-5 more missiles, so the problem will remain.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    > The national security establishment is getting increasingly freaked out about the risk of a naval war with China. I guess military professionals might know things we don’t, but doesn’t a hot war with China strike everyone else as utterly ridiculous? China’s economy is so inextricably intertwined with those of the rest of the world, it would make no sense for either side. Mutually assured economic destruction. Yes, I know there are US hawk politicians constantly banging on the “China war” drums, but it seems so silly.
- jki275 3y ago
  the world changes. The contracts are written, ten years later the equipment available to put on the ship when it's actually being built changed three times already and the original contractor for half of it went out of business.
- jandrewrogers 3y ago
  The fig leaf of an "existing design" is often used for new procurement because Congress is less likely to interfere with political considerations if it is viewed as an upgrade instead of a new system, under the theory that working within the constraints of an existing system limit flexibility with respect to Congressional politicking. Upgrades are also assumed to be cheaper than new designs, whether they are or not. The boundaries are fuzzy but there are many examples of new systems packaged as upgraded old systems for the sake of procurement efficiency.
- somat 3y ago
  Some fun examples. The F-15E, F-18E "It's just an upgraded version", don't get me wrong they are good planes, but they are 20 percent larger than previous models it is a different plane, with different jigs, parts, testing, performance. The tu-22m, A least the f-15e is the same shape as the f-15. "Yes boss, I understand we don't have the money to design a new bomber, we are just going to upgrade the design of one of our existing models" Proceeds to design a completely new plane and gives it the same designation of an existing one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M
bell-cot 3y ago
Ah, for the Good Old Days, when the USN operated plenty of its very own shipyards, and was actually capable of Get Sh*t Done... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard But you can't stand in the way of Progress. Especially not if you're a Congressman, and need some fat donations to help finance your next reelection campaign. Just another way in which Capitalism is superior a way of doing everything, I guess...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > you can't stand in the way of Progress It looks like we closed them after the end of the Cold War [1]. This wasn’t an idealistic pursuit, just banal cost cutting to disarm the nation. Given increased tensions, it would make sense to reverse and begin re-integrating Navy owned and operated shipyards. (I’m also noticing that most of the shipyards were on the Atlantic, with the Washington shipyard being one of the few that’s been maintained [2].) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Base_Realignment_and_Closure_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Base_Realignment_and_Cl... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound_Naval_Shipyard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound_Naval_Shipyard
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > This wasn’t an idealistic pursuit, just banal cost cutting to disarm the nation Specifically, it was Clinton's SecDef Perry's Last Supper meeting with defense contractors in 93 that destroyed the entire base we had in the US [0] "I asked [former SecDef] Les [Aspen] to call a meeting of the senior defense industry officials where we had a simple message to them: The first was that the budget was not only down, it was going to go down further. They should not look at it as a little dip here but as a new low plateau and adjust their plans accordingly, and in particular, if that meant they had too much capacity for the amount of business they were going to have, they should understand that we were not going to support that unused overhead. They had to do a scaling down and a consolidation to do that" It was this Last Supper that caused Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, etc to drastically deteriorate. I banged my head trying to tell everyone about how our current PPBE system is crap a decadeish ago but no one listened. Now we're doing too little too late. [0] - https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-perry-oral-history https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-hi...
SignalM 3y ago
Worked in one. They are safety nightmares. They give safety bonuses if “nothing is reported” so nothing gets reported. Working conditions suck.. you spend your time begging for AC in a metal can in 100 degree heat (outside) on top of that the craziest thing was how subcontractors made money. I was in test so we wondered why certain runs of cable were way out of spec. Turns out subcontractors are paid by the foot to install cable so it would take the longest route through. Nuts. Never work there.
- Solvency 3y ago
