FFG(X)

[Kat Tsun]

If FFGX is being delayed three years because some Admiral can't decide where to put a wall outlet, that is really sad.

Uh, no, it's because the U.S. and Italian navies have entirely different subcomponents (pumps, switchboards, breakers, fire mains, etc.), and the positions of those replacement American subcomponents, and perhaps the actual elements themselves, were not finalized before construction was ordered to begin...

Neither "some admiral" nor the Department of the Navy as a whole have any real control over that sort of thing though. C'est la vie.

Sure, the U.S. Navy doesn't have any real internal capacity before FFG(X) to "design" its own ships, since it flubbed DD-21 and spilled spaghetti on CGN(X), while both LCS had way more contractor input than Navy input, but whatever. That is why it's leaning on G&C and the Constellation redesign to pick a ship that actually works (FREMM), and adapt it to American requirements (FMM), so it can prepare to build a new vessel to replace the Ticos (DDG(X)) to regain this capacity internally.

Then maybe it will avoid the issues of LCS and a few other funky things. Hopefully there isn't a war in the meantime?

One of the few things the U.S. Navy has kept intact and whole since the '80's has been its combat systems development arm though. Aegis is pretty good. It can easily run a whole ship, as LCS shows, even if it doesn't like talking to TSCE. This is more to do with TSCE being a freaky PowerPC-based orphan soft sitting on a wacky crazy server, than Aegis being "old", though. Aegis has been x86 based for years now so it's relatively normal hardware-wise and easy to work on software-wise AIUI.

Zumwalt being an orphan ship with no commonality with the rest of the fleet might also contribute to it having sloppier everything too.

 

[MihoshiK]

Uh, no, it's because the U.S. and Italian navies have entirely different subcomponents (pumps, switchboards, breakers, fire mains, etc.), and the positions of those replacement American subcomponents, and perhaps the actual elements themselves, were not finalized before construction was ordered to begin...

Neither "some admiral" nor the Department of the Navy as a whole have any real control over that sort of thing though. C'est la vie.

Sure, the U.S. Navy doesn't have any real internal capacity before FFG(X) to "design" its own ships, since it flubbed DD-21 and spilled spaghetti on CGN(X), while both LCS had way more contractor input than Navy input, but whatever. That is why it's leaning on G&C and the Constellation redesign to pick a ship that actually works (FREMM), and adapt it to American requirements (G&C), so it can prepare to build a new vessel to replace the Ticos (DDG(X)) to regain this capacity internally.

Then maybe it will avoid the issues of LCS and a few other funky things. Hopefully there isn't a war in the meantime?

One of the few things the U.S. Navy has kept intact and whole since the '80's has been its combat systems development arm though. Aegis is pretty good. It can easily run a whole ship, as LCS shows, even if it doesn't like talking to TSCE. This is more to do with TSCE being a freaky PowerPC-based orphan soft sitting on a wacky crazy server, than Aegis being "old", though. Aegis has been x86 based for years now so it's relatively normal hardware-wise and easy to work on software-wise AIUI.

Zumwalt being an orphan ship with no commonality with the rest of the fleet might also contribute to it having sloppier everything too.

If so much work needed to be done it seems to me then that the USN is incapable of buying off-the-shelf, and any pretense of doing so was exactly that: A pretense.

Congress decided to hold the USN to what it said it had done, buy an existing design. Surely building should start soon, right? RIGHT?

 

[Firefinder]

FYI when I mention Aegis I was list it as part of all the stuff. Specifically how all the different parts needs to work together and the like.

And everyone should know that just because it works in the labs, doesn't mean it be issue free come going to prime time. Something always going to pop up and be a pain to fix. That standard stuff.

If so much work needed to be done it seems to me then that the USN is incapable of buying off-the-shelf, and any pretense of doing so was exactly that: A pretense.

Congress decided to hold the USN to what it said it had done, buy an existing design. Surely building should start soon, right? RIGHT?

Thats more on the Ship yard then Navy boss.

These ARE off the shelf kit, literally using alot of standard gear all other ships in the navy use.
They not going ti buy Italian gear, that just going to balloon the cost and cause unneed and unwanted issues in a few years time.

If it even works with US Standard gear like you know, the power supply set up.

Even that is Standard problems for new ships, figuring out where everything goes cause we cant model that yet. We have to build and figure that out on its own.

The real issue is not on the Navy.

Its on the Yard.

