Over a Fifth of Navy Ships Aren’t Ready to Fight

[n2doc]

Spencer Ackerman July 13, 2011 | 10:51 am | Categories: Navy



More than a fifth of the Navy isn’t ready to sail or fight, at a time when demand on the fleet is off the charts. And the number of unready ships is likely to rise as Navy officers try to fix their chronic readiness woes.

According to statistics released by Rep. Randy Forbes, the Virginia Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, 22 percent of Navy ships didn’t pass their inspections in 2011. In 2007, just 8 percent of ships were rated as carrying junk equipment or insufficient spare parts. And more than half the Navy’s deployed aircraft — the F/A-18 Hornets, the jamming EA-18G Growlers, the P-3C Orion surveillance plane — aren’t ready for combat.

The Navy’s surface fleet goes into the water banged up. Its aircraft carriers, frigates, destroyers spend nearly 40 percent of their deployment time with “at least one major equipment or systems failure,” according to a chart Forbes released at a hearing on Tuesday. That can include “anti-air defenses, radar, satellite communications, or engines.” Let’s not forget that even the new ships are disintegrating.

And the demand on the Navy is huge. Consider the last year at sea. U.S. Navy ships and aircraft performed support missions for Iraq and Afghanistan. They helped with disaster relief after Pakistani floods and a Japanese tsunami/earthquake. They fought Somali pirates and spearheaded an ongoing war in Libya.

more
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/over-a-fifth-of-navy-ships-arent-ready-to-fight/

[leveymg]

1. Time to get smarter with less. Consolidate, downsize. We're not going to rule the world, anymore.

The whole country is falling apart. Get our priorities straight - building billion dollar patrol boats to chase pirates isn't smart.

[krispos42]

25. We need either fewer missions or more ships.

One reason we have bases overseas is that it is cheaper to build a base on land to stage airplanes and troops out of then to build a fleet of ships to accomplish the same goal.

But, with hundreds of bases overseas, it seems we could consolidate many of them and use the money to buy a few more ships instead.

By consolidating the bases, we get less redundancy of effort, too.

[unhappycamper]

40. Some of the new ships on the way:

Twenty $500 million LCS ships. (The first one was $584 million dollars and the second one cost $704 million dollars.)

Three $5+ billion dollar destroyers. (The first two of the DDG-1000 class were expensive, so congress ordered three more.)

The $40 billion dollar USS Gerald R Ford. (Prior Nimitz-class carriers cost around $4.5 billion dollars if you keep the overtime down.)

And of course, two annual Virginia-class submarines to the tune of around $10 billion dollars.

[Major Hogwash]

49. Because terrorists use submarines now?

I didn't know about the USS Gerald R Ford.
Is it bigger than the previous versions?

The fucking shit just keeps piling up.

[unhappycamper]

52. Prior to the GHW Bu$h, Nimitz-class carriers costed $4.5 billion dollars.

The GHW Bu$h cost $6.8 billion dollars due to mucho overtime. (They wanted poppy to christen it before he goes to another existence.)

The Gerald R Ford is a new class of carrier and you can bet your bippy it's gonna be a lot more expensive than previous Nimitz-class carriers. Fortunately the EMALS launching system was cancelled as was the Navy's rain gun. Unfortunately they are about an order of magnitude more expensive than their predecessors. :(

[MADem]

2. That's entirely unsurprising. We've been robbing Peter (the US NAVY) to pay Paul (the US Army)

since "Nahn Wun Wun changed ever-thang."

Not only have they stripped personnel from the USN, they've also stripped out fuel allowances and maintenance funding. USAF is in a similar boat.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. This is standard MIC propaganda

Fear + Greed = Profits.

The US Navy might be feeling a bit like a stepchild what with all the new drone technology sucking up resources. America is going all in on robotic killing machines.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. No it is not, when hubby was still in

scavenging was very common, for parts.

It's gotten worst.

Like the USSR ... we are looking more and more like the USSR.

[Vinnie From Indy]

16. This is textbook propaganda

While it is most certainly possible that the US Navy has old ships and ships with outdated or failing systems, it is an entirely different matter to make billion dollar decisions based on these numbers. The fact is that the US Navy has tens of thousands of ships and pieces of equipment. It is the largest navy on the planet. One could easily argue I believe that the percentages of non-operational ships and systems is simply a matter of the largest navy having so many ships that some are bound to be at the end of their useful lives. Attrition is hardly a reason to throw more money at the US navy when the country is literally being starved to death by our military commitments now.

