I think I confused people in this segment 10:38 This is Ship Design completion, not Ship Construction completion. When I say it's not 100% complete, I am referring to the Technical Documents and the ships functional design. Not the Construction of the ship itself. EDIT: We have always had a very positive comment section. Some new members have express surprise at how mature you are. This is uncommon for any online social community. Keep it up.
I don't see how the design can be 100% complete when the CDRL doesn't include detailed design documents. If there's no model and no testing of the model has been done, how can they ever start construction? It's not like the Navy hasn't changed the original design of the Fincantieri ship. It's hard to believe that the Navy project managers are that clueless.
@@andrewreynolds4949 That's the comparison you want? Russia is not a "Peer Adversary"... It's the PRC that we will have to measure up to. And they will eat our lunch.
Usually the shipbuilder and subcontractors, and the congressman and/or senators where the ships are being built. Also the retired Captains and Admirals who now work for the shipbuilder.
Nope. Been going on for decades. Example: what do you call a country with no draft and an average military age of 45 (hint: not Germany) yet has 60 billion American dollars being sent to it?
I genuinely believe its more accurate to say the money is being wasted than stolen. Really seems to be incompetence rather than criminal genius. If someone was stealing they'd at least be sure to have it not be so much of a disaster to have this many eyeballs on it.
Nor can the MoD. Apache, Chinook, Ajax, the list of "off the shelf" purchases that have been modified out of recognition to justify civilian jobs is long and shameful
My Art Director, James, has a more complete drawing of the Constellation class Frigate in this thumbnail than the US Navy has after 6 years and $7 Billion dollars spent.
A monstrous bureaucracy very likely worse than the Bureau of Ordinance in 1924. FFGX and NSMV contracted April 2020, hardly the same vessels, and yet cannot be reconciled. FFG-62 pushed back from 2026 to 2029. Meanwhile, NSMV I underwent her maiden voyage with SUNY back in January with II not far behind and the rest ahead of expectations. Admiral Bean needs an admin job for his great uncle's step-granddaughter, better break out another trillion. Great thumbnail James, but too effective for Navy - better make him MA so he doesn't step on any toes.
My buddy who is going theough MS right now lives in a trailer park in a Detroit suberb, before he can have a wheelchair ramp built he must submit an architectural drawing for exactly what the finished product will look like before he can be approved to begin construction. When a trailer park has better checks and balances than the US Navy, something has gone terribly wrong.
According to the USNI article I read (From May 29), the Constellation went from 85% commonality down to 15%... And the Navy has claimed it's a workforce challenge. After Zumwalt and LCS, you'd think there'd be more competence. Unless it's the same team across all three classes - now there's a nightmare inducing thought.
The same knuckleheads that ran LCS into the ground (PEO USC, formerly PEO LCS) were put in charge of the Connie, and nobody got canned for the previous dumpster fires. Nearly inevitable they'd botch this, too. Literally the only surface combatant we are capable of building now is the Burke. We SINKEX'd the fleet of the 1980s-2000s without the ability to build its replacement, because in our arrogance we thought we'd never fight another blue-water battle.
As an Italian, I don't understand at this point what the USN actually bought from Fincantieri. They changed the propulsion, the bow, the weapon systems and armaments. It's not a fremm or fremm based frigate anymore it's just a patchwork . . a chaotic one indeed.
@@ronmaximilian6953 basically yes, also because the program is directly supervised by the navy so Fincantieri is also stripped from management duty, at least in part.
"After Zumwalt and LCS, you'd think there'd be more competence. Unless it's the same team across all three classes - now there's a nightmare inducing thought." Why in the world would you "think" there'd be MORE competence when all the USN and their Defense Contractors have demonstrated in INCOMPETENCE? After Zumwalt and LCS, I have ZERO confidence in the Navy brass to actually pull something off...which is why buying the FREMM was so attractive. Buy something off the shelf that actually works. But...no...
Its a downstream symptom of the breaking up of the political system. Basically we are so divided that its impossible to make long term plans, and also political leaders have no incentive to work with each other anymore. So we are grabbing political appoints based more on loyalties over competence.
Not sure where that hope came from. As my dad told me when I mentioned joining the Marines and how it had to be different when he was in Vietnam: "How the hell do you figure that? The same people are in charge, I mean sure their names have changed but the people who call the shots pick their own replacements, they are the same people with different faces and different names. Nothing has really changed except the technology and window dressing."
That was before so many foreign hands got into the pot of money. Now that foreign persons can own 'domestic' companies things have changed a lot. Oh, and companies are now persons under law. And domestic companies can give infinite amounts of money to politicians. Everything is fine here citizen, move along.
@@scottriddell7893 the navy hasn’t even released the final design….. the shipyard is building a ship with no actual design right now…… did you even watch the video? And even then, no. They are PUBLIC corporations.
When you get to surpass the Italian government on fucking up with its military (with stupid requirements and delays), you unlocked the most stupid archivement you can get.
This level of mismanagement, coming from the same organizations that gave us PERT and CPM is unbelievable. Despite being directly asked to not repeat the LCS fiasco, they are redoing everything the same again.
PERT? man yo are dating yourself. PERT was developed to support the Polaris program . In roughly less than 10 years the program built and delivered 41 SSBNs (41 for Freedom). So PERT ain't all bad. . People have probably messed with it over the years to make their programs look better on paper.
Unfortunately it does have all the hallmarks of another LCS class disaster, it's a true shame to see the Navy making such a clusterf**k of what is seemingly such a simple process...design...plans....build....doesn't really seem too difficult a set of tasks....this is what over administration and Govt intervention brings....delays from the outset and cost blow outs of mega proportional scales that the overall delivery of ships in the water will be well below expectation, and likely well below requirement as well....is a true shame to see the USN faulter this dismally. Cheers from Sydney Australia 🍻🍻🍻🍻!!!
@@christopho3255 to me makes no sense, makes a contract to Fincantieri asking to build Hull and engine, deliver it to USA and than finish there everything was requested from U.S. Navy, so much quicker process.
And not only that we're shitting out FREEMs at the rate of 2 a year without any major problems, i don't understand why the US doe snot just go full off the shelf with them, i mean Italy is working on a FREEM Evo which would have been great for the Constellation class to be built on, bought off the shelf and American systems installed
@@marcofava Exactly!!! Strengthen economic support of an ally, get much more cost effective ships at faster unit rate procurement.... win win. It hurts to think about the why's because logic isn't apply.
Why can't we drag people out of retirement who were involved with Arleigh Burke and put them in charge. Keep anyone involved with LCS the hell out of the Constellation program...
Imagine buying a french frigatte so you have an off the shelf ready design, but then you change everything, so now you have an inferior proprietary design where you have none of the benefits of custom stuff, but all of the downsides. And likewise none of the benefits of a ready design, but all of it's downsides. Truely, an aquisition marvel.
You would think that the USN would have been clued in to modding an existing design, from the RAN. Royal Australian Navy is not called the Boutique Navy for nothing. Buy a design, then mod it so much, its 3x time the cost and takes forever to build one. Economies of scale and commonality of parts goes out the window.
These are the same people that rejected the Centauro 1 Wheeled Tank Destroyer for the Stryker 105mm with the faulty auto loader, rather than admit they screwed up they doubled down and made more of them and it wasn't until one auto loader nearly caused an explosion that they dropped the 105mm Stryker. They also still never tried Centauro they instead made M10 Booker, which is basically an American version of the Argentine TAM tank. No clue what the U.S.'s problem with buying from allies, there's literally no shame in it especially if their designs are good
@@ricardjonama5986 TAM has a Marder IFV hull with a scaled down MBT turret to fit a short version of a modern 105mm gun, M10 has a Bradley IFV hull again with a scaled down MBT turret to fit a short but modern 105mm gun. There is many comparisons, it's just people look at TAM more because it passed every single trial with flying colors while keeping cost down in comparison to full sized MBT
DOD can’t buy a foreign design because Congress ceded control of procurement money from taxpayers to contractors ever since SCOTUS gave us Citizens United.
Nothing will change unless people like you and especially the mainstream media expose this to the general public. I'm glad you are making moves to get all this shown to the public.
My one caveat is today's navy could beat that 600 ship Navy. Everything is more expensive relative to GDP. What is our tonnage/cost to GDP ratio for current fleet VA the 600 ship fleet? (I honestly don't know, no one talks about it). I can get you a 600 ship Navy in a week. Just please don't shoot at the last 250 ships.
@@doomedwit1010 It's often forgot that this was also true of Reagan's 600 Ship Navy. There were a LOT of ships in there that were, uh, questionable. Bringing back the Iowas, as much as I love it and think it was awesome, was an extremely suspect choice given we hadn't had the infrastructure chains to maintain battleships in place for forty years. We've been doing keeping-up-appearances crap with our military for a lot longer than it's comfortable to admit. What's changed is, we're now getting to the point where the system can't keep up the appearances.
This is the levels of sheer incompetence and corruption that you find when you read into what was going on at Soviet shipyards pre collapse. This is embarrassing and disgusting. Thank you for bringing light to these issues and keep up the good work
So many questions. The one of the top of my head is. Why choose a ship already designed if your going to radically alter it? I worry a lot about China pumping out ships like candy. Even if they suck the quantity is still a huge problem. Why isn’t congress doing more? Holding back the money.
