Independence Class Navy Ships are Defective?
serf
Member Posts: 9,217 ✭✭✭✭
Here's another contractor error with U.S, Tax payers footing the bill again.Over half The ships have hull cracks and they cannot go to sea in rough water!
serf
The Independence-class is an entirely different ship, built from a different material by a different yard, but this class may also have a serious flaw. According to documents obtained by Navy Times, six out of the 13 delivered vessels in the class suffer from cracking in "higher-stress areas of the structure," and all of them "have under-designed structural defects" at frames 36 and 45.
These problem spots are located above the waterline, the Navy told the outlet, but they are serious enough that at least one LCS - the USS Omaha - is not allowed to operate at sea when wave heights exceed eight feet (Sea State 4). Omaha is stationed in U.S. 3rd Fleet, where winter Pacific storms can generate wave heights of twice that level or more.
Comments
The fatigue life of aluminum is fairly well understood, but is not an exact science. We had cracking problems on ships with steel hills and aluminum superstructures for years in the USN.
The aluminum hull structure of the independence and freedom class is new ground for ships of this size.
Brad Steele
Do you think “the contractor” just goes out and builds whatever they want?
There were probably hundreds of federal employees involved with the design and manufacture of those ships, which would include dozens or more government engineers. For all we know it could be the government’s design and the shipyard just bolted it together (because the government doesn’t build squat).
What Warbirds said. Those ships are built to a blueprint that the gov't made/designed/signed off on. As long as the part falls within the parameters of the print, it's not the builder's problem.
The last part of the article does state that the problem will be corrected with heavier replacement plating and any future deliveries will incorporate that modification. First generation production of anything quite often has bugs that need to be worked out. Add in the government design and "oversight" and it is a wonder the dang things even float. Bob
That's three big contracts with Navy ships that are simply are busted for bad designs,they need to use all that technology to build something that works right in a major way at the ship building dock in my opinion.It's all just a ineffective government bureaucracy at work period. Reagardless on who to blame.
serf
Trial and error.There are some extremely bright people working on this and it will be rectified.
It seems to me the LCS ships and the F-35 programs had a lot of the same problems -- the military brass at "Echelons above Reality" made lists of "what they wanted" instead of "what the needed" and then went shopping.
Before the Army ordered the M-1 Abrams they built a couple of prototypes and learned a lot (to include some REALLY STUPID bright ideas 🙄 ) so that when they built the Abrams there were fewer bugs to work out.
But at least we are trying to get ready to fight the next war, not to refight the last one like we have done too often in the past.
I was involved in the construction of an FAA tower at O'hare many years ago. Prints were followed to the "TEE" but the government furnished "cab" they sent out that sits on top the poured in place concrete tower didn't fit?! Make a long story short we clained "defective specifications" and won!! They paid us to revamp the top pour of the tower thus allowing the cab to fit. Typical government "oversite"🤨
"going to the moon on the low bid"
I would not want to be aboard them when we were up in the Arctic Circle in the North Atlantic taking 35 ft waves. It was brutal enough on our Destroyer.
At what cost? Most military government contracts for hardware is riddle with cost overruns and design defects.The country is broke and The Military budget is one of the biggest cost yet they still waste millions on design flaws.
Something has to be done to stop innovations at any cost in all hardware designs. Trial and errors need to be tested on one two prototypes not the whole line of hardware after manufacturing it.
serf