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A little something "we" have been sharing around email the last few days I wanted to share with you. Something for the front porch's collective pondering.
The SAN ANTONIO Class is the gift that keeps on giving. Some of this can be explained away because of Katrina ... but ponder the numbers below.
# | Name | Builder | Keel Laying | Launch | Delivery | KL to L (months) | L to D (months) | KL to D (months) |
17 | San Antonio | Avondale | 9-Dec-00 | 12-Jul-03 | 20-Jul-05 | 31.5 | 24.6 | 56.1 |
18 | New Orleans | Avondale | 14-Oct-02 | 11-Dec-04 | 22-Dec-06 | 26.3 | 24.7 | 51.0 |
19 | Mesa Verde | Ingalls | 25-Feb-03 | 19-Nov-04 | 28-Sep-07 | 21.1 | 34.8 | 55.9 |
20 | Green Bay | Avondale | 11-Aug-03 | 11-Aug-06 | 29-Aug-08 | 36.5 | 25.0 | 61.5 |
21 | New York | Avondale | 10-Sep-04 | 19-Dec-07 | 21-Aug-09 | 39.8 | 20.4 | 60.2 |
22 | San Diego | Ingalls | 23-May-07 | 7-May-10 |
| 36.0 |
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23 | Anchorage | Avondale | 24-Sep-07 |
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24 | Arlington | Ingalls | 26-May-08 | 23-Nov-10 |
| 30.4 |
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25 | Somerset | Avondale | 11-Dec-09 |
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26 | John P. Murtha | Ingalls |
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27 |
| Ingalls |
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If you need a kick-start, Tim Colton provides a very good overview.
NGSB's announcement of the launch of LPD 24 said that she is 77% complete, which the LPD Program Manager apparently thinks is good, although it isn't. And if it took them 30 months to do 77% of the work, it's going to take them well over a year to finish her, maybe close to two years. ... It would only take ten months on a straight-line expenditure curve, of course, but they don't happen in shipbuilding: in shipbuilding, it's an S-curve and the last 5% takes for ever.Why aren't we getting better and faster with time? Moving away from the macro theory I put out at the opening, the other micro reasons are legion and include things we have discussed here and on Midrats to include; inadequate priorities and manning at SUPSHIPS and NAVSEA (there are very good people there, look up the chain and manning document changes for the problem); loss of discipline in program management; and a loss of credibility in Congress towards our Flag Officers. That is on the military side. On the civilian side we have management, tort, and union malpractice that has warped what was once a first class shipbuilding industry.
Let me paraphrase something sent to me from a friend from the technical side of the challenge that tells a great story - this time the latest with the LPD-17's diesels.
When looking over the JAG investigation into the diesels, it comes down this: it doesn't appear that the diesels were ever flushed.
While doing a diesel job, in the work item (that spells out the step by step things you must do) there is a line item and a check point to conduct a flush of the lube oil system. The work item specifically calls out the size micron bag you must use and the amount of debris you are allowed (and it ain't much). It doesn't appear that there was ever a flush done on these diesels, even though there was clearly a large amount of contamination already present.
A technical expert states that the only way to get those diesels down is to literally tear them down to parade rest and flush then and clean the individual parts, to the point of even disassembling the block. He said that you still might not get everything out of it. More to the point, those diesels are always going to be a problem, especially if the Sailors can't even understand what the high temp readings mean on the bearings (and those diesels are all wired to a computer).
Bottom line, unless they do a complete diesel change out, those ships are going to be tied to the pier a lot.
It doesn't appear that NG had proper cleanliness protocols when the diesels were being installed and tested. When issues started happening, it appears that NAVSEA didn't follow or enforce their own procedures.
The Navy must get it's house in order. We're simply too far into the program to kill the LPD-17 Class. The real problem as I see it, is will the Navy come forward and admit that their own procedures weren't followed or enforced, since that's the cause of this whole mess? The second problem is that the engines are eating up main bearings and this need not ever happened. These diesels are wired up for telemetry to tell the operators whats going on inside of them.
For instance, there's a paragraph in the JAG findings where it clearly states that the Sailor on watch ignored high temp alarms on a main bearing telling him that there was a problem with oil flow.
To correctly lubricate these engines, it's not simply enough to have oil on the bearings; it must have a flow of cooled oil going around the bearings in order to protect the bearing. This situation could have been caught before damage occured had only the Sailor known what he was looking at.
How to correct the problem with the diesels? The only sure way to do it is to tear the diesels completely apart, down to taking the block apart and cleaning every orifice, cooling line inside the block, the cylinders, heads everything. Then put it together and do flushes until there is no contamination. That's going to cost a pretty penny, but what is the alternative?
On the Navy side, two problems: first, NAVSEA does not oversee the new construction end not nearly enough; second, the Navy is not training it's people correctly.That is one person's report based on what they have seen, and it largely matches with other reports that have come my way.
What else would Sal like to see? I think the inspection reports as outlined in para 4.3 would be nice.
In the end - if you think LPD-17 and her sisters are expensive enough - imagine the cost of ripping out the diesels and replacing them - but it can't be any worse than when we changed out our BB from coal to oil (like we did with my grandfather's BB, USS ARKANSAS (BB-33) ). I don't think we need to go there though .... do we? Can we?
No, we just need some experienced engineers with solid top-cover leadership to be given the mission to fix it. They will - if we let them. Part of that fix it an open, transparent, and brutally honest appraisal of how we got here and who let it happen.