The ship was over italian and french design the FREMM frigate. First was the insistence on american made components. The internal layout needed to be changed to accommodate this. Then a new power plant different from the FREMM needed to be fitted. More redesign time.
@@torlekjpec5708 Chinese ships will look good at the bottom of the Taiwan Strait. There will be so many that our Virgina class subs won’t be able to dive.
@@grahamstrouse1165 "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." I stand corrected, it was 1961 not 1960. That better Karen?
This quote of Dwight D Eisenhower, later shortened to remove Congress from it, was given at the very end of this President’s term in office, after his years and years of complying with it.
I loved the whole, "LETS DRAW THE FRIGGIN FRIGATE FIRST!" moment. At least I think thats what you were about to say before you stopped yourself! What a disaster!
The MEKO 200 design has used similar propulsion since the late 80s, that same design is used by turkey, Australia, Greece, Portugal and New Zealand, all nations that the US could have asked for advice on let alone the fact that a MEKO is a German design
@@SyncViews nothing at all to do with CODLAG that the Type 23 has used in service since 1988. What on Earth does this have to do with the Northrop inter-cooler on a Type 45?
The fun part is that the Italian FREMM already employed a CODLAG configuration without any known issues. Only one of the many differences between Italian and French FREMMs.
>land based engineering sites have been required for testing of all technology before beginning construction or deployment to sea since 2021 Didn't Congress mandate this for _all_ ship classes, after learning this same lesson the hard way _yet again_ during the DDG-1000 program 20 years ago?
For one, B-21 Raider is - if you look closely - effect of decades of experience and it basically looks as ORIGINAL Northrop submission to ATF bomber competition, just with modern manufacturing and materials and Air Force, having learned from B-2, apparently didn't introduce ground breaking last minute changes.
The USA is a leading manufacturer of Aircraft in the civilian space. As an engineer it rocks my brains when "war fighters" - God that is cringe - claim civil industry has nothing to do with defense. It does. Just like any complex activity, ninety percent of engineering is getting basics correct and understanding workflow.
The beauty of NATO is that almost all systems are interoperable. They could have literally just bought a few slightly modified FREMM frigates directly from Fincantieri dry-docks in Italy just changing out the VLSs, CIWS system and the gun (although I still don't understand why you'd want to drop that monster of the 127mm Vulcano for the 57mm... but anyway) and Fincantieri could have probably started building the ships immediately in Italy considering they just finished launching the 9th and 10th FREMM for the Marina Militare. The slipways are clear, the manpower is already there ready to go. And a few years later they'd just have to shift building back to the US after preparing the infrastructure in the meantine. AND to make everything better, the Italia FREMM costs less than 600M a piece.
Hi Aaron, Thanks for the review. As a research engineer I was so happy when you revealed the winner of the FFG(X) project that was based on a proven design after the Freedom-Independence-Zumwalt fiasco. I am very concerned about the aggressive growth of the Chinese Navy, and I really hoped the USN got it's act together. Thank you for the video. Decision makers MUST understand that development is INCREMENTAL. Don't rush it, it'll just become a mess. Now untangling this mess will take more resources then would have needed to do the design phase properly at the first try. I really hope USN and everyone else learns from this. Thanks and keep up the good work.
I think it's influence from the aerospace sector where it is believed that if you don't put barely functioning future tech into your new design it will be obsolete before it is operational.
The insistence on the use of an existing parent hull should raise alarm flags, not provide comfort to you. As I posted elsewhere, using a parent design that comes from somewhere besides the build yard's existing portfolio practically means re-designing the ship to suit the capabilities and processes of the build yard. And that's not even changing any aspect of the design to incorporate different survivability requirements or different weapons or machinery systems.
I don't know the state of the PLAN, but if their new missile fields are any indication, we don't have much to worry about. They build missile silos that can't be opened with ICBM's filled with water.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 It is disheartening to have to laugh at that, but it is terribly true of such a deplorable state that the USN has sunk to, that it's nearly impossible to NOT laugh at it, I'm from Aus, and just it amazing that $7b can be pi**ed up against the wall, for basically some CAD plans and part of a ship....beggars belief. On this basis, I think we should see our AUKUS subs delivered somewhere between 2060-2070. Cheers from Sydney Aus 🍻🍻🍻🍻!!!
Why didn't the US Navy commission incrementally improved and system-upgraded Arleigh Burkes continuously for the past two decades? At a very slow rate, literally a ship a year, rotating the shipyards.. You'd maintain the expertise, keep the core workforce, always have a relevant platform, and have a production system that can be rapidly scaled up. Most importantly you would always have seaworthy and capable hulls in the water. It's Monty Python level ridiculous what the world's most important Navy has become, despite all the billions USD thrown at it.
@@ronmaximilian6953 We've also laid down _at least_ one hull per year (often several per year) since 1988, minus a handful of years (1989, 2010, 2011).
As others have mentioned. What you describe is what we HAVE been doing for over 30 years. It's pretty standard for a ship class to remain 30-40 years in service. It's extremely unusual - unprecedented, as far as I know - to still be building new ships of a class in which the first one was completed 33 years earlier. Yet here we are, doing exactly that. And no successor on the near horizon. Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) was commissioned in 1991: it does not seem farfetched at all to project an Arleigh Burke-class DDG commissioning on the 50-year anniversary in 2041. For the simple reason that that's the last good ship the nation was able to design and develop...right afterward, we just plain forgot how to do it.
The day the USN will be defeated isnt near, but if this happens.. You're in damn trouble ! Because the whole "Force Projection" of the US Armed Forces is based on the Navy !
This. Loss usually generates the kind of people who try to get out of the bad areas. Unfortunately our navy leadership is so comfy they dont seem to want to solve problems. They are in on them actively.
Lol are they even capable of the introspection and change needed after a loss? I don't think so. There will be a massive blame game, middle/lower command will be gutted for the loss, and the high up planners and politicians responsible for the loss will continue in their positions making big bucks off the taxpayers.
@@MicroSBs Exactly. War has the ability to remove all the political and academic theory table top brass off the board and the leaders who are actually competent in war fighting and leadership get moved up. _IF_ the civilian leadership has the stones to do so. And that's a big if these days.
You gotta admit though. It's quite a remarkable achievement to cause delays to what was originally an Off-the-shelf design already in production for other export customers.
WTF - why is the USN designing a new ship whose primary mission will be ASW and picket duty, without a effing sonar dome? So only a tail and helos for ASW sensors? Ridiculous.
Because they want to be completely dependent on the Captas-4. Other name fees are not that foolish. I suspect the underlying reason is they want to get more speed out of the frigate so it can keep up with carrier groups at 30 knots
@@ronmaximilian6953 The OHP class ships that are 40 years old now could keep up with the CBG no problem, and they had a sonar dome....Captas4 is still a towed array no matter how great it is, and while doing hard maneuvers at speed, that line is going to be affected by such things. Nor does it have the effect that a powerful active sonar in a bow dome can have in ensonifying the area around the ship quickly, which can be something an ASW ship should be capable of for obvious reasons, 1st being that a sub evades detection and gets into closer ranges.
As a tax payer I'm sadly disappointed in specifically the Navy time and time again. The other branches even seem to be having more successful programs at least like the Army's new .338 Sniper rifle for instance.
There are a lot of small arms manufacturers and the civilian competition sector of the market is driving advancement faster than the military. So it’s easy for the Army to go buy off the shelf and get a good system. LPVO’s were a thing in the civilian circles a decade before the military even considered one. Not much of a demand for frigates on the civilian side of the market.
I would not look at the army for an example of good procurement strategy. They have had equally disastrous development programs, I can't think of anything new outside the MRAP that hasn't totally failed in the last 20 years.
All the newbs seem to hate the new 6.8 Sig. The ballistics are better than the M1 Garand, and you don't get much better than that in an infantry rifle. I just hope they figure out a cheaper way to make it.
Sounds like the Navy decided what they really wanted was more destroyers and not frigates so they changed the design to suit that desire. If they wanted more destroyers why didn't they just put forth a proposal for more destroyers?
Not surprised at these problems. The navy pushed for early retirement of dozens of ships over the last 30+ years without adequate replacements being built and then sold off or sunk as targets the ships so that they could never be brought back in case of emergency
The navy did that so they could could point at the depleted fleet and reserves and scream and cry for new material. Sadly we are now seeing that the procurement/design process for new material is completely FUCKED due to a dismal amount of incompetence and corruption
@@ZxZ239yea, if you had a perfect replacement, sure, but OHP has been retired for a while now, and not all retired OHPs is decades old ship, and looking with how went Constellation project well, they shoulda keep OHP and upgrading it like they did with AB destroyers lmao
Having worked in mechanical design for a career, I really think one designer could have done all the drawings in far less time than 6 years, as long as an engineer was there to stamp and approve the drawings. Nobody has approved the final drawings; that seems to be the hold up. Where is the money going though? This looks like third world levels of dysfunction and corruption. At this point, fire everyone involved and go purchase some finished designs from our allies. Tell the brass "you f*cked up repeatedly; you no longer get what you want until you demonstrate operational competence." But no one has the balls to do that so things will get worse. Disgusting.
This ^ it's time to make the admirals answer to the taxpayers for this crap, but every single politician is in on the grift too, so nothing will change. It's over
Well no you couldn't have finished the drawings on your own. But you are correct that this will never stop being a problem until heads roll. People should be fired, dishonorable discharged, & quite possibly go to prison.