In addition, one can easily argue that the nature of war has significantly changed and the US Navy can be fully capable and effective without a gargantuan number of vessels at 100% operational effectiveness.

I am simply not buying the argument that the US Navy is in danger of being ineffective against any threat posed to our country. This "story" is a list of talking points that will be used by all those that stand to gain financially from new acquisitions by the US Navy and the politicians who have districts that have significant defense contractor dollars flowing through it.

[Lasher]

18. And it comes as part of a barrage of propaganda to thwart defense spending cuts.

This is supposed to make us feel good when we increase defense spending yet again this year while we cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. The US Navy does not have tens of thousands of ships

that would take personnel in the millions.

I see you have no clue what you are talking about...

Here, actual FORCE LEVEL

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm#2000

Try to learn, before spouting shit like this.

Have a good day.

[tkmorris]

23. I don't think he meant just ships in that figure

He said "ships and pieces of equipment".

Let's not shout and curse at each other OK? It's counterproductive.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. In navy parlance that is ships

even with squadrons of both choppers and planes, we do not reach tens of thousands.

If we chose to count scalpels and surgical equipment, as well as cooking gear, then you are absolutely right.

I just get annoyed at things like this that are less than factual.

The problem with the MIC is not what is in the field... personnel and equipment have always had issues... and cannibalizing to keep things in the field has been quite SOP... it is the RESEARCH and ACQUISITION side where the billions are spent.

[Obamanaut]

43. The Navy also has tow tractors to move aircraft around; many, many

automobiles; test equipment for maintaining all those aircraft (including helos, not choppers), test equipment for the electronics aboard ships.

With the various yellow equipment (tow tractors, etc), test equipment for components, fixed and rotary wing aircraft - it could easily go into the tens of thousands of pieces of equipment.

Disregard the cutlery and cookware, there is still a lot of stuff.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Major Hogwash]

65. Well, I didn't know you had a hubby who was a sailor

That's a little drastic saying that we are looking more and more like the USSR.
It may look that way, but our inventory of parts is huge, and that right there is the major problem with the military's budget.
They don't just order 5 jets and then all the spare parts for 5 jets.
They order spare parts for 20 jets, and then store them in large warehouses.
And rarely, if ever, have to use those spare parts.

It is the spare parts part of the budget that is what makes up for most of the cost overruns.
Plus, storing all of those parts costs millions of more dollars every single year.
The federal government pays for spare parts that can replace wornout parts for the next 50 years.
Most contracts for weapons systems are written that way, so they have a long-term view to use the same weapons system.
Which is utterly stupid since we have seen how technology leapfrogs older technologies for the last 3 decades, and that trying to keep a weapons system active for that long is nothing but a pipe dream.

I appreciate almost all of your input here at DU, nadin.
It's been a pleasure reading your posts.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Ah what comes to mind? The USSR

[Cali_Democrat]

6. So I guess they need more money?

:eyes:

[Shagbark Hickory]

7. Cue the Village People lyrics

[TheWraith]

8. Same shit that they tried to sell during the Clinton administration.

Of course things are going to break. That's what happens with equipment. You build it, it breaks, and then you fix it. If it breaks too often, it's defective.

[Rex]

9. So where does all the trillions we give to the MIC go then!?

MIC = worst idea, eva.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Airplanes

[taterguy]

14. Don't forget subs. They cost few billion each w/o the fancy options

And they're designed to sink the Soviet Union's boomer subs, which aren't really a threat anymore.

[unhappycamper]

41. A Virginia-class submarine is somewhere between 5 ~ 7 billion dollars. n/t

[taterguy]

42. Is there a bona-fide need for Virginia-class subs?

I can sort of understand the expense during the Cold War but now our greatest threats just set up training camps hundreds of miles inland.

[NutmegYankee]

61. Virginia Class costs about $2.5 billion, and is not designed for the cold war.

The other poster is wildly off on his facts. This new class is replacing the aging Los Angeles Class attack submarines and was designed with post cold war style conflicts in mind. As for training camps, a single Virginia Class submarine can hit 70% of the world's landmass with a Tomahawk missile while submerged. The camp wouldn't have a clue what happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_class_submarine

[taterguy]

62. Cruise missiles can be launched from any platform so I'm not buying the necessity argument

It made sense to have stealth subs that were difficult to find when hostile nations had fleets of subs looking for our boats to sink. No nation has that capability anymore.