  so why does the government/navy incentivize such bloated inefficiency, slop, and misuse of resources/time/money/energy?
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    PPBE, though now that's changing with the new Defense Resourcing System [0] [0] - https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Commission-on-PPBE-Reform_Full-Report_6-March-2024_FINAL.pdf https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Com...
  - Retric 3y ago
    It’s really difficult to impose efficiency on outside contractors without them cutting corners. Congress doesn’t want the government to do anything in house.
    - Solvency 3y ago
      my job has me managing multiple contractors/vendors at a time. you employ checks and balances, contractual obligations, smart project plans and requirements, and regular oversight. how is this any different.
      - metiscus 3y ago
        You see, these contractors tend to hire retired admirals and generals directly out of acquisitions positions and onto their boards. The contracts are written in ways that make it hard to punish shoddy work in a way that doesn't make the government side look bad too, so they tend to let slide what is kept out of sight. After all, if someone makes enough noise, then your contract may end up on the news or even worse, on the hill. If that happens, contracts get yanked, people get reassigned or lose their chance at a kushy spot on a board in a few years. It varies by contract and organizations, some are much better run than others and tend to deliver good quality.
arh68 3y ago
Seems like there are only ever 4 root causes to govt/contractor failures: 1. miscommunication (not seen here) 2. training issues (check) 3. not spending enough money (check) 4. decisions made by previous leadership (only hinted at) I just hope the results are worth it.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Pretty easy to see the eventual outcome of a system where everyone’s siphoning dollars from the government through lucrative contracts, so no one stirs the pot by calling out a subcontractor for being crooked. The bloat is systemic. I have confidence our new era of businesses can basically bleed the middle class dry without any issue at all via “inflation” but I don’t think they’ll get away with doing it to the military in the long term.
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
I know what this. I just haven’t figured out to make money on it yet. Complexity crisis. It’s happening everywhere. Boeing didn’t turn into a bad engineering company, they put a noose on their own necks because they could. Navy is doing the same thing. Everyone is. That is the real reason we have toasters and teapots on the internet.
- JellyBeanThief 3y ago
  The thing about toasters and teapots on the internet is that they give the people working on them a job to do. Because absent being filthy rich, if you don't work then you don't don't eat and you don't sleep inside. To oversimplify, as a society we have decided that a person shouldn't be able to earn a living doing less than ~35-40 hours of work a week. So if there isn't enough valuable work to go around filling up everyone's week, then some people are gonna have to make up performative work.
maxglute 3y ago
Sometimes I wonder if US leadership, above the paygrade of naval leadership, assume that large surface combatants likely won't be survivable in a peer war. Then they'd do exactly what they're doing now... stall naval projects and pivot. There's a lot of motivated naval lobbying decrying the state of US ship building, but we can see in semi that US leadership fine with pouring 100s of billions in urgent industrial policy. Maybe US ship building is actually that broken, but IMO that wouldn't stop the spigot from flowing. At some point, it's hard to differentiate if current state of naval procurement is incompetent by malice/design. It's hard to explain how little is being done.
- pyuser583 3y ago
  The smart people seem to agree that submarine will be the most important naval vessels in the next war. Submarine operations, including production, are extremely hush-hush. Last I heard the US had two submarine fleets: the ones the Navy openly discusses, and the useful ones which are discussed in whispers. I like to think the hush-hush subs are being built and deployed en masse.
  - appplication 3y ago
    Surface drones like the ones used in Ukraine are also not to be underestimated. Russia is struggling to combat these effectively, and even the US navy doesn’t have any specific technological answer to them at present.
    - _boffin_ 3y ago
      I believe they’re actively testing microwave on at least one ship.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The US Navy might have secret programs for some small underwater combat drones but there are no "hush-hush subs". A modern SSN/SSBN costs billions of dollars and takes thousands of workers years to build. There's just no way to keep them secret. Some of the internal systems and capabilities are secret but the number of hulls is public knowledge.
mikey_p 3y ago
W.W.R.D.? What Would Rickover Do?