The USN for DECADES had its ASSET and LEAPS software programs, and LEAPS, as well. The apps can spit out 10s of thousands of relevant viable suggestions, and they'd be according to constraints. Humans basically or merely need vet them and settle on an aesthetics framing and get final funding approval. With the right constraints, the potential millions to tens of thousands of hulls could be reduced to maybe 100, with about 20 groups of 5 variants, with price points calculated in $100,000,000 increments based in headcount or billets, fuel, maintenance, and for reservist training opportunities. In 2 months, reduce all that to 2 flights or 3 flights built in parallel, all flexible designs, with 80% commonality, the major diffs being excess volume, not huge swings in parts or machinery or sensors. With the right software, permissions, and constraints, yeh, probably a knowledgeable individual COULD draw the ship and provide 10 variants in a month. I assume that 3D product models of all the berths, pumps, motors, switchboards, control panels, and more would be provided. Costing modules for parts, labor, yard exec commissions, etc have for decades been part of the software and the budgeting. Aside form exotic metals like in the AESA radar, and cosmetic changes to control boxes for new equipment, how much really has changed? Sure, shock hardening and instrumentation of the hull are definitely needed, but, how much has so changed as to say the hull is so complex that it takes 10 years, after all the accumulated brainpower and computer and CAD power? The hull could be started in something like Rhino, Nemo, or Orca3D, etc. (Or, even in SharkCAD, rho, that app has a layer manager rhst would inhibit rapid file layer reorganization.) The hull would be vetted at Carderock as a physical model and the 3D in another place. The human ergonomics aspects would be at not just the shipboard crew, but also with fabrication, ShipAlt, and battle damage repair perspective. Tribon, Friendship, or CAESES, and other tools would be used for vaeious internal and external things, including a proper hull-matched propeller and shaft line. Politics would enter the picture. I dare say that most of thr time lost or wasted is due to horse trading over which Congress member's district gets a piece of the contract. If the US yards and politicians were to face a threat that the ships WILL be built by Japan and South Korea, to hell with Jones Act/"Buy American", those designs would magically domestically be cranked out within 6 months, first steel would be cut within a year, and the first commissioning would be in under 4 years. If there were a threat of "any lost-deliver warranty work due to defects or slop will be met with prison, loss of pay, or worse", or if bonuses instead were guaranteed, the first hull of the FFGX would be floating and on trials by 2026-2027 if cancelled and restarted now, clean-sheet. I dare say that for the US to even HAVE to look outside for an FFGX design is an indictment that someone within deliberately played politics. Any number of active duty officers who did tours at NPS Monterey, Carderock, the USNA, etc HAVE the requisite knowledge to spec a ship suitable for the USN, certifiable by ABS and the USCG, and, after adding a good number of active and retired navy PM/ML/HT types, could number in enough bodies to reconstitute a USN Shipyard for both the East and the West Coasts. All this delay is politics and horsetrading around depleted funding and battle of wills.
What on earth is the damned point of having a competition to select a design if you're just gonna change everything so it's practically a whole different design?!? It's like Hollywood producers spending millions for the rights to a book to make into a movie, then proceed to change everything so that it bears little resemblance to the story that they threw down millions for!
So it takes China 8 years to build 83 ships and it takes America 11 year to build 10 ships and that will probably get pushed back years. I don't detect "any" sense of urgency when it come to having to possibly face off against the PLA Navy...
I saw something online a while ago and it fits this situation so well. Due to corruption everything is broken in Russia Due to corruption everything works in China Due to corruption everything takes a lifetime and a half in the US
It is shocking the amount of people who just brush it off as ‘well we’re still bigger than China and better so we don’t have to really worry or bother’ when most of the US fleet is decades old. It won’t matter if China is 10-20 years behind on tech if all the American ships are 50 years old and barely seaworthy.
Best Navy channel there is period!! He doesn't speculate about things, he literally knows the workings of the topic he's discussing which makes the information he presents so much more credible.
At the rate we're going, we may as well just have them build us a few squadrons of Sejong the Great-class DDs and pretend they're Arleigh Burke Flight IIB.
That's what we need NOW but dumbass politicians insist on everything being "american built" so they keep their voting bases... even if "american built" really means "never delivered"...
The Ticos are legitimately reaching end of useful oceangoing service life due to hull fatigue. Nothing was ever going to change that. None of the current round of retirements are slated for scrapping quite yet, so I suppose they could in theory be reactivated for missions like acting as coast-hugging mobile air defense batteries, but taking them into the North Atlantic in winter or skirting Pacific typhoons is sketchier with every passing year. Regardless, it's not like this was unforeseen by the Navy and Congress. Their utter failure to do anything about it for _decades_ speaks volumes.
Ticos are very old. I understand the retirement program. What’s not acceptable, there used to be no replacement cruiser. Just buying more Burkes isn’t the same as having a new cruiser class.
@@TheBongReyes The Ticos are destroyers with destroyer crossed out and cruiser written on them in all caps with red pen. Having a few extra missiles is nice, but until they can rearm at sea, it really doesn't matter.
@@charliedontsurf334 rearming at sea affects Burkes too. 30 extra missiles isn’t just a few extra. And if a new cruiser class was introduced, I’d expect even more missiles loaded.
this level of inneficiency is astounding, we Indonesians also currently have our own frigate program called Merah Putih Frigate, it was being built by Indonesian state owned shipyard called PT PAL with Britain's Babcock based on Arrowhead 140 design, there are indeed some changes here and there adjusting to Indonesian navy specification, and it doesn't take more than a year just to complete the design, the ship itself already start first steel cutting from 25th of august 2023, and the second frigate already start first steel cutting since june 5th this year.
If those 15 million dollars get you a proposal on paper you can use to ward off a lawsuit claiming "they never had a chance" than it's 15 million dollars well spent, just in wasted time alone.
@@hellascommentor seems like you are all for people wasting your money. Since you are, send me some. It’s actually easy if you have a plane set with clear expectations prior to moving forward with a project. If you change the entire project scope along the way, of course you are not going to achieve anything within timelines or budget. Poor leadership and planning skills.
@@hawkman302 are you familiar with the Agile Methodology? I agree with not changing the entire project scope is a very short period. This is definitely poor product vision and delivery.
@@hellascommentor I am. If they signed off to use a ship as the base, then change everything except the mid hull, that is outside the scope of with that, you have to set base parameters and everything within it can be figured out during the build process. They are trying to apply that from scratch after their build date. Poor leadership and planning.
@@hawkman302 then we probably agree. With better leadership and experience in controlling such high-risk projects and setting short-term goals that iterate to the final product, the taxpayers will be spent more efficiently. However, there would still be cases of waste of money as risks would also appear. It would not be a waste of money in a systemic way like in this case.
This is what happens when you have zero accountability for decades. Garbage in, garbage out. People should be jailed considering the vast sums of money wasted, stolen.
CODLAG isn't exactly new, it's already used in the Italian and French FREMM among others. I don't think the propulsion plant has anything to do with the problems of FFG-62, UNLESS the Navy decided to strip out the probably European-derived FREMM diesel generators, gas turbine and electric motors in favor of American equivalents which are dimensionally different and require major redesign of the engineering spaces to make them fit.
Back in 2018 Canada was offered a $30billion CA fixed bid for 15 Fremm's which even included an early delivery where we would see our first ship by the end of 2019. Here we are today staring down a project that is a Type 26 variant, pushing $100billon CA, last year Irving Shipyards asked for $330million for renovations because the ship is too big for them to build, the gov gave them $463 million because well it's just tax payers money. They still haven't started the 1st one, construction documents aren't even signed, most likely won't see delivery of it until 2034 approx and the cherry on this banana split is Irving Shipyards can't even build a patrol ship, the arctic patrol ships they are building have been a complete piles of junk.
@@niweshlekhak9646 As long as your definition of production is sweeping the parking lot and isn't cutting steel, or welding anything then one could claim that production has started
Outstanding video. As a retired automotive product development specialist, the Navy seems to have no project management skills despite having built ships for over 150 years. They sold this project based on minor design changes to an existing design but completely changed the design. That was the start of this disaster…
8:00 another comment to make about the hull design is the lack of the bulbous bow. the bulge at the front of the ship assists with hydrodynamic efficiency as the bulge makes it so the peak that starts the bow wave is in front of the knife edge of the bow. this is why larger ships like container and tanker ships have those huge tumors on the front under the water. it's all about that efficiency. i can understand moving the sonar array but removing the bulbous bow will cause more problems in the long run with fuel efficiency. 10:52 US Navy Vet.
things haven't been great for a while, i get that. but as people my parents' age are retiring and people my age come into those positions, things are going downhill much faster than any other time in my life.
It's actually simpler than that. Marinette Marine (under Fincanterri ownership or otherwise) is NOT QUALIFIED or COMPETENT enough to design or build the LCS, nevermind the larger Constellations. But, the Navy stuck with them because they desperately wanted to expand man of war construction beyond Bath, Ingalls and New Port News. Hence, they stuck with tem and live with the problems and delays, hoping that they'll get better over time.
I still dont get why they didnt just 100% copy FREMM for like 2 hulls.. Use them as test beds to have US Navy learn how to run them and then Constellation B which would be slightly enlarged.
Thanks Aaron, I thought we had problems in the UK but we are clearly not alone. I guess it all provides employment for a whole bunch of people, regardless of the eventual outcome.