But we have the infrastructure in place so we keep making weapons platforms designed for previous conflicts.

It's the same thing we've always done when it comes to defense spending.

In the 1930s we spent a bunch of money building a fleet of battleships to re-fight the Battle of Jutland, a battle that never took place in World War II. (Battleships almost never fired at each other during WWII.) The airplane was the dominant naval weapon of WWII and we knew that it would be, after Billy Mitchell sank battleships off the NC coast in the 1920s.

So our big fleet of battleships was used for AA and shore bombardment, tasks that were done better by other types of ships.

[NutmegYankee]

63. Actually there are hundreds of submarines in Navies worldwide.

And the best way to defeat a submarine is still with another submarine. If you actually looked at what they can do by design now, you would see they have many uses.

[Rex]

15. But does it actually all go into building the airplanes

or does most of it go to military contractors, then to the airplanes? We need an independent auditor for the MIC, that is bulletproof and unsinkable imo.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Not to maintaincance or personnel

It is the way that it's been structured that makes taking it apart so difficult. For example, BUILDING the F-35... it is based in almost every state...

That guarantees that taking it apart is a major fight.

[Lasher]

Maintenance and personnel expenditures don't enrich billionaire CEOs.

Buying expensive new toys does.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Not even buying them, the research

here is a story that became a non story... we scrapped laser research for the Air Force... that is the future of weapons systems... but we scrapped it... quietly and silently.

We cannot afford them... Empire is now dying.

[Lasher]

31. We need to cut our defense spending at least in half, starting in FY 2012.

And tell the Pentagon to figure out how to get by on that. If we are neglecting needed research, it is because our priorities are wrong - and certainly not because the Department of Defense isn't getting enough money.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Agreed, and the fall of empire will force

that restructuring in the spending.

Retrenchment means we could get by with five carrier groups... instead of the eleven... I am taking into account maintenance.

We really need to give up on some of the toys, for battlespace dominance... things like that... the Universal Soldier project needs to go.

I'd keep the exo skeleton research, for example, due to the industrial uses. I'd keep drones... great for disaster relief, as well as the "dog" robot... that think again could be great for certain industrial uses and disaster.

There are things that can have have both uses,

Reality is we need to rebuild factories and all that. We could not do what was done in WW II... the industrial base is simply NOT there. And I am not even taking into account that producing an M1 Abrams is a tad more complex than a Sherman... when the chips that go into the toys are made in China we are having national security issues.

[Lasher]

36. Amen, Sister, we're thinking just alike.

:toast:

[Stinky The Clown]

10. The ship I was on in the late sixties was no better

It was a WWII LST converted to a mine sweeper repair ship.

As an LST, it was never intended to last more than a few runs to the beach. By the time I was aboard, she had concrete patches in her hull and her propulsion was only 50% operational.

No doubt some of you shaved with her remains.

[Rex]

12. We were using radar arrays in the mid 90s that were used in Vietnam,

in the Army! I couldn't believe it, where does all that trillions go to!?

[Major Hogwash]

66. In 2003, some of our troops in Iraq were wearing flak jackets of the same type used in Vietnam.

When that issue first came to light, Bush looked the other way.
Later on he said, "Who cares what history will say about me? We'll all be dead by then."

[Bozita]

13. If the Navy were a US public school, we'd be working on privatizing it and firing the sailors.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Oh they have been talking about that for a while

or at least reducing crews to ridiculous levels

[rhett o rick]

17. The Navy has 11 nuclear carrier fleets. That is grossly expensive.

The rest of the world has NONE. We have 11 nuclear carriers with all the support ships. do you think we could get by with only 10 or 9 or 3????

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. We should reduce to five

but even if we did that, caring and feeding of a nuclear reactor, even in mothballs, is just as expensive.


And there are a few other countries with carriers in their fleets, France and Britain come to mind... as well as Spain.

That we have more in one Navy than the rest yes, that it needs to be reduced, absolutely... the fiscal crisis will do it...

[Lasher]

29. The UK has no active carriers.

Well there is HMS Illustrious but she has been converted to support helicopters only, so she is not considered an aircraft carrier anymore.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. I wonder if they are waiting until they get fleet aircraft

the Harrier was retired.

[Lasher]

35. I don't know if that's it.

The UK still has F-35B Lightnings, and expect to have the F-35C around 2020.

