Re: The Navy's Floating Fiasco

Has Polmar forgotten the fact that lead ships of a class frequently have
problems? Problems that can and do take time to iron out? Looks that way.
"Jack Linthicum" <jacklinthicum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:83a48c18-9492-49a8-bd19-7c5391d76ea7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At least this thing doesn't submerge voluntarily.


Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008
The Navy's Floating Fiasco
By Mark Thompson / Washington

The maiden voyage of the taxpayer's newest nearly $2 billion warship
stalled for two days in August. That's when the stern gate of the USS
San Antonio ? needed to roll vehicles on and off the nearly 700-foot
vessel ? wouldn't work. The Navy eventually got the gate fixed in time
for the vessel to leave Norfolk and sail to the Persian Gulf, where
its mission is to hunt down smugglers. But now the San Antonio has
been forced into port in Bahrain for at least two weeks of repairs to
leaks in the hefty pipes feeding fuel to two of its four engines.
Hinting at the seriousness of the problem, the Navy has just
dispatched a team of 40 workers ? including engineers, pipe-fitters
and welders ? to Bahrain to make the San Antonio shipshape. "Forty
technicians ? that's ludicrous," says Norman Polmar, an independent
naval expert. "It means the problems are major, because the ship has
mechanics, metal smiths and other people on board as part of the crew,
and they're supposed to take care of minor problems." And you thought
McHale's Navy was cancelled back in 1966.

The San Antonio is the first in a new class of amphibious ships ? blue-
water buses ? each of which carries 350 sailors and is responsible for
ferrying 700 Marines and their gear to global hot spots. And the
ship's sad plight represents in miniature all that is wrong with the
way the Pentagon buys its weapons. The pattern of haste and waste
accelerated in the Cold War's wake, and simply exploded following
9/11. It highlights the challenge facing President-elect Barack Obama
as he contemplates retooling an Industrial Age military ? primed for
state-on-state warfare ? into the more agile force better suited for
21st Century conflicts of the type now being waged in Afghanistan and
Iraq.

Navy inspections of the San Antonio have found a raft of problems so
baked into its design that many Navy officials fear it can never be
made right, despite its price tag having risen from $644 million to
$1.8 billion. "Some significant fraction of the welds in that ship
were flawed and had to be redone," John Young, the Pentagon's top
weapons buyer, told Congress in June. "I shouldn't be forced to pay on
behalf of taxpayers any price for any level of deficient performance."
Still, that's just what the Navy did, forking over an additional $100
million to make it seaworthy after the Navy had taken delivery of the
vessel from its builder, Northrop Grumman, in 2006. The service said
it needed the new ship to replace an older one it was retiring, and
could finish the work more cheaply in its own shipyard. The Navy has
blamed Northrop Grumman for poor work; the company has blamed the Navy
for a constantly-changing design, and Hurricane Katrina, which hit the
Gulf yards in which the ship was built.

Navy officials have said the San Antonio has so many problems because
it is the first ship in its class, a claim Polmar dismisses. "We've
been building these kinds of ships since 1943," he says. "It has no
big missiles, no advanced radar, and no nuclear propulsion."
Government Accountability Office said last year that the San Antonio's
woes began because the Navy relied on "immature" computer blueprints
that infected its entire construction. That led to delays that cost up
to five times as much as it would have cost if the work had been done
in proper sequence. The GAO found that the ship had been "delivered to
the war fighter incomplete and with numerous mechanical failures"
including "safety concerns related to personnel, equipment,
ammunition, navigation, and flight activities." Navy officials say the
leaking oil that forced San Antonio into port in Bahrain poses no
safety threat to its crew ? a claim viewed dubiously by some sailors.

Navy inspectors also recently criticized the USS New Orleans, the
second vessel in the San Antonio's class. It "cannot support embarked
troops, cargo or landing craft" ? its primary mission ? according to a
report obtained by the independent Navy Times. Navy officials say the
third and fourth vessels are performing much better. The rush to
produce the fleet might make military sense if they were needed, but
the last time Marines stormed ashore ? the key reason the taxpayer is
spending $14 billion on the San Antonio, and at least eight more ships
just like it ? was nearly 60 years ago, at Inchon during the Korean
War.


* Find this article at:
* http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1858349,00.html











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