The moment they talked about modifying the design to the point it was lengthening the hull and changing the shape of the ship it made me very nervous. No idea it had gotten quite this bad, yikes. The surely they wont do a LCS again logic did not hold.
This is same development process used for the Freedom class LCS. Take a proven design and then change it without testing. To put it in perspective: something as simple as keeping the lights on is unbelievably difficult. Why? We took a proven generator design and then changed it. I expect the results of this ship to be incredibly similar to result produced by the Freedom class LCS.
Corruption is as bold and blatant as ever in the DOD. That money was spent lining the pockets of individuals instead of getting the design and construction done.
The Navy/DoD uses EVMS (Earned Value Management System) for ship building. An easy way to plan and status is to use milestones and as you make milestones, you are X% complete. For drawings for instance, you have a 50% design (draft), 75% design (final draft), 90% design (Bill of Material is approved and nearly finalized), and 100% design (design is "baked" and drawings are approved.) Notice that there isnt a 25% design and just because it is 90% it just means that the design and design requirements are ready to begin procurement ... for that particular module of the ship. Not for the ship as a whole. I am not excusing the mismanagement of this build, as it is a clusterfrack, but helping to set expectations. I don't believe that SUPSHIPS believe that the ship is 50% complete.
The entire reason for going from a 5" gun to a 57mm was to allow Austal to be bid their Bigger Crappy Ship. Nobody actually thinks a 57mm gun, particularly one that requires you send out sailors to lower the safety rails before you can shoot it (won't that be fun is SS5+), is actually better than a 5" gun for any purpose.
This is what happens when your executives work in a consequence free environment. No incentives for over performing, but no penalty for under delivering, or flat out failure.
Wow.. cutting steel without finalised designs... that's like the Brits with the Astute class and that ran into real problems before being "assisted" by experts from the electric boat company.
Thank you for making your presentation in this manner. The average American needs better understanding of what’s going on. Navy leadership is a mess of monumental proportions. Now start naming the people responsible. That would allow the people to specifically enhance the correspondence with our elected representatives. The Navy needs an enema of objective accountability.
Well the new type 26 frigates of the royal navy costs around 1.4 billion each for the first batch of 5 with the price dropping to around 1 billion per ship for each ship in the second batch. With good reason seeing as the type 26 will be the most technologically advanced frigate in the world and that it can carry more or less the same armament as a destroyer
I suspect the Navy will argue that the metal work has to happen to preserve the industrial skill base and the Senators and Reps whose states and districts are going to line up to support because - money to their voters.
Well that's great man! We're screwed! Gotta love the military brass. We ground pounders are getting ahead of you this time! 🤠 Pentagon Wars, Part Deux.
As someone who has retired Navy family and works in non-military design/construction, I am jealous of the shipbuilding community's ability to retain contracts while not performing to the parameters of said contracts.
There are only three sites that produce navy ships AFAIK. They don't need to perform well at all. The navy has to use one of them, or all of them to avoid further atrophy of shipbuilding in America. Consequence free system yo.
Well done sir! I think we need to change your handle from Chief Jive Turkey to Master Chief Watch Dog. Please keep after these mofos, because apparently no one else is capable of it. This on going BS in building our Navy weakens our great nation. My dad was Air Force, but Tom Clancy made me a Navy fanboy. Our sailors need you Chief.
As incompetent, or corrupt, as American naval shipbuilding has become I believe it would serve the nation well to take bids from foreign shipbuilders. Monopolies are inherently untrustworthy.
I think I confused people in this segment 10:38 This is Ship Design completion, not Ship Construction completion. When I say it's not 100% complete, I am referring to the Technical Documents and the ships functional design. Not the Construction of the ship itself. EDIT: We have always had a very positive comment section. Some new members have express surprise at how mature you are. This is uncommon for any online social community. Keep it up.
Ingalls had the capacity and manpower in place. The Navy chose poorly.
It didn’t hurt that Finc. had a former high-ranking Admiral on the board either….
They had a chance to choose Huntington Ingalls, but the Navy didn’t want an up-armored, gray frigate which was basically a WMSL NSC.
I don't see how the design can be 100% complete when the CDRL doesn't include detailed design documents. If there's no model and no testing of the model has been done, how can they ever start construction? It's not like the Navy hasn't changed the original design of the Fincantieri ship. It's hard to believe that the Navy project managers are that clueless.
@@tomwilson1006 USN needs more shipyards hence why Finni had to win
New Navy motto - "No one spends more to achieve less!"
Except the Russian navy, but that’s a comparison no one wants
...in more time!
New? Ahhh!
@@andrewreynolds4949 That's the comparison you want? Russia is not a "Peer Adversary"... It's the PRC that we will have to measure up to. And they will eat our lunch.
@@andrewreynolds4949 Over the last couple years the Russians launched more subs than we did. The US Navy is throwing the whole "game" hard.
Money doesn't just disappear, it changes hands. Someone was laughing their way to the bank.
Usually the shipbuilder and subcontractors, and the congressman and/or senators where the ships are being built. Also the retired Captains and Admirals who now work for the shipbuilder.
At some point this becomes criminal
@@DB-ji2ye In the US? Not necessarily.
Nope. Been going on for decades.
Example: what do you call a country with no draft and an average military age of 45 (hint: not Germany) yet has 60 billion American dollars being sent to it?
I genuinely believe its more accurate to say the money is being wasted than stolen. Really seems to be incompetence rather than criminal genius. If someone was stealing they'd at least be sure to have it not be so much of a disaster to have this many eyeballs on it.
Constipation-class: They're pushing as hard as they can, but it just won't come out!
Perhaps somebody needs to go grease their slipway.
That's a good one. I'm gonna steal it! ROFL!
Clearly an enema is required.
Love it!
They need to drink more black coffee and a few strong amokes
The Pentagon just cannot resist redesigning existing designs. This is how the procurement budgets get blown out.
Nor can the MoD. Apache, Chinook, Ajax, the list of "off the shelf" purchases that have been modified out of recognition to justify civilian jobs is long and shameful
My Art Director, James, has a more complete drawing of the Constellation class Frigate in this thumbnail than the US Navy has after 6 years and $7 Billion dollars spent.
He does a bloody good job that render is fantastic :)
A monstrous bureaucracy very likely worse than the Bureau of Ordinance in 1924. FFGX and NSMV contracted April 2020, hardly the same vessels, and yet cannot be reconciled. FFG-62 pushed back from 2026 to 2029. Meanwhile, NSMV I underwent her maiden voyage with SUNY back in January with II not far behind and the rest ahead of expectations.
Admiral Bean needs an admin job for his great uncle's step-granddaughter, better break out another trillion. Great thumbnail James, but too effective for Navy - better make him MA so he doesn't step on any toes.
Time to leak that to the Warthunder forums.
Ask them if they would like to buy it. A 100M sounds about right…
Australian bureaucracy is the same. Absolute waste of taxpayers' money.
Entertaining and sad 😔
My buddy who is going theough MS right now lives in a trailer park in a Detroit suberb, before he can have a wheelchair ramp built he must submit an architectural drawing for exactly what the finished product will look like before he can be approved to begin construction. When a trailer park has better checks and balances than the US Navy, something has gone terribly wrong.
Btw, he can draw it himself. It doesn't have to be printed, just accurate.
I hope he is demanding and receiving all the reasonable accommodations entitled to him under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Large projects are too big to fail.
Thats a bullshit amount of hoop jumping to build a few steps i just wouldnt
@TheAnnoyingBoss He'd love that as an option, but MS is robbing him of his ability to stand, let alone walk or use stairs
According to the USNI article I read (From May 29), the Constellation went from 85% commonality down to 15%...
And the Navy has claimed it's a workforce challenge.
After Zumwalt and LCS, you'd think there'd be more competence. Unless it's the same team across all three classes - now there's a nightmare inducing thought.
The same knuckleheads that ran LCS into the ground (PEO USC, formerly PEO LCS) were put in charge of the Connie, and nobody got canned for the previous dumpster fires. Nearly inevitable they'd botch this, too.
Literally the only surface combatant we are capable of building now is the Burke. We SINKEX'd the fleet of the 1980s-2000s without the ability to build its replacement, because in our arrogance we thought we'd never fight another blue-water battle.
As an Italian, I don't understand at this point what the USN actually bought from Fincantieri.
They changed the propulsion, the bow, the weapon systems and armaments.
It's not a fremm or fremm based frigate anymore it's just a patchwork . . a chaotic one indeed.
@@silusianouse of the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyards?
@@ronmaximilian6953 basically yes, also because the program is directly supervised by the navy so Fincantieri is also stripped from management duty, at least in part.
"After Zumwalt and LCS, you'd think there'd be more competence. Unless it's the same team across all three classes - now there's a nightmare inducing thought." Why in the world would you "think" there'd be MORE competence when all the USN and their Defense Contractors have demonstrated in INCOMPETENCE? After Zumwalt and LCS, I have ZERO confidence in the Navy brass to actually pull something off...which is why buying the FREMM was so attractive. Buy something off the shelf that actually works. But...no...
The US Navy only has 270 Admirals! Thats, one for every ship clearly we need more Admirals!
Dear Nelson… That’s worse than I imagined.
almost all of them need to be fired or demoted now
US Navy has 300K active personnel, which means there is 1 admiral for every 1000 personnel. I dont think that's too bad honest speaking
@@AlvinYap510 5-10 times too many IMO.
