Costly Lesson on How Not to Build a Navy Ship

[maddezmom]

By PHILIP TAUBMAN
Published: April 25, 2008
~snip~

A Shipbuilding Program’s Troubles Moments before the launching on Sept. 23, 2006, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chief of naval operations, told the festive crowd of shipbuilders, politicians and Navy brass assembled at the Marinette Marine shipyard, “Just a little more than three years ago, she was just an idea; now Freedom stands before us.”

Not quite. The ship — the first of a new class of versatile, high-speed combat vessels designed to operate in coastal waters — was indeed bobbing in the river, just four months after the promised launching date. But it was far from finished. In fact, the ship floats there still, work continuing day and night.

A project heralded as the dawning of an innovative, low-cost era in Navy shipbuilding has turned into a case study of how not to build a combat ship. The bill for the ship, being built by Lockheed Martin, has soared to $531 million, more than double the original, and by some calculations could be $100 million more. With an alternate General Dynamics prototype similarly struggling at an Alabama shipyard, the Navy last year temporarily suspended the entire program.

The program’s tribulations speak to what military experts say are profound shortcomings in the Pentagon’s acquisitions system. Even as spending on new projects has risen to its highest point since the Reagan years, being over budget and behind schedule have become the norm: a recent Government Accountability Office audit found that 95 projects — warships, helicopters and satellites — were delayed 21 months on average and cost 26 percent more than initially projected, a bill of $295 billion

more:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us/25ship.html?ref=washington

[Ganja Ninja]

1. We can't do anything right anymore.

It's like we're the Russians after the fall of Communism. We suck at everything.

[izquierdista]

2. Not quite

The Russians have producing oil wells; ours are run dry.

[Mist]

3. Like "The Producers," many corporations have found that failure pays better

than doing it right.

[Z.e.r.o]

4. the "Pentagon Wars" pt. Deux

[bemildred]

5. It's not the "aquisition system", it's the corrupt, incompetent weasels in the private sector.

The defense bidness is rotten to the core.

[greenvpi]

6. On the positive side

this is one less killing machine on the high seas.

Thankfully we have incompetent and dishonest people supplying the military, or our military would be able to kill even more people.

[JPZenger]

7. Lockhead Martin Also Screwed up Coast Guard Cutter Construction

http://seekingalpha.com/article/32751-lockheed-northrop-face-probe-over-coast-guard-program-cost-overruns

The above article describes how Lockhead Martin and Northrup jointly screwed up the construction of a new generation of Coast Guard cutters.

Part of the problem is that contracts seemed to be assigned based upon the political power of the local US Senators and House members vs. past performance and ability.