The new destroyer you mention, the DDG1000 is a complete mess. The Navy made a mess of the acquisition and specified all kinds of overcomplicated junk and a remedial propulsion motor. The cost is criminal. The faster this thing becomes a reef, the better.

I'm with you on upgrading the old Iowa Class. Those are great ships. The armor is a little irrelevant these days for symmetric warfare, but certainly help when Iranians point 50 cal machine guns at them (will shoot a hole in a DDG51, but not one of these). I know a lot about Navy ships and subs, but not so much about airplanes. I do NOT understand why they don't just upgrade the F16 with new electronics, and make a new series. Those are great and cheap. Does anyone know a real technical reason some of these old airframes can not be reworked, instead of designing a new platform?

My error. The $4B was for the new destroyer class. The latest big carrier, the USS Gerald Ford is actually going to run over $14B. Remember, however, that unit costs advertised are based on a production run of a certain number, so don't be surprised if the LCS unit cost is much higher if the number of units is less than originally planned. The X-35 was originally supposed to cost about $20M a copy, but with the technical difficulties dogging the program, the numbers were cut, and now the unit cost is more like $200M an aircraft.

Wikipedia, for one:

A day before the offer's expiration, both Lockheed Martin and Austal USA received Navy contracts for an additional ten ships of their designs; two ships of each design being built each year between 2011 and 2015. Lockheed Martin's LCS-5 had a contractual price of $437 million, Austal USA's contractual price for LCS-6 was $432 million. On 29 December 2010, Department of Navy Undersecretary Sean Stackley noted that the program was well within the Congressional cost cap of $480 million per ship. The average per-ship target price for Lockheed ships is $362 million, Stackley said, with a goal of $352 million for each Austal USA ships. Government-furnished equipment (GFE), such as weapons, add about $25 million per ship; another $20 million for change orders, and "management reserve" is also included. Stackley declared the average cost to buy an LCS should be between $430 million and $440 million.[113] In the fiscal year 2011, the unit cost was $1.8 billion and the program cost $3.7 billion.[114]

However, here is a different perspective:

The cost is currently about $358 million for the Freedom version and headed down to a low of $348.5 million. (Note these figures are for the ship itself and don’t include military equipment, such as weapons, that the government purchases separately, which can add over $100 million). The price has dropped steeply since the mismanaged early days of the program, when the Navy changed the design of LCS-1 and -2 midway through construction. Now the price is starting to level out. Costs will eventually climb back up slightly: After years of making LCS manufacture more efficient, the shipyard is reaching diminishing returns, while inflation in labor and materials is beginning to catch up.
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/07/lc...

Either way, pretty pricey for something no one seems to want, and they are sort of making up missions as they go. So, the cost could be lesser. BTW, I last heard Gerald Fords cost was 14.2 Billion to get commissioned, and that has been delayed until 2017.

Where are you getting the price of LCS? The ships are more like $300M a copy, not that I want to defend them. $4B is on the order of a Nimitz (CVN 78 was more).

That goes with what I have heard too. Most of my contacts have gotten out recently mainly because of a perceived lack of concern for the enlisted and a total lack of real esprit de corps, due to it being a puppet command now that dances to whatever political tune plays.

I hear from my Navy enlisted buddies that they hate this decision. I am just a civilian, but I can run an EPCP or RPCP on 5W, 6G or 8G. Could probably do 9G too, but I designed them, never played with one.

There are lots of options, I am sure the big guns could be converted to use newe ammunition. It is a question of will, and commitment. Their day may yet come... Good points, Doc. :)

That might be true, I left at the height of Trident. I do agree that were they to issue a spec and ask for bids, and stay out of the design arena, a better product would ensue.

I did remember the 16" projectiles are no longer available, which I why I suggested a sabot that would contain four of the 5" rounds to replace the big ammo. With nine barrels that would allow 36 projectiles in the air in a short period, and that doesn't include any that could come from existing 5" cannon upgraded to the LCS configuration.

When I was a project manager in the Air Force, our procurement staff were almost all military engineers or scientists. We depended on civilian government accountants to keep an eye on budgets. Since then, because of an inability to attract technical personnel, program management has been almost exclusively by money management. As a contractor I was horrified to see projects that were failing miserably technically receiving awards because their budgets were on schedule. I also saw good contractor program managers that were right on the money technically being harshly criticized because they weren't spending the program money exactly on schedule.

One reason we don't build or refurbish many big warships is because only the Norfolk, Virginia shipyard can handle them, and they're kept busy building aircraft carriers. We used to have several yards that could build big ships. When they weren't building warships, they were building big merchant vessels. Thanks to overregulation and outrageous union demands, we no longer build or have under the U.S. flag any merchant ships, relying entirely on foreign-flagged shipping to transport U.S. goods. Government mismanagement at its worst.

