Defense Tech: Navy-Coast Guard Ship Merger Proposed


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Edited by Christian Lowe \| Contact

Navy-Coast Guard Ship Merger Proposed

The massive cost overruns and some technical problems with the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the Coast Guard's new cutters of the Deepwater Project led a key member of Congress to propose a merger of the two programs. Representative Gene Taylor (Democrat-Mississippi) has told Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead and Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen that the two services should look to pursue a "common hull" for LCS and the Coast Guard's National Security Cutter program.

Representative Taylor said "We can't afford to keep repeating mistakes," referring to the massive ship acquisition and development problems that both services have had with key shipbuilding initiatives. He made his proposal to the service chiefs at a congressional hearing on 13 December.

Admiral Allen subsequently said that he plans to meet with Admiral Roughead in January to discuss a number of issues, and a common hull could be on the agenda. However, both service chiefs said that their ships use different concepts of operations, and developing a single hull could present requirement challenges. Ironically, early in the development of the LCS the Navy spoke of possible collaboration with the Coast Guard, but the Navy's requirement for an LCS speed in excess of 40 knots quickly ended Coast Guard interest in a joint program.

There is also irony in the situation as the Department of Defense pays for national security features in Coast Guard ships -- guns, fire control, some radars, and, in the past, missiles and sonars.

The Navy has already cancelled two LCS hulls earlier this year because of costs, while the problems have led to the "firing" of the LCS project manager and the Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Ships. The Coast Guard's first 418-foot-long national security cutter, the Bertholf, recently completed the first set of builder's trials, and the second ship is scheduled to be launched early next year. This program has been plagued by cost and technical problems.

Representative Taylor's comments came during hearings of the House Armed Services Committee. The solons pressed the two admirals and Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway on why the new maritime strategy does not include a direct force structure outline and does not focus on the potential threat posed by the modernization of China's navy.

The maritime strategy outlines a broad future plan that includes increased maritime partnerships, a focus on the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific regions, and an emphasis on humanitarian and disaster relief missions. However, it does not provide specific ship or other force requirements for the services, leaving in effect the almost meaningless 30-year shipbuilding plan that the Navy proposed to Congress last year.

Representative Duncan Hunter (Republican-California), the committee's senior Republican member, asked Admiral Roughead why the rise of China and its naval force were not mentioned specifically in the new strategy. Roughead replied the document "looked at changes in navies around the world," including China. He was hesitant to list China as a direct peer rival, but did note China's overall shipbuilding capabilities, civilian and military, could surpass Korea's as the best in the region someday.

Mr. Hunter also asked why the new maritime strategy does not detail how the force structure of the three services should adjust to a changing global environment. Hunter specifically called attention to the problems in LCS acquisition as preventing the Navy from having the force levels it will need to meet global challengers. He said, "I am pleased that you have cooperated to develop this strategy, but you're not going to be able to deliver if you cannot afford the force that will make this strategy a reality. What are you planning to do to get control of requirements and to enable the acquisition community to more effectively manage their programs?"

Similarly, Representative Taylor called the new strategy a "nice brochure," but said the document should have given greater prominence to the Marine Corps and its need for more amphibious ships. Admiral Roughead explained that he has talked to General Conway about the number of amphibious ships the Navy should acquire and there is "not much daylight" between them on the issue.

General Conway said that he "can live with" at least 30 operational amphibious ships and that 33 - the current number - would be the right number to ensure the proper level of readiness at all times.

The Navy's number of 33 ships is not a realistic count of the amphibious force. The two fleet command ships, the Blue Ridge (LCC 19) and Mount Whitney (LCC 20), are included in the count; neither is a "lift" ships and both are configured and employed as fleet flagships. Also included is the long-delayed San Antonio (LPD 17), which has been in commission almost two years but has not yet deployed, and the Mesa Verde (LPD 19), commissioned earlier this month and unable to deploy for several months.

Neither the new maritime strategy nor the 30-year shipbuilding plan nor the Navy's method of counting ships is realistic for the issues that will face the United States in the coming years.

-- Norman Polmar

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Posted by: wowpowerleveling at April 14, 2008 08:06 PM

Navy should do this with ALL CG cutters alone & recuse DDs, DDGs, FFs as replacement CG cutters.
(new paint & new name & equip, same hull & engine & some weapons deck).
Save $$$$$$$, good call.
More jobs.

Posted by: stephen russell at January 1, 2008 01:38 PM

Combining these two programs is just scratching the surface. There is so much potential by shifting our shipbuilding paradigm.

As of now, we have a significant disconnect between the requirements process, acquisition and procurement processes and finally outfitting the ship for sea duty.

The entire process can take up to 10-12 years to take a concept and actually turn it into usable fighting machine. For example, when a ship is originally designed, the information technology will go through a minimum of 12 technology updates and possibly 3-4 major improvements; i.e. single servers to blade servers.

What I believe we need is to develop specific hull designs for specific mission requirements; i.e. blue water vs. brown. Next, standard packages; galleys, communications, engine and power plants will serve for all hull designs.

The specific mission packages will be designed and constructed as needed to constrained physcial sizes and tested separately.

As the hulls are completed, standard packages and the appropriate mission modules can be assembled in the yards based upon the current threat and mission needs.

In the future retrofits will be dramatically improved as old modules are removed and new ones added.

Currently, the NAVY is using this concept on the LCS, except the mission packages are on the deck in steel containers, not integral to the ship.