No matter what congress screams its not going to go any faster. The Navy done all it can and it shows. With the bits the Navy fucking with are the bits they should be to make it build easier. Congress just fucking played itself by ordering a freeze.

It ALL ON THE YARD.


The Yard trying trying to do a 20 man job with 5 men.

Just like there no replacement for displacement

Theres no replacement for Skill Labor.

Until that Yard boots up it manpower.

Which they are having issue with due to location and Congress Mandate security requirements.

The build speed is still going to be slow.

 

[aonestudio]

The US Navy has fallen victim to the British disease

‘Want of frigates’ is stamped upon my heart

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Scott Kenny]

FYI when I mention Aegis I was list it as part of all the stuff. Specifically how all the different parts needs to work together and the like.

And everyone should know that just because it works in the labs, doesn't mean it be issue free come going to prime time. Something always going to pop up and be a pain to fix. That standard stuff.


Thats more on the Ship yard then Navy boss.

These ARE off the shelf kit, literally using alot of standard gear all other ships in the navy use.
They not going ti buy Italian gear, that just going to balloon the cost and cause unneed and unwanted issues in a few years time.

If it even works with US Standard gear like you know, the power supply set up.

Even that is Standard problems for new ships, figuring out where everything goes cause we cant model that yet. We have to build and figure that out on its own.

The real issue is not on the Navy.

Its on the Yard.

No matter what congress screams its not going to go any faster. The Navy done all it can and it shows. With the bits the Navy fucking with are the bits they should be to make it build easier. Congress just fucking played itself by ordering a freeze.

It ALL ON THE YARD.


The Yard trying trying to do a 20 man job with 5 men.

Just like there no replacement for displacement

Theres no replacement for Skill Labor.

Until that Yard boots up it manpower.

Which they are having issue with due to location and Congress Mandate security requirements.

The build speed is still going to be slow.

FFS, the Virginia class was all designed on CAD and they walked a 6ft tall virtual sailor through the passageways before the first steel was cut for the hull.

Same for the Columbia class.

 

[Kat Tsun]

If so much work needed to be done it seems to me then that the USN is incapable of buying off-the-shelf, and any pretense of doing so was exactly that: A pretense.

Congress decided to hold the USN to what it said it had done, buy an existing design. Surely building should start soon, right? RIGHT?

Yeah, well like TomS said, the Navy's hands are tied. What are they gonna do? Say "no" to their bosses when they say "start building"?

Instead of letting the Navy just do its job, one it has gotten a bit rusty at so delays should be expected, they've been bearing down on admirals over delays. Congress is now going to make it illegal for it to pressure its own fleet to build ships faster I guess in a typical over correction, so there's that.

House poised to require '100 percent' ship design from Navy prior to construction - Breaking Defense

The more specific policy language would close apparent loopholes the Pentagon had been using and force a major change compared to how previous programs had been run.

breakingdefense.com

This will be interesting to see how it affects America's already sluggish shipbuilding as some level of concurrency is necessary to be fast.

 

[Hood]

I don't think you could ever call the Constellations "off the shelf", the differences were massively evident at the beginning of the programme. I doubt that there is any commonality at all in structure or systems by now.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I don't think you could ever call the Constellations "off the shelf", the differences were massively evident at the beginning of the programme. I doubt that there is any commonality at all in structure or systems by now.

I'd expect commonality in gross structures, but that's about it.

 

[Cordy]

I don't think you could ever call the Constellations "off the shelf", the differences were massively evident at the beginning of the programme. I doubt that there is any commonality at all in structure or systems by now.

Navy officials stated originally Constellation had 85% commonality with the Italian FREMM but that is now less than 15% so it has morphed into a totally different ship from when contract signed in April 2020 due to the 70+% changes and not a single one of the ships' Grand Modules design is as yet 100% complete - Grand Modules is new Navy obtuse terminology for Blocks in plain English. Congress mandated in 2020 that design must be "complete" before build, as the Navy didn't understand the meaning of the word "complete" in the FY2025 NDAA House legislators are changing the wording to "100% complete".

It’s a wonder how Fincantieri managed complete 3.6% construction let alone the 35.5% scheduled with not a single one of the 37 blocks design has yet to be completed four years after contract award.

As the new ship with all the Navy changes has seen a 10% weight growth its looking like a repeat of the LCS disaster.

 

[Kat Tsun]

As the new ship with all the Navy changes has seen a 10% weight growth its looking like a repeat of the LCS disaster.

Well, when you get the guys who did LCS-1 to do your frigate, your frigate will look like LCS-1.