Possibly some bloat but gotta remember most of those admirals are in staff positions, essentially sat in a desk in DC doing paperwork.
After the LCS being FUBAR, I had hopes for a new FFG. My hopes are going down the drain, fast.
LCS is not and never was a frigate! the LCS is what they wanted and got.
Its a downstream symptom of the breaking up of the political system. Basically we are so divided that its impossible to make long term plans, and also political leaders have no incentive to work with each other anymore. So we are grabbing political appoints based more on loyalties over competence.
Not sure where that hope came from. As my dad told me when I mentioned joining the Marines and how it had to be different when he was in Vietnam: "How the hell do you figure that? The same people are in charge, I mean sure their names have changed but the people who call the shots pick their own replacements, they are the same people with different faces and different names. Nothing has really changed except the technology and window dressing."
@@CaptRR So any foreign adversary that might be using psyops to divide America is probably laughing...
@@CaptRR every decision made 'by committee' = groupthink destruction of anything good
This video should be sent to every member of the House and Senate.
I think it just was. Not that they dont already know.
They’re useless anyway. To busy getting Trump to accomplish anything else. And giving the drug addict in Ukraine his hush money.
You think they watch stuff like this?
@@hohohohoho262 I think people that have their ear do.
A billion dollars for a FRIGATE! It was not that long ago that a billion dollars got an aircraft carrier.
That was before so many foreign hands got into the pot of money. Now that foreign persons can own 'domestic' companies things have changed a lot. Oh, and companies are now persons under law. And domestic companies can give infinite amounts of money to politicians.
Everything is fine here citizen, move along.
@@fortusvictus8297 The US taxpayer is now just as FUBAR'ed as the LCS. The grift knows no bounds.
Type 26 is coming in at under that price and the billion is only going to go higher.
It will be the best ASW frigate out there.
@@Statueshop297 I'm sure we'd be very happy to sell you some! 12 Type 26 for a Ford Class carrier? ;)
at this point lets just buy some japanese mogamis
“Comically mismanaged”
“Levels of incompetence that are amazing”
……..yep, that sounds like the US government all right………
Aren't the ship builders private companies?
@@scottriddell7893 the navy hasn’t even released the final design….. the shipyard is building a ship with no actual design right now…… did you even watch the video?
And even then, no. They are PUBLIC corporations.
When you get to surpass the Italian government on fucking up with its military (with stupid requirements and delays), you unlocked the most stupid archivement you can get.
@@scottriddell7893 We can take a little easy that it isnt just the US.
This level of mismanagement, coming from the same organizations that gave us PERT and CPM is unbelievable.
Despite being directly asked to not repeat the LCS fiasco, they are redoing everything the same again.
PERT? man yo are dating yourself. PERT was developed to support the Polaris program . In roughly less than 10 years the program built and delivered 41 SSBNs (41 for Freedom). So PERT ain't all bad. . People have probably messed with it over the years to make their programs look better on paper.
China and CCP are laughing their ass off at us.
Unfortunately it does have all the hallmarks of another LCS class disaster, it's a true shame to see the Navy making such a clusterf**k of what is seemingly such a simple process...design...plans....build....doesn't really seem too difficult a set of tasks....this is what over administration and Govt intervention brings....delays from the outset and cost blow outs of mega proportional scales that the overall delivery of ships in the water will be well below expectation, and likely well below requirement as well....is a true shame to see the USN faulter this dismally.
Cheers from Sydney Australia 🍻🍻🍻🍻!!!
@@tippo5341 Well, on the plus side, we havent built half of them all f'd up already, so that's an improvement over LCS
The Navy watched the Pentagon Wars and thought it was an instructional video.
The book was published by Naval Institute Press so go figure....
Not that pentagon wars is particularly instructive to this scenario
High-velocity air rushed out of my nasal orifices upon reading thy comment!
Maybe they confused that with Space Force?
The only difference is that the Bradley actually ended up being useful……..
The Italians build Fremms for about 600 million a piece. Just order from them 10 frigates for 6 billion.
That's what Constellation was supposed to be. Then they changes most of the ships design....
@@christopho3255 to me makes no sense, makes a contract to Fincantieri asking to build Hull and engine, deliver it to USA and than finish there everything was requested from U.S. Navy, so much quicker process.
And not only that we're shitting out FREEMs at the rate of 2 a year without any major problems, i don't understand why the US doe snot just go full off the shelf with them, i mean Italy is working on a FREEM Evo which would have been great for the Constellation class to be built on, bought off the shelf and American systems installed
@@marcofava Exactly!!! Strengthen economic support of an ally, get much more cost effective ships at faster unit rate procurement.... win win. It hurts to think about the why's because logic isn't apply.
Why can't we drag people out of retirement who were involved with Arleigh Burke and put them in charge. Keep anyone involved with LCS the hell out of the Constellation program...
Should be called the Cancellation Class.
Oh, this is GOLD! yes! Bravo, sir.
Imagine buying a french frigatte so you have an off the shelf ready design, but then you change everything, so now you have an inferior proprietary design where you have none of the benefits of custom stuff, but all of the downsides. And likewise none of the benefits of a ready design, but all of it's downsides.
Truely, an aquisition marvel.
It was the Italian version of FREMM. It was originally one joint project but politics happened...
You would think that the USN would have been clued in to modding an existing design, from the RAN. Royal Australian Navy is not called the Boutique Navy for nothing. Buy a design, then mod it so much, its 3x time the cost and takes forever to build one. Economies of scale and commonality of parts goes out the window.
I guess it was hard to admit that the backbone of the USN would have been a EU-based design !
@@Real_Claudy_Focanbrass couldn't swallow that, so they changed everything.
I would laugh but as an Australian that was kind of the shitfest that happened with our initial plans to replace our Collins Class submarines...
Could have bought more that 10 complete FREMM frigates from France or Italy for just the developement cost.
These are the same people that rejected the Centauro 1 Wheeled Tank Destroyer for the Stryker 105mm with the faulty auto loader, rather than admit they screwed up they doubled down and made more of them and it wasn't until one auto loader nearly caused an explosion that they dropped the 105mm Stryker. They also still never tried Centauro they instead made M10 Booker, which is basically an American version of the Argentine TAM tank. No clue what the U.S.'s problem with buying from allies, there's literally no shame in it especially if their designs are good
M10 booker is based on the spanish-austrian ASCOD family. Nothing in common with the TAM
@@ricardjonama5986 TAM has a Marder IFV hull with a scaled down MBT turret to fit a short version of a modern 105mm gun, M10 has a Bradley IFV hull again with a scaled down MBT turret to fit a short but modern 105mm gun. There is many comparisons, it's just people look at TAM more because it passed every single trial with flying colors while keeping cost down in comparison to full sized MBT
That’s an exaggeration.
DOD can’t buy a foreign design because Congress ceded control of procurement money from taxpayers to contractors ever since SCOTUS gave us Citizens United.
Nothing will change unless people like you and especially the mainstream media expose this to the general public.
I'm glad you are making moves to get all this shown to the public.
I'm doing my part!
Sad state of affairs. When I was in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club we had a 600 Ship Navy.....now we can't even get a design finalized.....😖
My one caveat is today's navy could beat that 600 ship Navy.
Everything is more expensive relative to GDP. What is our tonnage/cost to GDP ratio for current fleet VA the 600 ship fleet?
(I honestly don't know, no one talks about it). I can get you a 600 ship Navy in a week. Just please don't shoot at the last 250 ships.
@@doomedwit1010 It's often forgot that this was also true of Reagan's 600 Ship Navy. There were a LOT of ships in there that were, uh, questionable. Bringing back the Iowas, as much as I love it and think it was awesome, was an extremely suspect choice given we hadn't had the infrastructure chains to maintain battleships in place for forty years.
We've been doing keeping-up-appearances crap with our military for a lot longer than it's comfortable to admit. What's changed is, we're now getting to the point where the system can't keep up the appearances.
This is the levels of sheer incompetence and corruption that you find when you read into what was going on at Soviet shipyards pre collapse. This is embarrassing and disgusting. Thank you for bringing light to these issues and keep up the good work
I say the CCP is paying the heads of these projects large sums of money to halt the building of new warships.
So many questions. The one of the top of my head is. Why choose a ship already designed if your going to radically alter it? I worry a lot about China pumping out ships like candy. Even if they suck the quantity is still a huge problem. Why isn’t congress doing more? Holding back the money.
Chinese ships are better quality than whatever this ship is that may not even be sea worthy.
I some how doubt that PRC ship is money for money worst than US navy ship.
The ship was over italian and french design the FREMM frigate. First was the insistence on american made components. The internal layout needed to be changed to accommodate this. Then a new power plant different from the FREMM needed to be fitted. More redesign time.
@@torlekjpec5708 Chinese ships will look good at the bottom of the Taiwan Strait. There will be so many that our Virgina class subs won’t be able to dive.
Thats a fucking lie. @torlekjpec5708
"Beware the military industrial complex." Dwight D Eisenhower 1960
Just thinking the same thing
That wasn’t exactly what he said. I get the idea but please do it make up fake quotations…
@@grahamstrouse1165 "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." I stand corrected, it was 1961 not 1960. That better Karen?
This quote of Dwight D Eisenhower, later shortened to remove Congress from it, was given at the very end of this President’s term in office, after his years and years of complying with it.
