Don't worry guys, the adults are in charge and everything is totally under control.
Well, at least we're more diverse than ever?
And that's our real strength, right?
Yeah, the Navy is in bad shape with multiple shipbuilding projects in the works, and seemingly none of them are scheduled to finish anywhere close to on time. With many years away from completion.
The Navy today released a rare public accounting of major delays for key shipbuilding programs, with ships from nine programs running behind, in some cases up to three years.
In total, the Navy forecasts a cumulative delay of more than 11 years, at a time when lawmakers and Pentagon planners agree that the Navy needs to be modernizing and growing for a potential conflict in the Pacific.
Yeah, I mean, they're just a total of 11 years behind in making state-of-the-art military equipment.
Meanwhile, over in China...
No superpower has ever been sunk by falling a decade behind on military development, right? Can you think of a single time in history when a superpower was humiliated by a smaller fighting force that got the edge on them? Maybe we should ask the world-renowned "Invincible Armada" that Spain sent to invade England to depose Elizabeth I in 1588!
(The Persians at Salamis in 480 BC might also have thoughts.)
From the Breaking Defense report:
Among the notable delays as outlined by the report:
- The first Columbia-class submarine, built jointly by General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII, is projected to be between 12 and 16 months late.
- The fourth and fifth blocks of the Virginia-class submarine, also by Electric Boat and HII, are 36 and 24 months late.
- The first Constellation-class frigate from Fincantieri Marinette Marine is 36 months behind schedule.
- The future aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-80), built by HII, is approximately 18 to 26 months late.
(I wonder if all of the contractors who are building these ships are still seeing your tax dollars come through the door?)
Eisenhower would be rolling in his grave if he could see the state of the military-industrial complex today.
"When [Vice Adm. James Downey] and I started this review, we were looking at it from an internal [perspective]: What we were doing and how we were doing it. We weren't just looking at industry, we were also looking internally [at] how we were doing our business, how we were managing our relationships with our partners," Nickolas Guertin, the Navy's senior acquisition executive, told reporters at the Pentagon today.
"We found that we have issues that need to be resolved as well," he continued. "But we don't have all those things completely nailed down yet. We don't have detailed plans of action, milestones, initiatives - we are identifying and deeply looking into where we are now in a ‘get real, get better' approach."
These findings were the result of a 45-day review ordered back in January to examine the delays.
The contractors were not keen to discuss their problems staying on track with the media.
The plan to fix it? Well, it's the military, so we've got to create a new system.
Under a brief section described as "initiatives to improve," the document indicates the Navy will "generate a plan to address atrophy in national design and engineering workforce, refine acquisition and contract strategies, reimagine shipyard and skilled labor as a national asset, assess Navy workforce posture [and] budget for investments to improve performance and minimize delays."
I notice that when they need to have a real problem fixed, they don't include things like "increase diversity of race and gender" in their goals.
Well, anyway ... good luck to us. We're gonna need it.
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