Sorry, I am quite frustrated with the Navy right now.
SHT is a PITA. It has given shipbuilders trouble for a long time. I was actually serious about VA Class and TRIDENT being model acquisition programs. TRIDENT had IP everywhere and sole-sourced components after the competition. Every single TRIDENT took less manhours to build than the previous one. The last one took one-half the manhours of the first. VA has a good learning curve too. The Navy abandoned these acquisition models, in favor of pretend Sec 845 DDG1000 and LCS. No one ever goes back and reconsiders successes and failures.

RADM Jabley is the head of PEO Subs. He has nothing to do with Surface Ships acq. PEO Ships is RADM Galinis now, taking over for Dave Gale (great guy). To get to the guy responsible for all Navy acq, you have to go to ASN RDA, Sean Stackley, or his chief of staff, VADM Dave Johnson (really great guy). If you are a submariner, you know there is another subtle (ish) big voice in the mix, rarely heard from directly, NR, ADM Caldwell now.

In my experience, the military industrial complex pressures are often better for the taxpayer than the decisions of bureaucrats. I can site several great technologies that required industry to go get congressional support because the Navy leadership lacked the vision and intestinal fortitude.

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision."
I love biblical quotes. You can find one for any topic.

Sounds like a very reasonable argument .
So That would be strike one. Reason is not helpful when money is no object.
As far as the massive ships a Bob Dylan lyric comes to mind "may you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift".

OK, calm down, the Navy has never been anything near "forthright". They can not afford to be. Admirals fear the budget knife on any project that runs into problems. The guy they need to put in charge of acquisition is the Rear Admiral I saw in a video who was spearheading the production in the late 90s or so. He was my weapons officer on the USS Will Rogers, and I was flabbergasted to see him on the video. He (I think) set up the initial production program). However, they have had their issues, one of which is the rubber coating on the hull:

http://nextnavy.com/virginia-class-su...

Again, analyizing problems and solving them is not a new art, there is Lean 6 Sigma (of which I am a green belt), as well as various Lean tools recognized as simple problem solving (such as the 5 Why method). Since we cannot get a large civilian company to adopt them (they give lip service only), I doubt we will get the military or polticos too, too much pressure to skim money and votes. It also goes back to many theories about how many pressures are exherted by the military-industrial complex and it's pieces on a specific program. The "we will go out of business" threat is powerful in certain circumstances.

Easy, we are not beholding to anyone for our existence. We own our lives and do not answer to our masters as the multitudes seem to think they need to. I know many people who will support a candidate despite disagreeing with them, because they are the "right party". Party politics is another way to describe totalitarianism.

No argument Doc. I bet they could do a full overhaul, replace most of the manual systems with automation, and cut the crew by 50%. A lot of age issues can always be repaired or replaced, they did quit making all the ammunition decades ago, which was another justification for dumping them. The AF made a hard move to kill the A10, but apparently they were told no, as their replacement concept was very expensive and no one wanted to sponsor it. While advanced technology is great, the current military procurement system is government ran, government created and of course is typically government inefficient.

Too expensive!!? Compared to the $4B a copy of the LCS? There is a fascination with "newness" without regard to rational thought. The A-10 "Warthog" is still one of the most effective close air support weapons in the inventory, while the F-35 is an economic and performance catastrophe!

"The Navy is forthright about the failures"? Really, EMALS and AAG have failed, even though 20 years ago we put in the power systems to support their needs, and gave the supplier gobs of $. Then your genius Navy decided to acquire the OHIO Replacement Program, using the same failed communist acquisition strategies that caused the CVN78 (Ford Class) disasters. Before that the LCS (little crappy ship) mess. Before that the DDG1000/Zumwalt/SC2000/"you name it program" floating (barely) 14,000 tonnes of target/reef.
Before that...
VIRGINIA Class Submarine...lovely, adult development, with controlled costs and great technology... Let ignore that "successful outlier"! We can't have people seeing government and industry cooperation again. They (pick your subject) are the enemy! ...Before that, SEAWOLF, techically awesome, but everyone is out of business/we have no idea why it works...Before that TRIDENT, great program partnership with industry and the government... what have we learned here? Nothing.

Please do support your assertion with specific examples of the Navy admitting failures. They are a little better than the others, but ANY could be crushed by a business developing real equipment for real needs, like they do every day!

How come we're so smart and the rest of the great multitudes are so dumb? I guess it is a matter of, "In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

You are correct Herb. The failure is that governments #1 job now is to line the pockets of their sponsors, pass their legislation and come up with silly rescue plans to recover from those same policies after they have milked it for all it is worth. Defence is #8 or 9 on the list, right after increasing the federal parks...