@@grahamstrouse1165 Karen spotted
The Navy's default attitude to anything seems to be "You can't tell me what to do!"
The people that designed the Littoral ships should all be in prison for wasting such an insane amount of money.
They'll get promotions instead
@@spacecoastmed
Make sure to include the flag officers who green lighted this travesty.
I loved the whole, "LETS DRAW THE FRIGGIN FRIGATE FIRST!" moment. At least I think thats what you were about to say before you stopped yourself! What a disaster!
This machinery has been used by the UK RN for over 35 years.
Funnily, these navies actually talk to each other.
The MEKO 200 design has used similar propulsion since the late 80s, that same design is used by turkey, Australia, Greece, Portugal and New Zealand, all nations that the US could have asked for advice on let alone the fact that a MEKO is a German design
Type-45 had engine issues so seems still not immune from messing up the basics :(
@@SyncViews nothing at all to do with CODLAG that the Type 23 has used in service since 1988.
What on Earth does this have to do with the Northrop inter-cooler on a Type 45?
The fun part is that the Italian FREMM already employed a CODLAG configuration without any known issues. Only one of the many differences between Italian and French FREMMs.
@@SyncViews That was a US company, Lockheed Martin, that couldn’t make a recuperator that met the specifications.
>land based engineering sites have been required for testing of all technology before beginning construction or deployment to sea since 2021
Didn't Congress mandate this for _all_ ship classes, after learning this same lesson the hard way _yet again_ during the DDG-1000 program 20 years ago?
The royal navy came up with this big brain idea in 1880s. You'd think its common sense by now.
There needs to be accountability for these fuckups.
How can we build a B-21 Raider in record time while the Navy can’t even build an LCS correctly or a frigate that’s already been built by the Italians?
Maybe Air Force is smarter.
For one, B-21 Raider is - if you look closely - effect of decades of experience and it basically looks as ORIGINAL Northrop submission to ATF bomber competition, just with modern manufacturing and materials and Air Force, having learned from B-2, apparently didn't introduce ground breaking last minute changes.
Because they develop it for 10 years in the skunk works and then go "TADA!" :) (ok, mainly joking)
The USA is a leading manufacturer of Aircraft in the civilian space. As an engineer it rocks my brains when "war fighters" - God that is cringe - claim civil industry has nothing to do with defense. It does. Just like any complex activity, ninety percent of engineering is getting basics correct and understanding workflow.
@@Stinger522Nah. They got things right ONCE. Don’t get a woody.
The beauty of NATO is that almost all systems are interoperable. They could have literally just bought a few slightly modified FREMM frigates directly from Fincantieri dry-docks in Italy just changing out the VLSs, CIWS system and the gun (although I still don't understand why you'd want to drop that monster of the 127mm Vulcano for the 57mm... but anyway) and Fincantieri could have probably started building the ships immediately in Italy considering they just finished launching the 9th and 10th FREMM for the Marina Militare. The slipways are clear, the manpower is already there ready to go.
And a few years later they'd just have to shift building back to the US after preparing the infrastructure in the meantine.
AND to make everything better, the Italia FREMM costs less than 600M a piece.
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the review. As a research engineer I was so happy when you revealed the winner of the FFG(X) project that was based on a proven design after the Freedom-Independence-Zumwalt fiasco. I am very concerned about the aggressive growth of the Chinese Navy, and I really hoped the USN got it's act together. Thank you for the video. Decision makers MUST understand that development is INCREMENTAL. Don't rush it, it'll just become a mess. Now untangling this mess will take more resources then would have needed to do the design phase properly at the first try. I really hope USN and everyone else learns from this.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
I think it's influence from the aerospace sector where it is believed that if you don't put barely functioning future tech into your new design it will be obsolete before it is operational.
The insistence on the use of an existing parent hull should raise alarm flags, not provide comfort to you. As I posted elsewhere, using a parent design that comes from somewhere besides the build yard's existing portfolio practically means re-designing the ship to suit the capabilities and processes of the build yard. And that's not even changing any aspect of the design to incorporate different survivability requirements or different weapons or machinery systems.
I don't know the state of the PLAN, but if their new missile fields are any indication, we don't have much to worry about. They build missile silos that can't be opened with ICBM's filled with water.
The Navy can't even use its naming conventions correctly.... who's surprised that it can't figure out procurement?
Congress has a lot to do with that, since they control what gets built by what gets funded.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It is disheartening to have to laugh at that, but it is terribly true of such a deplorable state that the USN has sunk to, that it's nearly impossible to NOT laugh at it, I'm from Aus, and just it amazing that $7b can be pi**ed up against the wall, for basically some CAD plans and part of a ship....beggars belief.
On this basis, I think we should see our AUKUS subs delivered somewhere between 2060-2070.
Cheers from Sydney Aus 🍻🍻🍻🍻!!!
Why didn't the US Navy commission incrementally improved and system-upgraded Arleigh Burkes continuously for the past two decades? At a very slow rate, literally a ship a year, rotating the shipyards.. You'd maintain the expertise, keep the core workforce, always have a relevant platform, and have a production system that can be rapidly scaled up. Most importantly you would always have seaworthy and capable hulls in the water.
It's Monty Python level ridiculous what the world's most important Navy has become, despite all the billions USD thrown at it.
But we have upgraded the arleigh Burke class and we have the flight IIB tech insertion and the flight 3
The hull design has reached the extremity of its development. They now need a new design, maybe with more accessible power, to supply future weapons.
As mentioned they have. But the hull is just too small. And not enough power. Arlight Burkes are modern battleships. They need more space.
@@ronmaximilian6953 We've also laid down _at least_ one hull per year (often several per year) since 1988, minus a handful of years (1989, 2010, 2011).
As others have mentioned. What you describe is what we HAVE been doing for over 30 years. It's pretty standard for a ship class to remain 30-40 years in service. It's extremely unusual - unprecedented, as far as I know - to still be building new ships of a class in which the first one was completed 33 years earlier. Yet here we are, doing exactly that. And no successor on the near horizon. Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) was commissioned in 1991: it does not seem farfetched at all to project an Arleigh Burke-class DDG commissioning on the 50-year anniversary in 2041. For the simple reason that that's the last good ship the nation was able to design and develop...right afterward, we just plain forgot how to do it.
Me: The Navy can't do a worse job building a warships than the Freedom and Independence.
Navy: Hold my beer.
Prepare for project cancellation.
Cancellation would stop further funding. Maybe after the fixed 10.8 Billion is delivered, then they cancel. I can see that as a possibility.
@@SubBrief I think the problem is that the Navy only wants destroyers that are as large as heavy cruisers for everything :(
The Navy was built on Frigates and they do have their uses WAY BEYOND what the LCS could ever deliver.
Who needs enemies when the Navy sabotaged itself
it will take a navy defeat at sea for all of this to come to light and accountability.
The day the USN will be defeated isnt near, but if this happens.. You're in damn trouble ! Because the whole "Force Projection" of the US Armed Forces is based on the Navy !
I don't think the modern MIC, with an acquisitions process so far up its own backside, is capable of learning _any_ lessons anymore.
This. Loss usually generates the kind of people who try to get out of the bad areas. Unfortunately our navy leadership is so comfy they dont seem to want to solve problems. They are in on them actively.
Lol are they even capable of the introspection and change needed after a loss? I don't think so. There will be a massive blame game, middle/lower command will be gutted for the loss, and the high up planners and politicians responsible for the loss will continue in their positions making big bucks off the taxpayers.
@@MicroSBs Exactly. War has the ability to remove all the political and academic theory table top brass off the board and the leaders who are actually competent in war fighting and leadership get moved up. _IF_ the civilian leadership has the stones to do so. And that's a big if these days.
You gotta admit though. It's quite a remarkable achievement to cause delays to what was originally an Off-the-shelf design already in production for other export customers.
This is the most Navy thing I've heard in a long time.
WTF - why is the USN designing a new ship whose primary mission will be ASW and picket duty, without a effing sonar dome? So only a tail and helos for ASW sensors? Ridiculous.
Because they want to be completely dependent on the Captas-4. Other name fees are not that foolish. I suspect the underlying reason is they want to get more speed out of the frigate so it can keep up with carrier groups at 30 knots
@@ronmaximilian6953 The OHP class ships that are 40 years old now could keep up with the CBG no problem, and they had a sonar dome....Captas4 is still a towed array no matter how great it is, and while doing hard maneuvers at speed, that line is going to be affected by such things. Nor does it have the effect that a powerful active sonar in a bow dome can have in ensonifying the area around the ship quickly, which can be something an ASW ship should be capable of for obvious reasons, 1st being that a sub evades detection and gets into closer ranges.
Someone suggested St. Lawrence Seaway depth issues? No idea of true.
It has two towed sonars. CAPTAS-4 VDS and TB-37 Multi-Function Towed Array.
Doesn't it make the ship massively inefficient without the bow bulb?
As a tax payer I'm sadly disappointed in specifically the Navy time and time again. The other branches even seem to be having more successful programs at least like the Army's new .338 Sniper rifle for instance.
There are a lot of small arms manufacturers and the civilian competition sector of the market is driving advancement faster than the military. So it’s easy for the Army to go buy off the shelf and get a good system. LPVO’s were a thing in the civilian circles a decade before the military even considered one. Not much of a demand for frigates on the civilian side of the market.