The time is right, and the NAVY and Congress are trying to resolve these issues but it is going to take some bold new ideas and strong leadership to take advantage of standardization and modular design.

p.s. it is ashame that the PEO was fired. The LCS program was a result of the Cole and a lot of stops were pulled out to try and get a new ship a float. He (or she) was a casuality of the process.

Posted by: Stitch at December 26, 2007 04:39 PM

back in the dear dead days of long ago it used to take about 6 years to generate the specification for a major ship. this was after it was authorized. then it would take another 6 years to get the money out of congress. during this time the gang would refine the proposed design/specification. then another 3-4 or four years to actually build the stupid thing and then a year to get it out in the fleet with enough confidence that they could find their way home in the middle of the night to go out alone.

that adds up to about 17 years.

several words of wisdom.

YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO HAVE AN IRON HARD SPECIFICATION OR THE BUILDER WILL DRAG YOU AROUND BY A RING IN YOUR NOSE!!! and in their world confusion means profit, sometimes houmoungas profit.

the way the commercial yards make thier money is negotiating costs for contract changes. they bid the basic contract pretty close to the meat. the change negotiations are where they make their money.

so if you were doing habitability mods after delivery from a building yard, then:

1. the navy spec probably changed after the contract was signed.

2. the ships superintendant probably was saving money by having the work done as a separate contract by a separate entity.

3. or the new skipper wants the tile in the mess decks to be green rather than blue, possibly because the old tile was asboestoes based and the hab spec decrees no asboestoes be applied in hab areas.

4. or the no smoke cable became available and its better to pull out the old (like three weeks old) while the ship is torn up and install the nosmoke stuff now before the habitibility finishing takes place.

there's lots of reasons. rest assured that someone way up the chain screamed that "this is dumb" many months before you got the idea, but was overruled by other people for intelligent (to them) reasons and it turned into a mess because of something they didn't have expertise in.

ships are COMPLICATED.

Posted by: pk at December 25, 2007 03:02 PM

OK, Up here in the northwest we had a big write up on campain donations and mysterious funds being given to build boats nobody requested. To find the story it is in the Seattle Times, Sunday 2007OCT14, "$4.5 million for a boat that nobody wanted". Now this may be a place to find waste. Why not use monies to build boats we need, not to repay for large campaing donations. Amazingly enough this is not mentioned in the story above. The party whining about waste dosn't look into the waste it has produces itself.

This may (will) spark more debate over waste on the other side of the fence, so let the slinging begin, but it doesn't excuse it in this or any instance. (Yes there is waste everywhere. And in case there is a comment on waste abroad, I was there doing my part as well.) We can point fingers everywhere, but we do need to find the waste and stop it in any instance we can find. Something as blaintant as this without holding your own party accountable is a problem. It is a thing of look there's a problem, but we caused it, let's fix it before we have a knee jerk reaction. It's time we look at the cause of the problem and fixing those instead of doing something just as stupid as what had caused it.

jajj

Posted by: jajj at December 22, 2007 12:48 PM

I will never understand the way these people think. thye make every decision be harder then it really is.

Hopefully after enough people get fired, things will straighten up a bit.

Posted by: murc at December 21, 2007 08:25 PM

It's amazing that the people who will man and command the new ships never seem to be included in the talk of what should be included and excluded. The admirals think they have all the answers.

After all, they commanded a ship ... 10 or 15 years ago ... and it's not possible that anything has changed.

They need to get input from the crews of the newest ships to find out what still needs to be tweaked, removed or added. And they need to plan for the next decades war, not the last decade.

Posted by: Gary at December 21, 2007 06:43 PM

Why am I skeptical that having an incompetent contract management office in the Coast Guard try to coordinante with an incompetent contract management office in the Navy is going to produce a better managed ship building process? Maybe would should pull in the incompetent managers of the Air Force air tanker program, and the Air Force contract mangers that managed to bungle a commercial off the shelf helicopter purchase for the Army (they forgot to order the air conditioner option needed to make the electronics work) out of retirement just for good measure.

Posted by: ohwilleke at December 21, 2007 06:30 PM

Oy,this whole mess is just "Shande fur die Goyim."

Posted by: Roy Smith at December 21, 2007 06:26 PM

ask of the high school and middle school students to draw a concept battle ship. our younger generation may be able to do a better job then the navy and coast guard money spenders. and at a lesser cost. donate some money for this project so it will benifit our kids education,and our country. it may also bring more interest in ship building, as well as pride in what all of us can do as one.

Posted by: mike at December 21, 2007 10:07 AM

China can focus on making a hundreds of low cost, simple ships to take and keep Taiwan.
Meanwhile we cannot get out of the gate due to graft, corruption and incompetence.
WW3 here we come!
As someone with a history major, this chain of events will be the "why didn't they see it coming" part of the history text.
Right there with the multiple "defense" treaties in WW1 and the cutting off of oil and steel to the Japanese in WW2.
And the wonderful torpedoes we went to war with in 1941.....

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thank you

Posted by: sandra at December 20, 2007 07:24 PM

Even as ex Navy, something I always thought was sort of backwards the way the Navy did things was they design a ship and then put it out to bid.

Every other service puts out key specs and then says you guys design and compete.

And yet the Navy shoots themselves in the foot by upgrading the specs while building the plane in flight on most ships.

I have worked brand new carriers just put into commission where we went in and did multi million dollar upgrades to berthing spaces that just got built.

Makes you wonder at times.

Posted by: YardBird at December 20, 2007 07:19 PM

Navy-Coast Guard Ship Merger Proposed

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