Serious question, for those who have served in the Navy, or thought through this. I read today, that the Constellation class frigates have been cancelled, and only two units will be completed. There is no designated replacement at this time. Constellation was based on an existing, successful European design, with the idea that it could be built relatively quickly, and that it was a proven platform.

This cancellation comes at the conclusion of the failure and cancellation of the Zumwalt program, and the abject failure of the LCS program.

Why can't we build a competent, successful, utility ship for patrol, plane guard, anti-submarine, and anti-air work? Why is this so hard?

It's not like Army or Air Force procurement is perfect; it's obviously not, but the Navy seems to be, by far, the worst. With the added problem, that a functioning Navy will be a strategic and defensive necessity if things get any hotter in the western Pacific.

Do any of you who are experienced in this area have insight?

Thanks.

A

ETA: Typos

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ArtieS,

You have program manager who are trying to build if faster, cheaper, and better but; they refuse to acknowledge they only get two of those.

They sacrifice better in the process and once those ships hit the salt water environment, flaws and wartime incapabilities (because the PMs tend to be desk jockeys with zero real sea time) become the talking points.

Once the ships are in the hands of the seasoned warfighter, the design flaws shine.


Sea trials include.. "captian, this little crappy ship isn’t designed to do that"

"The fuck you say, i have [simulated] missiles inbound"


"Our simulations show the operating environment for this ship, countries won’t have missiles"

"So why the fuck are you trying to sell this to Navy, sell it to the Coast Guard. Get us back to San Diego, this ship failed"

Paraphrased with real Navy language watered down.

I read an article addressing this exact situation this morning.

The bottom line is that contracts for ship construction are executed before the plans for the ships are actually finalized and therefore there are tons of change orders and cost overruns…

https://gcaptain.com/navy-and-...elays-cancellations/

Talk about putting the cart before the horse…

Has little to do with the actual Navy. And everything to do with the politics and payoffs that are infesting our Buying processes.

Navy?

Future Combat System?

Future Combat Systems (FCS) was the United States Army's principal modernization program from 2003 to early 2009.[1] Formally launched in 2003, FCS was envisioned to create new brigades equipped with new manned and unmanned vehicles linked by an unprecedented fast and flexible battlefield network. The U.S. Army claimed it was their "most ambitious and far-reaching modernization" program since World War II.[2] Between 1995 and 2009, $32 billion was expended on programs such as this, "with little to show for it".[3]

Comanche Helicopter?
Despite significant investment—nearly US$7 billion spent by the time of cancellation—and successful prototype testing, the program was terminated on 23 February 2004. The U.S. Army cited the need for numerous upgrades to ensure battlefield viability, escalating unit costs due to reduced procurement numbers (from over 1,200 to 650), and the shifting strategic environment post-Cold War and after 9/11 as key reasons

Crusader Artillery?

Was supposed to be a M109A6 Paladin replacement. Billions spent. Canceled.


Seems like prototyping and testing to evaluate new concepts and workout bugs, has been changed to "It looks good on paper, we will fix it in Low rate initial Production"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PeteF,

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Has little to do with the actual Navy. And everything to do with the politics and payoffs that are infesting our Buying processes.

Yes.
The Navy, and the entire DOD, and the entire Federal government are infested with this disease. We have way more government, at every level, than we can afford and the more we spend, the less efficient it becomes.

Biggest problem is they want one platform that does everything thus making the ‘everything’ a compromise. Poor designs and typical procurement crap result in something that doesn’t do anything well but a multitude of things marvelously mediocre.

Build a ship to do one thing exceptionally well and it will likely be successful.

This concept does exist and it’s demonstrably successful. The A-10 Thunderbolt is a stellar example and its follow on replacement has all the hallmarks of being singularly unsuccessful.

quote:

Biggest problem is they want one platform that does everything thus making the ‘everything’ a compromise.

This and all of this.

Floating targets are not the answer.