To be fair a warship is exponentially more complex then a rifle. However this does not excuse how the navy is handling the FFG(X) program.
I would not look at the army for an example of good procurement strategy. They have had equally disastrous development programs, I can't think of anything new outside the MRAP that hasn't totally failed in the last 20 years.
All the newbs seem to hate the new 6.8 Sig. The ballistics are better than the M1 Garand, and you don't get much better than that in an infantry rifle. I just hope they figure out a cheaper way to make it.
Just look at the B--21 prgram so far. THAT is how you deliver new capabilities responsibly for the taxpayer.
Sounds like the Navy decided what they really wanted was more destroyers and not frigates so they changed the design to suit that desire. If they wanted more destroyers why didn't they just put forth a proposal for more destroyers?
Erm, thanks to the USN for making RN ship procurement look like a well oiled machine
Not surprised at these problems. The navy pushed for early retirement of dozens of ships over the last 30+ years without adequate replacements being built and then sold off or sunk as targets the ships so that they could never be brought back in case of emergency
The navy did that so they could could point at the depleted fleet and reserves and scream and cry for new material. Sadly we are now seeing that the procurement/design process for new material is completely FUCKED due to a dismal amount of incompetence and corruption
I feel like it wouldn't be so cheap or easy to keep those ship afloat, the maintance cost is going to get higher and higher.
@@ZxZ239yea, if you had a perfect replacement, sure, but OHP has been retired for a while now, and not all retired OHPs is decades old ship, and looking with how went Constellation project well, they shoulda keep OHP and upgrading it like they did with AB destroyers lmao
Having worked in mechanical design for a career, I really think one designer could have done all the drawings in far less time than 6 years, as long as an engineer was there to stamp and approve the drawings. Nobody has approved the final drawings; that seems to be the hold up. Where is the money going though? This looks like third world levels of dysfunction and corruption. At this point, fire everyone involved and go purchase some finished designs from our allies. Tell the brass "you f*cked up repeatedly; you no longer get what you want until you demonstrate operational competence." But no one has the balls to do that so things will get worse. Disgusting.
This ^ it's time to make the admirals answer to the taxpayers for this crap, but every single politician is in on the grift too, so nothing will change. It's over
To be fair, the USN is *much* better at corruption than the average third world nation…
Well no you couldn't have finished the drawings on your own. But you are correct that this will never stop being a problem until heads roll. People should be fired, dishonorable discharged, & quite possibly go to prison.
The depressing irony is that this program started in 2014 as an attempt to do what you propose. This was supposed to be the "fix-it" for LCS. sigh
The USN for DECADES had its ASSET and LEAPS software programs, and LEAPS, as well. The apps can spit out 10s of thousands of relevant viable suggestions, and they'd be according to constraints. Humans basically or merely need vet them and settle on an aesthetics framing and get final funding approval. With the right constraints, the potential millions to tens of thousands of hulls could be reduced to maybe 100, with about 20 groups of 5 variants, with price points calculated in $100,000,000 increments based in headcount or billets, fuel, maintenance, and for reservist training opportunities. In 2 months, reduce all that to 2 flights or 3 flights built in parallel, all flexible designs, with 80% commonality, the major diffs being excess volume, not huge swings in parts or machinery or sensors.
With the right software, permissions, and constraints, yeh, probably a knowledgeable individual COULD draw the ship and provide 10 variants in a month. I assume that 3D product models of all the berths, pumps, motors, switchboards, control panels, and more would be provided. Costing modules for parts, labor, yard exec commissions, etc have for decades been part of the software and the budgeting. Aside form exotic metals like in the AESA radar, and cosmetic changes to control boxes for new equipment, how much really has changed?
Sure, shock hardening and instrumentation of the hull are definitely needed, but, how much has so changed as to say the hull is so complex that it takes 10 years, after all the accumulated brainpower and computer and CAD power?
The hull could be started in something like Rhino, Nemo, or Orca3D, etc. (Or, even in SharkCAD, rho, that app has a layer manager rhst would inhibit rapid file layer reorganization.) The hull would be vetted at Carderock as a physical model and the 3D in another place. The human ergonomics aspects would be at not just the shipboard crew, but also with fabrication, ShipAlt, and battle damage repair perspective.
Tribon, Friendship, or CAESES, and other tools would be used for vaeious internal and external things, including a proper hull-matched propeller and shaft line.
Politics would enter the picture. I dare say that most of thr time lost or wasted is due to horse trading over which Congress member's district gets a piece of the contract.
If the US yards and politicians were to face a threat that the ships WILL be built by Japan and South Korea, to hell with Jones Act/"Buy American", those designs would magically domestically be cranked out within 6 months, first steel would be cut within a year, and the first commissioning would be in under 4 years. If there were a threat of "any lost-deliver warranty work due to defects or slop will be met with prison, loss of pay, or worse", or if bonuses instead were guaranteed, the first hull of the FFGX would be floating and on trials by 2026-2027 if cancelled and restarted now, clean-sheet.
I dare say that for the US to even HAVE to look outside for an FFGX design is an indictment that someone within deliberately played politics. Any number of active duty officers who did tours at NPS Monterey, Carderock, the USNA, etc HAVE the requisite knowledge to spec a ship suitable for the USN, certifiable by ABS and the USCG, and, after adding a good number of active and retired navy PM/ML/HT types, could number in enough bodies to reconstitute a USN Shipyard for both the East and the West Coasts.
All this delay is politics and horsetrading around depleted funding and battle of wills.
What on earth is the damned point of having a competition to select a design if you're just gonna change everything so it's practically a whole different design?!? It's like Hollywood producers spending millions for the rights to a book to make into a movie, then proceed to change everything so that it bears little resemblance to the story that they threw down millions for!
So it takes China 8 years to build 83 ships and it takes America 11 year to build 10 ships and that will probably get pushed back years. I don't detect "any" sense of urgency when it come to having to possibly face off against the PLA Navy...
That will happen when America exports ALL its industry to China.
I saw something online a while ago and it fits this situation so well.
Due to corruption everything is broken in Russia
Due to corruption everything works in China
Due to corruption everything takes a lifetime and a half in the US
It is shocking the amount of people who just brush it off as ‘well we’re still bigger than China and better so we don’t have to really worry or bother’ when most of the US fleet is decades old. It won’t matter if China is 10-20 years behind on tech if all the American ships are 50 years old and barely seaworthy.
@@deeznoots6241 the main problem is experience and inter communication syatem for china
While for weapon and other i think they just 5 years off
@@kameraldbahrul3432 they will learn, they are putting in efforts, it will have some problems but over time in next 10-15 years they will be ready.
Best Navy channel there is period!! He doesn't speculate about things, he literally knows the workings of the topic he's discussing which makes the information he presents so much more credible.
Just have South Korea build us some frigates and let’s fix this ship procurement issue. Procurement issues around the whole dod
At the rate we're going, we may as well just have them build us a few squadrons of Sejong the Great-class DDs and pretend they're Arleigh Burke Flight IIB.
They can build light frigates quick, but a large tier 1 Frigate would take time, just like the US.
Seriously..
That's what we need NOW but dumbass politicians insist on everything being "american built" so they keep their voting bases... even if "american built" really means "never delivered"...
@@ReptilianLepton yep…unfortunately, we did this to ourselves, pay more and get less, year after year
This is what happens when you have political officers in charge of a navy. Hasnt been combat ready since desert storm.
And meanwhile they're still retiring the Ticonderoga class cruisers, yes? Excellent move.
The Ticos are legitimately reaching end of useful oceangoing service life due to hull fatigue. Nothing was ever going to change that. None of the current round of retirements are slated for scrapping quite yet, so I suppose they could in theory be reactivated for missions like acting as coast-hugging mobile air defense batteries, but taking them into the North Atlantic in winter or skirting Pacific typhoons is sketchier with every passing year.
Regardless, it's not like this was unforeseen by the Navy and Congress. Their utter failure to do anything about it for _decades_ speaks volumes.
Ticos are very old. I understand the retirement program. What’s not acceptable, there used to be no replacement cruiser. Just buying more Burkes isn’t the same as having a new cruiser class.
@@TheBongReyes The Ticos are destroyers with destroyer crossed out and cruiser written on them in all caps with red pen. Having a few extra missiles is nice, but until they can rearm at sea, it really doesn't matter.
@@charliedontsurf334 rearming at sea affects Burkes too. 30 extra missiles isn’t just a few extra. And if a new cruiser class was introduced, I’d expect even more missiles loaded.
@@TheBongReyes too bad we can't just by a few Segong the Great class not cruisers.
this level of inneficiency is astounding, we Indonesians also currently have our own frigate program called Merah Putih Frigate, it was being built by Indonesian state owned shipyard called PT PAL with Britain's Babcock based on Arrowhead 140 design, there are indeed some changes here and there adjusting to Indonesian navy specification, and it doesn't take more than a year just to complete the design, the ship itself already start first steel cutting from 25th of august 2023, and the second frigate already start first steel cutting since june 5th this year.
If those 15 million dollars get you a proposal on paper you can use to ward off a lawsuit claiming "they never had a chance" than it's 15 million dollars well spent, just in wasted time alone.
The gov doing what the gov does best. Screw things up and waste taxpayer money.
I am sure that you know an alternative which will not waste taxpayer money in every single case.
