We all learn to be patient when surprises pop up that throw a spanner in the works. You cannot see all the barriers that chance will throw your way. All you know is that you should expect them.
What about those barriers that come up of your own creation? Worse, what about those that come up that were created intentionally by others for their gain in their time, knowing that it will create problems in the future?
If these thing bunch up enough, and you get a multiplier effect. With problems, 1+1+1 does not equal 3, it equals 5.
Do any of these sound like they should have been a surprise?
1. With the end of the Cold War and its Atlantic-heavy requirements along with the relative stagnation of Europe setting in at the same time; the future would be in the Pacific for the next half-century at least.
In the early 1990s that was considered obvious. I know, I was there. What happened with BRAC though?
As a proxy, let’s just look at one State, California for the 1988, 91, 93, & 95 BRAC.
More than any other state, California has an intimate understanding of the pain base closures can cause and how unevenly that pain can be distributed. In the four most recent BRAC rounds, California absorbed 54 percent of the nation’s overall personnel cuts, losing more than 93,000 jobs and nearly 30 major bases. Many communities have still not fully recovered from the closure of local bases. Analysts estimate that the base closures cost the state $9.6 billion in annual revenue.
Sit down with any logistics pro and ask them what and where the bottlenecks are in any scenario involving a conflict in the Pacific. Have them detail what was lost. In a crowded CA, what was lost will be almost impossible to get back.
2. Roughly half our LCS fleet will be in San Diego. Along with all our other ships, we want to extend their service life. In LCS’s case, that would be from 25 to 35 years. It stands to reason that to do so, you will have to be disciplined and demanding about maintenance. No shortcuts, no skipping. We all remember what happened to the SPRUANCE Class, don’t we?
3. Our existing fleet has been abused the last decade and a half+. This has been covered in detail both inside official Navy lifelines and outside. As such, to get back on level and to play catch-up (those DDG aren’t going to make it to 50-yrs on pep-talks alone), they need a lot of maintenance, yard time, and depot level support. A lot more. This is Vince Lombardi basics that shouldn’t really have to be said, but alas, it does.
Why? Simple. Ponder those three known-knowns and then chew on this from our friend Megan Eckstein;
The Navy may not continue to put its Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ships into the drydock every time they go into planned maintenance, as one way of dealing with a looming shortfall in drydock availability and private sector maintenance capacity.
Vice Adm. Tom Moore, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, told USNI News that the LCS-2 hulls have to be drydocked for all planned maintenance events, partly due to a requirement to inspect the condition of the hull each time. Most of the Navy’s ships are made of steel, so with the Independence-variants being made of aluminum, the Navy decided early on to gather data through hull inspections at each planned maintenance event.
…
The admirals didn’t have the exact maintenance schedule but said they believed the drydocking requirement could go from once every three years to once every five to six years, if the engineering study this fall supported only using the drydock every other maintenance availability.
I’m not the only one who has seen this movie before, am I? Heck, any staff weenie worth his FITREP can adjust variables and assumptions to move the recommended COA to the Commander’s desired COA for a few years. I’m not saying that is or will take place, but let us be adults here. We know how this can play out.
Why are we here?
…it’s clear the Navy will begin to need more drydocking availability than the private sector can offer, and that deficit in availability will become unmanageable in the next three to five years if companies don’t begin to make an investment now. Reducing the LCS requirement for drydocks wouldn’t be a total solution but would certainly go a long way in reducing demand on West Coast yards, since all the Independent-variant ships are stationed in San Diego.
Exacerbating the drydock shortage is the fact that most Navy surface combatants and amphibious ships undergoing maintenance in the private sector come out of the availability later than planned – since 2011, ships averaged about 60 days late, the admiral said. If those ships came out in a timely manner, new ships could come in and rotate through faster.
You know where calendar based maintenance gets you? Review the KENNEDY experience of the late 1990s among other things. We have seen this before.
Is this really necessary? No. This is a child with many fathers. BRAC did not help. Unrealistic low-balled demand signals for depot and shipyard maintenance for a few decades did not help. Refusing to fund the “unsexy but important” did not help. A loss of focus on the long term did no help.
As discussed in the article, yes, we need to grow the workforce. Yes, we need to find efficiencies – but for now let’s look at what we can control.
We need effective – the cult of efficiency culminated in the berthing spaces of MCCAIN and FITZGERALD in 2017. We need to stop fudging to the right just because it makes someone’s slides look right for their PCS cycle – leaving reality to the next guy to worry about it.
If that means that we have ships tied up to piers of shame waiting for their period, then fine. We are not a fleet at war, yet. Let’s have that for a few years and point to it every POM until we get the money we need to do it right.
Oh, and in the name of mighty Neptune, put a LCS or two on hold and invest that money in some drydocks and other assorted unsexy things.