Biggest issue that set us back decades was Obama and Biden's obsession with DEI promotions in our military. When you have people with zero relevant experience being put in decision-making positions you end up with the issues you speak of. Our last Chief of Naval Operations was a woman who has a Master's degree from the University of Phoenix.

I think Eisenhower said something about this in his farewell speech to the nation on January 17, 1961. He called it the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX; MIC for short.

quote:

Has little to do with the actual Navy. And everything to do with the politics and payoffs that are infesting our Buying processes.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
It drives the economy in Newport News and Pascagoula. Ever notice the names given to Naval ships? It is not all Navy heroes.

quote:

Originally posted by stoic-one:

quote:

Biggest problem is they want one platform that does everything thus making the ‘everything’ a compromise.

This and all of this.

QFT.

Build a ship to do one thing, and do it well.

I’m going to try to explain this as a bit of a timeline:

- Ticonderogas and Burkes are getting old, so the Navy looks at building a new ship to replace them both, but do the same jobs they do now. The Navy loads the design up with a ton of brand new systems that will need lots of R&D before we can make the first one. This is the Zumwalt class.

- Congress shuts down the Zumwalt program because it is taking a long time and a lot of money to R&D and build all those new systems, and ships aren’t coming out fast enough.

- Congress orders some more Burkes to help fill the shipbuilding gap.

- Navy gets told to get their ship numbers up, and the navy proposes a bunch of smaller, modular ships called the LCS program. The ships are supposed to be small, fast, and have small crews. They can do different jobs, but not at the same time. They have to swap out quick-change modules to change their primary job. That’s OK though because the Navy mostly expects to be using them to fight terrorists and failed states that don’t have much of a navy. These can’t replace Burkes, but they can do jobs that a Burke is overkill for to reduce the demand on the Burke fleet.

- the LCS, despite the navy turning it into two totally different ships, can’t hit its designed top speeds without risking major damage. One blows up its gearbox, the other starts cracking its hull. These problems are fix-able, but the fast pace of production means the first half dozen ships aren’t good for much more than testing and training. There are other problems as well, but most things are fix-able in later ships.

- the Navy gets told it’s focus is now to prepare for a war against China. The LCS has almost no hope of defending its self against China, especially in shallow waters near the Chinese mainland or islands. They look at some options to add more weapons to the ships, but that just makes them slower and over-works the crews even more. Oh yeah, by this point the Navy has figured out that they made the crews TOO small, and the ships will become combat ineffective with only minor crew losses due to each crew member being assigned to so many different jobs. We end up buying about 40 in total anyway, and start decommissioning the first ones before we have even gotten started on the last ones to be built.

- Congress buys some more Burkes to fill the gap.

- Constellation design is a the LCS for the war with China. It is big enough to defend its self against a country like China, but still smaller, less expensive, and needs less crew than the Burke. In an effort to get them into production more quickly, an existing design is chosen so there will be less lead time and teething problems with new designs/technology.

- The design phase takes way longer than expected as the Navy keeps changing things and replacing systems that were in the off-the-shelf design. They add more capabilities as well, and add headroom for ‘future growth’. By the time they finally agree to start building, over 50% of the ship has been changed from the off-the-shelf design. Some estimates have that number as high as 70%, but we can’t be totally sure with public documents. It is now behind schedule, larger, more expensive, and needs more crew than originally pitched to Congress.

- In the meantime, the Navy has also started building new Virginia-class attack submarines, and is just starting on Columbia-class subs to replace the Ohio-class, which carry our sea-born nukes. While these subs aren’t doing so bad on cost or development time, they are not meeting production targets. Our shipyards are not producing them fast enough, and we added even more demand by offering to sell some to Australia.

- Congress, and also the Navy to some extent, decides the subs are more important, and kills off constellation to focus money on getting Virginia and Columbia production numbers up.

- Congress builds more Burkes to fill…wait, this buy hasn’t actually happened yet. Give it a year or two, and it probably will.

- Bret

I had the privilege to serve 30+ years as a Surface Warfare Officer in our navy. A multiplicity of issues can be identified but the simple fact is we have failed in being aggressive and confrontational with integrity! Not everyone gets to be an astronaut; not all surface ships can afford nor need/should be AEGIS; and most importantly, we are not all coming home from the next naval war…but first you must tell the truth!