@@hellascommentor seems like you are all for people wasting your money. Since you are, send me some. It’s actually easy if you have a plane set with clear expectations prior to moving forward with a project. If you change the entire project scope along the way, of course you are not going to achieve anything within timelines or budget. Poor leadership and planning skills.
@@hawkman302 are you familiar with the Agile Methodology?
I agree with not changing the entire project scope is a very short period. This is definitely poor product vision and delivery.
@@hellascommentor I am. If they signed off to use a ship as the base, then change everything except the mid hull, that is outside the scope of with that, you have to set base parameters and everything within it can be figured out during the build process. They are trying to apply that from scratch after their build date. Poor leadership and planning.
@@hawkman302 then we probably agree. With better leadership and experience in controlling such high-risk projects and setting short-term goals that iterate to the final product, the taxpayers will be spent more efficiently. However, there would still be cases of waste of money as risks would also appear. It would not be a waste of money in a systemic way like in this case.
This is what happens when you have zero accountability for decades. Garbage in, garbage out. People should be jailed considering the vast sums of money wasted, stolen.
CODLAG isn't exactly new, it's already used in the Italian and French FREMM among others. I don't think the propulsion plant has anything to do with the problems of FFG-62, UNLESS the Navy decided to strip out the probably European-derived FREMM diesel generators, gas turbine and electric motors in favor of American equivalents which are dimensionally different and require major redesign of the engineering spaces to make them fit.
Thanks for calling it like you see it. I am a big fan of your site. 👍
Back in 2018 Canada was offered a $30billion CA fixed bid for 15 Fremm's which even included an early delivery where we would see our first ship by the end of 2019. Here we are today staring down a project that is a Type 26 variant, pushing $100billon CA, last year Irving Shipyards asked for $330million for renovations because the ship is too big for them to build, the gov gave them $463 million because well it's just tax payers money. They still haven't started the 1st one, construction documents aren't even signed, most likely won't see delivery of it until 2034 approx and the cherry on this banana split is Irving Shipyards can't even build a patrol ship, the arctic patrol ships they are building have been a complete piles of junk.
Actually slow rate production of Canadian Type 26 has already started.
@@niweshlekhak9646 As long as your definition of production is sweeping the parking lot and isn't cutting steel, or welding anything then one could claim that production has started
Outstanding video. As a retired automotive product development specialist, the Navy seems to have no project management skills despite having built ships for over 150 years. They sold this project based on minor design changes to an existing design but completely changed the design. That was the start of this disaster…
8:00 another comment to make about the hull design is the lack of the bulbous bow. the bulge at the front of the ship assists with hydrodynamic efficiency as the bulge makes it so the peak that starts the bow wave is in front of the knife edge of the bow. this is why larger ships like container and tanker ships have those huge tumors on the front under the water. it's all about that efficiency. i can understand moving the sonar array but removing the bulbous bow will cause more problems in the long run with fuel efficiency.
10:52 US Navy Vet.
things haven't been great for a while, i get that. but as people my parents' age are retiring and people my age come into those positions, things are going downhill much faster than any other time in my life.
I think it isn't mismanagement, it is LOOTTING.
100% this, there's corruption afoot.
It's actually simpler than that. Marinette Marine (under Fincanterri ownership or otherwise) is NOT QUALIFIED or COMPETENT enough to design or build the LCS, nevermind the larger Constellations. But, the Navy stuck with them because they desperately wanted to expand man of war construction beyond Bath, Ingalls and New Port News. Hence, they stuck with tem and live with the problems and delays, hoping that they'll get better over time.
Once we are broke, the necessity will force us to make better choices in vessel procurement.
Imagine if Joshua Humphreys worked like this.
I still dont get why they didnt just 100% copy FREMM for like 2 hulls.. Use them as test beds to have US Navy learn how to run them and then Constellation B which would be slightly enlarged.
Thanks Aaron, I thought we had problems in the UK but we are clearly not alone. I guess it all provides employment for a whole bunch of people, regardless of the eventual outcome.
Thank you for reporting this and not shilling for the establishment.
The moment they talked about modifying the design to the point it was lengthening the hull and changing the shape of the ship it made me very nervous. No idea it had gotten quite this bad, yikes. The surely they wont do a LCS again logic did not hold.
This is same development process used for the Freedom class LCS. Take a proven design and then change it without testing. To put it in perspective: something as simple as keeping the lights on is unbelievably difficult. Why? We took a proven generator design and then changed it. I expect the results of this ship to be incredibly similar to result produced by the Freedom class LCS.
"Move fast and break things" - sounds familiar?
@@piotrd.4850 welp.... a lot of things were certainly broken
24;24 Draw the Friggin Frigate first.🤯🤤😵💫
when a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
Corruption is as bold and blatant as ever in the DOD. That money was spent lining the pockets of individuals instead of getting the design and construction done.
The Navy/DoD uses EVMS (Earned Value Management System) for ship building. An easy way to plan and status is to use milestones and as you make milestones, you are X% complete. For drawings for instance, you have a 50% design (draft), 75% design (final draft), 90% design (Bill of Material is approved and nearly finalized), and 100% design (design is "baked" and drawings are approved.) Notice that there isnt a 25% design and just because it is 90% it just means that the design and design requirements are ready to begin procurement ... for that particular module of the ship. Not for the ship as a whole. I am not excusing the mismanagement of this build, as it is a clusterfrack, but helping to set expectations. I don't believe that SUPSHIPS believe that the ship is 50% complete.
I should have used better words. I meant the Ship Design during that entire segment.
Unfortunately, the navy will never be done asking for more changes because they need to spent more money.
Just assume there is "cognitive gap" between SUPSHIPS and the program management head in CNO (things like PEO Unmanned and Small Combatants)
@@picardtseng for a POR, this program shares issues akin to the dev of the A-12 Avenger II. They could learn a little something from that, I bet.
The entire reason for going from a 5" gun to a 57mm was to allow Austal to be bid their Bigger Crappy Ship. Nobody actually thinks a 57mm gun, particularly one that requires you send out sailors to lower the safety rails before you can shoot it (won't that be fun is SS5+), is actually better than a 5" gun for any purpose.
This kind of incompetence smells like corruption to me.
This is what happens when your executives work in a consequence free environment. No incentives for over performing, but no penalty for under delivering, or flat out failure.
Wow.. cutting steel without finalised designs... that's like the Brits with the Astute class and that ran into real problems before being "assisted" by experts from the electric boat company.
Thank you for making your presentation in this manner. The average American needs better understanding of what’s going on. Navy leadership is a mess of monumental proportions. Now start naming the people responsible. That would allow the people to specifically enhance the correspondence with our elected representatives. The Navy needs an enema of objective accountability.
"Don't give up the ship" takes on a whole new meaning.
great video, explains many things on how stuff is done.
I was nucleus crew for FF1078. Even this far into FF1052 class, there changes coming in from BuShips.
I guess bureaucrats never learn.
SAD
Thanks Chief Watch Dog. This is brilliant.
You're very welcome
You make a lot of sense. This is the kind of content I come around here for.
Thanks Jive!
$1b a frigate? Isn’t that just a little less than the Nimitz class was built for???
Well the new type 26 frigates of the royal navy costs around 1.4 billion each for the first batch of 5 with the price dropping to around 1 billion per ship for each ship in the second batch. With good reason seeing as the type 26 will be the most technologically advanced frigate in the world and that it can carry more or less the same armament as a destroyer
When a billion would make congress question spending and when a billion got you a real ship thst could actually do its damn job
I think they forgot what the word "functional" means.
Yes! I was watching naval vids last night and could not remember your name! Thankfully this vid came on a push to me!
Weird, when I filed my taxes in spring I could swear I was sure that the government NEVER would waste my hard earned money.
I suspect the Navy will argue that the metal work has to happen to preserve the industrial skill base and the Senators and Reps whose states and districts are going to line up to support because - money to their voters.
I thought you could talk about Admiral Burke
I attended the land based test sight for LSD-41 class propulsion system in Philadelphia. That plant was used extensively. Great video Aaron!
That hull is amazing. It is unpainted, unfinished, and full of holes, but can hold 7B dollars.
Well that's great man! We're screwed! Gotta love the military brass. We ground pounders are getting ahead of you this time! 🤠 Pentagon Wars, Part Deux.
Yep, I’m afraid this is an open and shut case.
10:55 I was army infantry but i enjoy listening to people who are subject experts.
As someone who has retired Navy family and works in non-military design/construction, I am jealous of the shipbuilding community's ability to retain contracts while not performing to the parameters of said contracts.
There are only three sites that produce navy ships AFAIK. They don't need to perform well at all. The navy has to use one of them, or all of them to avoid further atrophy of shipbuilding in America. Consequence free system yo.
Well done sir! I think we need to change your handle from Chief Jive Turkey to Master Chief Watch Dog. Please keep after these mofos, because apparently no one else is capable of it. This on going BS in building our Navy weakens our great nation. My dad was Air Force, but Tom Clancy made me a Navy fanboy. Our sailors need you Chief.
What is it with our Navy that they don't have a SOP for the development of ships??? 2 failed projects and still making mistakes?
14 min in is a GAO chart showing percentage completion of the modules. They even fucked that up! Unless no modules can ever be 91% complete.
As incompetent, or corrupt, as American naval shipbuilding has become I believe it would serve the nation well to take bids from foreign shipbuilders. Monopolies are inherently untrustworthy.