 

[Jimmo952]

Well, when you get the guys who did LCS-1 to do your frigate, your frigate will look like LCS-1.

The LCS guys are retired by now. That the FFGX is also a problem points to an institutional/cultural issue.

 

[Firefinder]

FFS, the Virginia class was all designed on CAD and they walked a 6ft tall virtual sailor through the passageways before the first steel was cut for the hull.

Same for the Columbia class.

And it still took what? Nearly a year more to build the Virginia then it did the Texas. Eyeah that was cause of Issues they found in constuction they fix and input into the cad files

With Columbia having its own issues.

Lead Ships always take longer to build cause what works in Paper or Cad rarely works in real life.

All this is on the Yard to do with the Navy merely rubber stamping or rejecting it base on a multi volume list of regs and like.

Sticking 4 Aesa type radar faces on a design not original design for it was always going to cause problems. Those face are what? nearly 10 tons each dry? With them being neaely 30 foot above the surface? like 15 above the deck.

Thats alot of weight you need to balance and support on a design that never had it in ANY of its variations. Basically have redesign every structural member to take the weight and redesign where everything goes to ensure the balance is right. Then you need to factor innthe Cable runs, the cooling system, the data lines and all other fun stuff you need to ensure not only fit but is accessible for maintenance.

All that work is done by the Yards. Even in the days of BruShips the Yards engineers often moded the design to ensure it properly balanced and all the stuff fits.

Throw in the Yard under bidded like hell to get the contract? With the navy buying in cause congress whats shit cheap?

Plus the lack of workers?

Makes tge entire show look like a mess.

It may looks like they are just fooling around but once you actually look into the details and have a knowledge of how ship work?

You see that yhe Navy is doing everything it can to get a half decent ship that will not sink in the first storm it hits. Cause the Yard LIED to them and told them it be an easy cheap conversion. And by trying to fix the Mistakes made, makes them look like idiots. Which while partly true, never should have drop inhouse designers, they do have a method that works. With them try to leverage it to get a ship that will not capsize and operatable in, think its Sea State 7...

While the Yard also scrambling to fix themselves since they realize they but off more then they can chew. resulting in all types of fun delays we already went over.

So while the Navy may have several issues to fix causing delays.

The Yard is the sole cause of a large majority of the issues.

Thats before Congress sticks their amauter hour everything in it and cause even more issues in their ignorance.

 

[Scott Kenny]

And it still took what? Nearly a year more to build the Virginia then it did the Texas. Eyeah that was cause of Issues they found in constuction they fix and input into the cad files

Better comparison would be Virginia versus Hawaii, both completed at EB. NNS took a long time to figure out how to build submarines.

 

[timmymagic]

The US Navy has fallen victim to the British disease

‘Want of frigates’ is stamped upon my heart

www.telegraph.co.uk

To be honest this does happen, but often for good reasons. The same papers that criticise the MoD and DoD for doing this would also hammer them if 'x platform was purchased that couldn't communicate with y platform'....

Perhaps there needs to be a rule that there is an arbitrary percentage, say 10% of the value, that you can tinker with. Anything more than that and it goes back for approval and to see if building a new, homegrown, design makes more sense.

But there also needs to be a real acceptance that perfect is the enemy of good, and that sometimes the 80% solution is good enough...

 

[Kat Tsun]

The LCS guys are retired by now. That the FFGX is also a problem points to an institutional/cultural issue.

The "LCS guys" are the managers and marketers at FMM who told the Navy they could build LCS cheaply like a sea pickup truck. What did FMM guys tell the Navy about FREMM? Who, lacking internal development staff of sufficient quantity, took them at their word?

"100% complete prelim" will be interesting because you often have to go back and revisit these prelims during construction. What sort of magic law rituals will the Navy or contractors need to do if they find out they have to move a cable drop eight inches to the left to make space for a bulkhead because they had to make a duct a bit bigger? How many months will that take?

It will be a mess, over something that could have been solved by a brief few-months delay in the beginning, but is now a multi-year delay.

 

[Cordy]

To be honest this does happen, but often for good reasons. The same papers that criticise the MoD and DoD for doing this would also hammer them if 'x platform was purchased that couldn't communicate with y platform'....

Perhaps there needs to be a rule that there is an arbitrary percentage, say 10% of the value, that you can tinker with. Anything more than that and it goes back for approval and to see if building a new, homegrown, design makes more sense.

But there also needs to be a real acceptance that perfect is the enemy of good, and that sometimes the 80% solution is good enough...