I posted on another board:

“As identified, absolutely avoidable. Unfortunately as a society we lack the temerity to succeed in peace, much less prevail in conflict — in other venues, mostly indictments of Modern Monetary Theory, I have opined upon a compilation from the miniseries Chernobyl that I find hauntingly accurate…

“What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all…Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid…THAT is how a RBMK reactor core explodes.”

Godspeed and Good Hunting, Always…oh, and Prepare Accordingly!

I think Venzuela is about to find out that our Navy is in pretty good shape.

We need to get rid of the rainbow colalition

I was army 1984-2009. I recall at least 3 ( probably more) trials of small arms systems to replace the M16 series rifles. Each trial went through numerous iterations and millions if not billions spent to decide to retain the M16 series systems anyway. The newest heavier caliber sig gun is from what I understand only going to combat arms units ( infantry cavalry maybe artillery and combat engineers ?) so the M4 series will continue on with the rest of the Army ( which probably accounts for 70+% of the force)
Some browning pains and fielding issues are already bubbling up )

I could write a lot about this disaster as I've followed it since its inception.

If you want deep details and perspective, take some time give Cdr Salamander a read. There's years of writings and podcasts about this program and how we got here.

Here's a closing quote that is quite sobering about this whole debacle.

quote:

The U.S. Navy did this to ourselves, and we have held no one, nor any institution, accountable. CNO’s Clark, Mullen, Roughead, Greenert, Richardson, Gilday, and Franchetti—they midwived this mass onto the lap of Caudle. None of them—five surface and two submariners—did anything to address the clearly budding problems in full bloom. Caudle just got in the job.

The uber-political Mullen—who is going to have a DDG named after him for his troubles—holds most of the responsibility as he was very deft in shaping the Admiralty of the second decade of this century that let the decay set deep. Richardson’s greatest contribution to this drift was his coup going out the door against his appointed successor with some ideas, Moran, who wound up backing out. Gilday expended all his personal and institutional capital on regressive socio-political diversity initiatives. Franchetti, to be fair, just seemed to be overwhelmed with the nightmare she inherited.

The institutions you think will rise to the occasion and help fix this problem? As I warned you almost three and a half years ago, they will not meet the challenge. They exist, promote, and think they prosper in the status quo.

Who will step in? I have no idea. Will the magic beans give us hope? We don’t even know what they are.

Pray for peace. Your Navy will not be ready for a major war for quite a while.

For lighter, more direct reading & perspective, Navy Matters provides some commentary

quote:

...
Trust between Congress, who holds the purse strings, and the Navy has never been lower and this is just going to make it even worse. Congress has been extremely upset with the Navy for failures, lies, and deceit for several years now and, after being told by the Navy how vitally important the Constellation class was and after being assured that the “parent design” would eliminate all risk, Congress is going to be extremely skeptical and reluctant to fund whatever idiotic idea the Navy comes up with next.

...

Conclusion

This has been a debacle, without a doubt. The only saving grace is that it’s being stopped at two ships. This was the program that would not, indeed could not, fail thanks to the Navy’s insistence on requiring a parent design (which they instantly abandoned and modified to a mere 15% commonality). If the Navy couldn’t make a parent design approach work, what approach can they successfully execute? The last successful surface ship the Navy built was the 1980’s Burke. That’s forty years of subsequent failure. If you were Congress, would you give the Navy any more money for anything?

The ripples of this failure will spread far and wide and last a long time.

If you prefer videos, Sal gives a more humorous perspective about the overall problems with American shipbuilding and the flawed processes that both the Navy and Coast Guard suffer from

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Biggest problem is they want one platform that does everything thus making the ‘everything’ a compromise. Poor designs and typical procurement crap result in something that doesn’t do anything well but a multitude of things marvelously mediocre.

A quote I recall hearing during government/military requirement sessions

If you seek a 100% solution, you'll get 0% delivery