Illustrious is currently standing in for the helicopter ship Ocean while she undergoes refit. Then Illustrious will be decommissioned in 2014, possibly sooner. The UK won't have an actual carrier operational again until the HMS Queen Elizabeth is launched in about 2019.

So you might have a point. The HMS Queen Elizabeth and the F-35C will show up at about the same time, according to plans.

[Obamanaut]

44. Helicopters are rotary wing aircraft. nt

[Lasher]

50. Yes, they are.

But most people would not call this an aircraft carrier:

[Obamanaut]

51. And if the HMS Illustrious was in fact designed, and served, as an aircraft

carrier, but now has only helos, what exactly has changed other than the *type* of aircraft deployed aboard her?

It was designed and built as an aircraft carrier, it now carries only helicopters, helicopters are a type of aircraft, so...

[Lasher]

53. Illustrious has been converted into a helicopter carrier, as I noted upthread.

This occurred during a 16 month retrofit, mostly last year. As a result, she is incapable of supporting fixed wing aircraft.

Just as USS Lexington was converted from a battle cruiser into a carrier, Illustrious is now a helicopter ship. It would be technically correct to refer to her as a helicopter carrer, but calling her a carrier without further distinction is clearly inconsistent with the context of this thread.

I am now prepared to accept your unconditional surrender. Heave to and prepare to be boarded!

[Obamanaut]

55. And the USS Midway (CV41) was on a keel originally destined to be

a battleship. There were expansion slip joints on every deck, and in heavy seas they moved fore/aft, as if the entire ship was undulating like an inch worm crawling on a leaf. Seeing the joints slip made the squeamish ill.

And, there was always a slight list - the flight deck was never level.

No surrender, but I will agree to a tie and argue no further. It's the best I can offer.

[Major Hogwash]

56. You were in the Navy?

Served on the Midway?

[Obamanaut]

58. yes to both

And also the USS John F. Kennedy, the USS Independence, USS America, USS Eisenhower. All of these as part of the Air Wing, plus some other duty stations as well.

[rhett o rick]

37. No other nation has nuclear carriers. And the reactors can be defueled and

moth-balled a lot cheaper than operation. The support for these carriers is horribly expensive.

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. I wish it was that easy, insofar as mothballing them

that is.

Oh and that was done on purpose by the way.

Yes, call me cynical.

On the bright side, the Nuclear Navy actually has written that part of the manual the civilian side has not... what do do when all goes to hell and a hand basket.

(Which will happen if somebody inserts a ... torpedo into your power plant)

[Angleae]

45. France has a nuclear carrier.

Charles de Gaulle

[rhett o rick]

46. I stand corrected. The USofA 11 and the rest of the world 1. nm

[Obamanaut]

64. Having 11 aircraft carriers does not mean there are 11 carrier battle

groups (groups, not carrier fleets) at any one time. A battle group is formed and/or disestablished as needed, and may be composed of a variety of ships, and no specific number of them.

Here is a fairly good explanation of carrier battle group

http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/navycarriers/blbattlegroup.htm

[grahamhgreen]

24. We can just send them to China to be retrofitted cause it's cheaper!

:sarcasm:

[rhett o rick]

38. That's not that funny. With China owning more and more of our debt, we may have to sell them some.nm

[Incitatus]

32. Then decomission that 1/5 and all the ships will be ready.

And we will still have the largest navy in the world. Problem solved.

[bhikkhu]

34. 80% readiness is really very good

I don't think a navy built to face-down the massive arsenal of the Soviet Union really needs to be expanded now.

There's no one really to fight, and the main use of them is "projecting power" all over the world, which is a questionable policy. Perhaps if the UN expanded their disaster relief programs to run some serious ships, we could peel off a few. The UN should be better suited to much of that than the US Navy.

[Major Hogwash]

47. Bush used the Navy as his personal navy and didn't give them the monies they needed to stay fit

Most of the money went to Rumsfeld's little propaganda bs.

[Generic Other]

48. Fight what?

I thought the wars of the future would be fought with drones launched from Nevada.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

54. Whichever Bogeyman the politicians erect to be afraid of.

[Jack Sprat]

57. Good reason to withdraw from the mideast

Bring the troops home from danger, refit the naval vessels and general refitting of our equipment and guns.

[B Calm]

59. Maybe some of those war profiteers can fork up some dough and help the navy out.

[WinkyDink]

60. I'm tempted to say, "Thank GOD."