Doc, that was a common theme in the 70's and 80's amongst most sailors, the shock and awe power of 16" guns and the capability of the BB to withstand damage was one of the big points. Due to the lack of advanced control technology, they decided they were too expensive. You are correct though, they draw about 36' which allows access to most of the same areas, and they could have swatted most weapons.

I never did like the idea of the Littoral Combat Ship. For the life of me I couldn't see the sense in creating a more fragile, lighter vessel with the aim of getting nice and close to the shoreline where land based weapons can reach the ship more easily. I always considered that role for the torpedo boats, which were small, fast, and hard to hit.

Besides being underarmored, the LCS is underarmed, with a single rapid fire five inch gun. If that weapon fails, the LCS is unarmed. On top of all that, it's incredibly expensive, running into the multiple billions of dollars a copy.

After I finish my rant about what's wrong with the LCS, people ask me what I would have done instead. I would have given the big battle wagons another refit. They can't get as close to the shore as the LCS, but they don't have to, thanks to drones that can give them the long range eyes.

The big ships are about as invulnerable as anything that's ever put to sea, and modern antiship missiles would bounce off of the 18" belt armor like airgun pellets. Sabots would allow the 16" cannon to send four of the five inch smart rounds down range with each shot, and the existing five inch guns could be upgraded to the LCS configuration. The big ships already have vertical launch tubes for Tomahawks, with plenty of real estate for anti-aircraft, anti-missile weapons.

Further automation would serve to reduce the shipboard population from 1,500 to about 300. I'm betting we could have revamped the old ships like the USS New Jersey for a lot less than the cost of the newer more fragile ships favored by Navy brass these days. Match that with unmanned swarms of even smaller, faster torpedo boats, and our force projection would be something to reckon with.

Well, Nick, you can't have everything. Do you want a navy that looks good or is good? Don't you realize appearance is everything? Who cares if stuff doesn't work, just be proud of the navy's great history. Why do you think people still visit the Alamo?

Now, let us get serious. What is the reason for governments at all? It is to PROTECT ITS CITIZENS. That is job #1. If we err by paying too much for our military, we err for the good. Total up all the financial disasters the government make by funding nonsense and put those funds toward reality. Never gonna happen with Obama and further with Mrs. Clinton. It would take too much away from their needle work lining their pockets.

Nice, I just followed the Navy since I had a great uncle who was a CO of a submarine in WW2. I originally was going to fly as an Aviation Antisubmarine Warfare Operator, but they had a thing in boot camp where they made submarines sound so much better. I did fly on a P3 once and that was a wild ride, especially since they were Reservists, and more prone to thinking out of the box.

I also am not sure of the relationship with the real Navy, the reserve navy and the Naval Militias I am unfamiliar with. The rating thing was good because it ensured you got the right guy for the job. When you go to the MOS system you get a person, and hope he is related to what is needed. Maybe they are so generic today they can get away with it, but a good submarine sonar man was a lot better than an excellent firecontrol tech at fixing and using their equipment. My son, an E7 in the Army, says you never know who shows up, as they get the MOS things wrong consistently and he gets a baker assigned to a tank repair unit because of it...

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Thank you, also, for your service. I never would have been part of any military organization when I was young. I have been an Ayn Rand egoist since I was 16.

You obviously know a lot about naval warfare. I do not. So, I am not going to try to contradict any of your technical points above.

I will offer that your opinions on the sociology of the military are not much different than I would share about General Motors, Ford, Kawasaki, or Honda. GM was the worst of them. (I only worked tangentially with Chrysler as a client of my employer, but I would never buy one of their vehicles on a dare.)Organizations are what they are and physical laws about scale (square-cube; inverse square; etc.) pretty much dictated that the brontosaurus had two brains, one of them in its ass.

Yet, they continue. Every army, navy, corporation, company, co-operative, or collective has the same kinds of weaknesses. But they continue because they also have survival traits. I do not know what an "individualist army" would look like. I do know that the trader ethos is more flexible and resilient than the guardian ethos. I have tried to outline how the commercial morality would be applied to private security.
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...

Respectfully,
MEM

(PS: I just removed from my cache a snapshot of a bumpersticker I took in front of the Texas Military Museum: "American by birth. Submariner by choice." I sent it to someone I worked with this summer.)

Wish it was true. I do not have any faith our CinC now or future has a real clue as to capabilities and resources. I am glad I don't have to put up with it. It is easier to shine a light on truth in business, since making money is more of an obvious thing than winning a future battle. It is the cost of failure that is higher then, though.