Disagree as one the basic lessons learned from the successful Far East shipyards is you do not start build until the design is 100% complete, not 90% but 100% (often the last 10% is the hardest) and components are available. Fincantieri won the competition to build the Constellation to the Navy with a design that had 85% commonality with the Italian FREMM for 10 ships, its not as if the Navy did not know what they were buying as they had set the detailed specifications.

The GAO report was unsparing in laying the blame at the Navy’s feet for tinkering with the new ship’s design.

Congress in 2020 made it law that that Navy did not start build until design is complete which Navy willfully ignored, if you require changes for any reason you do it by iterative new buys and also have the discipline to off ramp any capabilities that present a risk to schedule.

As a result of the Navy never ending tinkering with the design its now four years after the contract award not one of the 39 Blocks designs is completed, delivery delayed by 3 years at best and the weight estimate has increased by more than 10% with the Navy now admitting that will result in reduced speed and assuming many tons of lead ballast will be required to maintain the ships stability, all ships grow in weight over the years, classic example is the Burke, that being the case the overweight Constellation looks like its lifetime will be short as it will not be able to incorporate future upgrades.

Reminds me of what the legendary Kelly Johnson of the Skunk Work fame said -
"Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed part of your anatomy."

 

[Rhinocrates]

Angry Planet has a look at the issue. I am not a lawyer, so make up your own mind.

Ships: America Doesn't Build Them Like It Used To (Or at All) | Angry Planet

America has the largest navy in the history of the world. It isn’t great at maintaining it.

shows.acast.com

Ships: America Doesn't Build Them Like It Used To (Or at All)​

•
Friday, May 31, 2024
A lot goes into keeping a navy afloat. There’s ship husbanding, maintenance, and buckets of haze gray. The U.S. used to be good at this, but it hasn’t been on an active war-footing for a long time and the manufacturing base that created its massive navy has seen better days. So what happens if there’s a war and America doesn’t have enough welders, let alone drydocks, to build out its fleets?

Gil Barndollar is a senior analyst at Defense Priorities and the co-author of a recent piece in Foreign Policy about America’s inability to build new ships. Barndollar sounds the alarm on a number of different issues facing the U.S. military: the recruitment crisis, manufacturing issues, and sailors pushed to the limits of their physical abilities.

We might even talk about arming container ships with missile batteries to augment existing forces.

The U.S. Navy Can’t Build Ships

Decades of deindustrialization and downsizing have left America without shipyards to build and maintain a fleet.

foreignpolicy.com

 

[Rhinocrates]

Speaking of procurement, Bill Sweetman's/Low Observable's thoughts of the F-35 might be applicable in principle as they are on the F-35 (although obviously the frigate isn't going to be VTOL, however cool that might be). I get the impression is that the overall principle is that limiting what changes you need to make is critical. Design creep is death, so start where you want to go.

Bill Sweetman shares 10 ways GCAP can avoid the hell of the F-35 project with little or no effort

You hear a lot of “the Global Combat Air Programme’s going to cost just as much and take as long as the F-35 has, so why bother?” Based on the work I did for TRILLION DOLLAR TRAINWRECK (now availab…

hushkit.net

 

[Shoes31]

The Yard is the sole cause of a large majority of the issues.

How is it the yards fault when originally it was expected that FFG(X) would share 85% parts commonalty, but because of the Navy moving goalposts and changing designs its now down to 15%? Seems to me that is an issue with the program managers, which is directed by the Navy, not the yard.

 

[bobbymike]

Where’s all this fancy “quantum AI digital engineering” whatever helping speed up weapon’s acquisition?

 

[Shoes31]

Where’s all this fancy “quantum AI digital engineering” whatever helping speed up weapon’s acquisition?

Yeah the Chinese are using AI to lay out the electrical schematics and place those pesky electrical outlets, why not us? There's an AI gap!

 

[Grey Havoc]

F-35, Israel win big in House appropriators' $833B draft defense bill - Breaking Defense

The HAC-D's version of the spending bill contains a heavy focus on culture war issues, but does increase spending for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Defense Innovation Unit.

breakingdefense.com

In shipbuilding, House appropriators funded two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, one San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, and one Virginia-class submarine — a notable difference from the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense policy bill, which authorized additional advanced procurement funding for a second ship.

In another significant omission, the spending bill and its summary do not lay out any funding for the Constellation-class frigate. The Navy requested about $1 billion in funds for the first ship in FY25, but it appears House appropriators may follow the HASC in zeroing out funding.