Another Day, Another Shipbuilding Failure

In R&D and SCN funds to date the taxpayer has now spent over $19 billion in the Seapower 21 force structure of CG(X), DDG-1000, and LCS - and that money has bought us 3 DDG-1000s and 4 Littoral Combat Ships. Only 2 of the seven ships are actually on the water, which means there is still considerable room for cost growth.

Is there any Navy program in US history where so much money has been spent for so little in return? Just think, nobody was fired for this; instead they were promoted.

What a mess.

Early testing by the U.S. Navy showed that Lockheed Martin Corp's first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) did not meet Navy stability requirements and revealed problems with its combat system, according to a new annual report by the Pentagon's chief weapons tester.

Neither the Lockheed ship, a steel monohull design, nor a competing aluminum-hulled trimaran design built by General Dynamics Corp , was expected to "be survivable in a hostile combat environment," said the report prepared by the Pentagon's director of Operational Test and Evaluation.

Details on the Lockheed Martin version of the LCS are as follows:

The Pentagon's chief tester cited concerns about the stability of the first Lockheed LCS ship and about its TRS-3D radar.

The report said early air target tracking tests revealed deficiencies with the performance of the Lockheed ship's combat system and could "seriously degrade the ship's air defense capability unless corrected."

Plans to repeat the tests were thwarted when the radar power system failed repeatedly and the cause of the failures had not yet been identified, said the report.

It said the Lockheed ship also could face stability problems when fully loaded, which meant it could "sink sooner than expected," the report said. The Navy plans to install external tanks to effectively lengthen the ship's stern and increase its buoyancy before it deploys for the first time.

Let me see if this makes sense to you, because I admit it doesn't make much sense to me. We have a ship that when fully loaded, has stability problems. That same ship is overweight. Now we are going to add more weight to the end of the ship to address the buoyancy issue? What happens when you add weight to the end of a ship, particularly a ship that is already overweight?

I have nothing nice to say anymore when it comes to shipbuilding. I just don't believe what leaders say anymore because no one has any credibility. Lots of talk; nobody cares. We know something is either broken or corrupt, because no one has been held accountable for consistent and ongoing leadership failures in Navy shipbuilding for nearly a decade now. The Navy breaks the law and Congress does nothing. The Navy misses on costs by 300%; no consequences. Mississippi may not be capable of building ships without serious problems anymore; but industrial base capacity has been low for years now, what do you really expect? Shipbuilding numbers have been low because number of ships doesn't appear to matter to the Navy. When you don't build many ships, experience can be lost. The Navy shipbuilding budget is clearly not a system that functions in the interest of the country nor the Navy as an institution.

Gene Taylor is great, I love the guy, but holding Wednesday's hearing the way he did was politically stupid. It is one thing to hear opinions from the industry, but is it really smart for Congress to have a hearing with a panel where the Lockheed Martin consultant is the only person who can give an opinion on sea based ballistic missile defense? Eric Labs and Ron O'Rourke are not allowed to give opinions to Congress in their jobs at CRS and CBO.

Think about it, the House held a hearing Wednesday about Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense and the only guy invited who can give an opinion - Loren Thompson - has worked for Lockheed Martin as a consultant, and shocking, Lockheed Martin is making billions regarding Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense. I might be mistaken... but aren't those billion dollar AEGIS BMD contracts sole source contracts? Loren Thompson was able to freely promote the Lockheed Martin solution and never once offered alternatives to the Lockheed Martin solution.

Good for him he got paid, but a rhetorical question if I may... How much does a company like Lockheed Martin have to pay to be the sole opinion in front of this Congress on an issue like, say - AEGIS BMD? I think the point has been made. That hearing did not leave an image of confidence in the system.

Do you really think the Lockheed Martin LCS has a serious problem? If so, you have more faith in the system than I do.