71 points by jseliger 3y ago

>But today, the version being built at a shipyard in Wisconsin shares only 15 percent commonality with the original design How is this in any way acceptable? The procurement strategy was to buy an existing design in order to speed up the process. I would bet tradeoffs were made doing it that way instead of a clean sheet design. Now, after the fact they throw away the design and make something new? The Navy is likely to get the worst of both approaches doing it the way they are.

fblp 3y ago
I'm also wondering how incentives / leadership structure were setup to make this "scope creep" possible.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > how incentives / leadership structure were setup to make this "scope creep" possible It’s partly a function of use it or lose it funding. If the Navy gets budget, it’s incentivised to start spending it aggressively. Planning only burns so much cash, so there is a built-in incentive to jumpstart production alongside design and then patch everything with costly retrofits.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    If the DRS is adopted the "use-it-or-lose-it" dichotomy should shift away due to a faster budget cycle
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      DRS?
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        It's the new proposal by the PPBE Reform Commission in the senate [0] [0] - https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Commission-on-PPBE-Reform_Full-Report_6-March-2024_FINAL.pdf https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Com...
- callalex 3y ago
  They won’t even accept a simple audit of the budget.
nradov 3y ago
Part of the reason is that the only way to get the acquisition of a major new weapons system approved by Congress is to drastically underestimate the cost. This gives Congresspeople political cover to vote aye. Everyone involved knows that costs will explode later, and by that time the program has become too big to fail. Everyone knows we need a new frigate and it's too late to start over from scratch without endangering national security. The other reason is that this program is constantly chasing a moving target. The national security establishment is getting increasingly freaked out about the risk of a naval war with China. The original inexpensive European frigate design was largely designed for lower threat environments, mainly European coastal defense against Russia plus gunboat diplomacy in Africa and the Middle East. Now the US Navy needs something that can fight and survive against a superior force in the Western Pacific, so many of the combat systems are getting upgraded. And even with those upgrades it's still dangerously short of VLS cells. If Navy leadership knew in 2018 what they know now then they might have chosen a different approach.
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  Arguably, the root cause is just that the marginal economics of antiship missile defense are now unfavorable (historically the idea was that you would shoot down the planes carrying them and deny targeting, but that's not very realistic now). That's not a problem against traditional opponents, but against an economic peer, it means you have great pressure in your quantity of antiship defences. The problem is that for every VLS cell the US can float, the Chinese can build 4-5 more missiles, so the problem will remain.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  > The national security establishment is getting increasingly freaked out about the risk of a naval war with China. I guess military professionals might know things we don’t, but doesn’t a hot war with China strike everyone else as utterly ridiculous? China’s economy is so inextricably intertwined with those of the rest of the world, it would make no sense for either side. Mutually assured economic destruction. Yes, I know there are US hawk politicians constantly banging on the “China war” drums, but it seems so silly.
jki275 3y ago
the world changes. The contracts are written, ten years later the equipment available to put on the ship when it's actually being built changed three times already and the original contractor for half of it went out of business.
jandrewrogers 3y ago
The fig leaf of an "existing design" is often used for new procurement because Congress is less likely to interfere with political considerations if it is viewed as an upgrade instead of a new system, under the theory that working within the constraints of an existing system limit flexibility with respect to Congressional politicking. Upgrades are also assumed to be cheaper than new designs, whether they are or not. The boundaries are fuzzy but there are many examples of new systems packaged as upgraded old systems for the sake of procurement efficiency.
somat 3y ago
Some fun examples. The F-15E, F-18E "It's just an upgraded version", don't get me wrong they are good planes, but they are 20 percent larger than previous models it is a different plane, with different jigs, parts, testing, performance. The tu-22m, A least the f-15e is the same shape as the f-15. "Yes boss, I understand we don't have the money to design a new bomber, we are just going to upgrade the design of one of our existing models" Proceeds to design a completely new plane and gives it the same designation of an existing one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-22M

bell-cot 3y ago

Ah, for the Good Old Days, when the USN operated plenty of its very own shipyards, and was actually capable of Get Sh*t Done... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard But you can't stand in the way of Progress. Especially not if you're a Congressman, and need some fat donations to help finance your next reelection campaign. Just another way in which Capitalism is superior a way of doing everything, I guess...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> you can't stand in the way of Progress It looks like we closed them after the end of the Cold War [1]. This wasn’t an idealistic pursuit, just banal cost cutting to disarm the nation. Given increased tensions, it would make sense to reverse and begin re-integrating Navy owned and operated shipyards. (I’m also noticing that most of the shipyards were on the Atlantic, with the Washington shipyard being one of the few that’s been maintained [2].) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Base_Realignment_and_Closure_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Base_Realignment_and_Cl... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound_Naval_Shipyard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound_Naval_Shipyard
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > This wasn’t an idealistic pursuit, just banal cost cutting to disarm the nation Specifically, it was Clinton's SecDef Perry's Last Supper meeting with defense contractors in 93 that destroyed the entire base we had in the US [0] "I asked [former SecDef] Les [Aspen] to call a meeting of the senior defense industry officials where we had a simple message to them: The first was that the budget was not only down, it was going to go down further. They should not look at it as a little dip here but as a new low plateau and adjust their plans accordingly, and in particular, if that meant they had too much capacity for the amount of business they were going to have, they should understand that we were not going to support that unused overhead. They had to do a scaling down and a consolidation to do that" It was this Last Supper that caused Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, etc to drastically deteriorate. I banged my head trying to tell everyone about how our current PPBE system is crap a decadeish ago but no one listened. Now we're doing too little too late. [0] - https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/william-perry-oral-history https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-hi...

SignalM 3y ago

Worked in one. They are safety nightmares. They give safety bonuses if “nothing is reported” so nothing gets reported. Working conditions suck.. you spend your time begging for AC in a metal can in 100 degree heat (outside) on top of that the craziest thing was how subcontractors made money. I was in test so we wondered why certain runs of cable were way out of spec. Turns out subcontractors are paid by the foot to install cable so it would take the longest route through. Nuts. Never work there.

Solvency 3y ago
so why does the government/navy incentivize such bloated inefficiency, slop, and misuse of resources/time/money/energy?
- alephnerd 3y ago
  PPBE, though now that's changing with the new Defense Resourcing System [0] [0] - https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Commission-on-PPBE-Reform_Full-Report_6-March-2024_FINAL.pdf https://ppbereform.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Com...
- Retric 3y ago
  It’s really difficult to impose efficiency on outside contractors without them cutting corners. Congress doesn’t want the government to do anything in house.
  - Solvency 3y ago
    my job has me managing multiple contractors/vendors at a time. you employ checks and balances, contractual obligations, smart project plans and requirements, and regular oversight. how is this any different.
    - metiscus 3y ago
      You see, these contractors tend to hire retired admirals and generals directly out of acquisitions positions and onto their boards. The contracts are written in ways that make it hard to punish shoddy work in a way that doesn't make the government side look bad too, so they tend to let slide what is kept out of sight. After all, if someone makes enough noise, then your contract may end up on the news or even worse, on the hill. If that happens, contracts get yanked, people get reassigned or lose their chance at a kushy spot on a board in a few years. It varies by contract and organizations, some are much better run than others and tend to deliver good quality.

arh68 3y ago

Seems like there are only ever 4 root causes to govt/contractor failures: 1. miscommunication (not seen here) 2. training issues (check) 3. not spending enough money (check) 4. decisions made by previous leadership (only hinted at) I just hope the results are worth it.

dclowd9901 3y ago

Pretty easy to see the eventual outcome of a system where everyone’s siphoning dollars from the government through lucrative contracts, so no one stirs the pot by calling out a subcontractor for being crooked. The bloat is systemic. I have confidence our new era of businesses can basically bleed the middle class dry without any issue at all via “inflation” but I don’t think they’ll get away with doing it to the military in the long term.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

I know what this. I just haven’t figured out to make money on it yet. Complexity crisis. It’s happening everywhere. Boeing didn’t turn into a bad engineering company, they put a noose on their own necks because they could. Navy is doing the same thing. Everyone is. That is the real reason we have toasters and teapots on the internet.

JellyBeanThief 3y ago
The thing about toasters and teapots on the internet is that they give the people working on them a job to do. Because absent being filthy rich, if you don't work then you don't don't eat and you don't sleep inside. To oversimplify, as a society we have decided that a person shouldn't be able to earn a living doing less than ~35-40 hours of work a week. So if there isn't enough valuable work to go around filling up everyone's week, then some people are gonna have to make up performative work.

maxglute 3y ago

Sometimes I wonder if US leadership, above the paygrade of naval leadership, assume that large surface combatants likely won't be survivable in a peer war. Then they'd do exactly what they're doing now... stall naval projects and pivot. There's a lot of motivated naval lobbying decrying the state of US ship building, but we can see in semi that US leadership fine with pouring 100s of billions in urgent industrial policy. Maybe US ship building is actually that broken, but IMO that wouldn't stop the spigot from flowing. At some point, it's hard to differentiate if current state of naval procurement is incompetent by malice/design. It's hard to explain how little is being done.

pyuser583 3y ago
The smart people seem to agree that submarine will be the most important naval vessels in the next war. Submarine operations, including production, are extremely hush-hush. Last I heard the US had two submarine fleets: the ones the Navy openly discusses, and the useful ones which are discussed in whispers. I like to think the hush-hush subs are being built and deployed en masse.
- appplication 3y ago
  Surface drones like the ones used in Ukraine are also not to be underestimated. Russia is struggling to combat these effectively, and even the US navy doesn’t have any specific technological answer to them at present.
  - _boffin_ 3y ago
    I believe they’re actively testing microwave on at least one ship.
- nradov 3y ago
  The US Navy might have secret programs for some small underwater combat drones but there are no "hush-hush subs". A modern SSN/SSBN costs billions of dollars and takes thousands of workers years to build. There's just no way to keep them secret. Some of the internal systems and capabilities are secret but the number of hulls is public knowledge.

mikey_p 3y ago

W.W.R.D.? What Would Rickover Do?