Thread 64363088

Why is American shipbuilding so slow that Italian shipyards are being tapped to produce new FFGs? I'm not asking for them to be as efficient as Japan or Korea, but as efficient as a historically pretty corrupt polity like Italy seems like a reasonable ask.

>>64363088 (OP)
It's the Navy not the shipyard. They put the same guy in charge of the LCS disaster to run this program. The shipyard can't build if they don't get a design.

>>64363088 (OP)
It's cause they were never finished in redesigning the thing and changing course halfway through. American shipbuilding is slow but not as bad as Navy design requirements.

Sad news, it not just frigates.....

>>64363109
sucks that Enterprise is going to be delayed but at least that means trump isn't gonna have the chance to coopt her launch for his own maga bullshit.

>>64363109
It seems like American shipbuilding hasn't incorporated the best practices of European shipyards, let alone Korean ones, to deliver warships in a timely manner.

>>64363109
Not really news when you've considered how long it's been. CVN-78 was launched on time in 2013, but didn't enter full service till like 2021. That's cause all of the new tech and slight redesigns instead of copy pasting the dozenth Nimitz.
Were there ways to prevent something like this from happening considering how many new technologies are being incorporated?
Would it cost more time and money to try and prepare for any contingencies before they materialized? Actually, probably no. lol. I'll admit it. The Navy didn't want to send a $15B bill to Congress for something that may or may not happen and figured they'd get away by fixing shit as it went along, and it mostly worked.
Only problem is that they didn't do it fast enough to get the notes down before CVN-79 new tech was too far built and ALONG with F-35C capability thrown in for it during the middle of thevarus which pushed timelines even further.
Good news is that everything after and along with CVN-80 should have every base covered and be pretty much perfect.

Who would win: One of these ships VS a thousand alibaba drones.

>>64363203
FREMMS, especially Italian ones, are actually quite well suited for antidrone AD. They have two 76mm OTO cannons that fire guided airburst rounds along with another pair of 30mm autocannons that also fires airburst rounds.

>>64363179
The congressional mandate to make CVN-79 F-35 compatible was stupid anyway. The Navy has a dozen other carriers that could be used for F-35s instead, there's no reason to pair immature aircraft with an immature carrier.

>>64363100
That "guy" was only in charge of the office in question since about 2 years ago, hardly during the time when the design of the LCSs were being done...or when the design flaws were found...or when the solutions were decided upon and implemented.
Oh, and since then he has already been releived, months ago in fact.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2025/05/28/navy-relieves-admiral-in-charge-of-unmanned-systems-office/
Do you do the slightest bit of research before you have these braindead takes? At any point do you stop to reassess if they are even still applicable?

>>64363088 (OP)
>italians
>co-develop frigate and settle on a design and armament
>produce it
cool
>US
>buy rights to produce said design, redesign it to fit mission criteria the original designer never even considered in the scope of the project
>try to fit as much stuff as you can making it grossly overweight
>keep changing ideas
I truly wonder why we're constanly late.
>>64363261
They now even have a new ammo especially for drones. I can't remember what it's gimmick was tho

This thread reeks of gutter oil.

>>64363179
>everything after and along with CVN-80 should have every base covered and be pretty much perfect.
Oh my sweet summer child.
Government contractors LOVE to upsell tacked-on "capability," and everyone in government procurement wants to feel they had a personal hand in the process so they love to endlessly fiddle with designs rather than cranking out the same old proven system from 1976.

>>64363261
>>64365820
You understand that a real attack on these ships wouldn't be done with 2-3 stray drones, it would happen with a thousand, all controlled by an integrated interconnected AI system.

>>64365909
>thousand
show me a single attack in history with more than a thousand drone on a single fleet.
And even so, EW systems mixed with cannons fitted with antidrone munitions etc is literally the best current solution to drone attacks. Not to mention that these are all layered respones, with cannons often being the last resort.
>all controlled by an integrated interconnected AI system
nevermind, you're a techbroduuude who thinks "AI" is actually AI.

>>64365938
>show me a single attack in history with more than a thousand drone on a single fleet.
Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it can't or won't. Absolute midwit take.

>>64365938
>nevermind, you're a techbroduuude who thinks "AI" is actually AI.
Current ai, or whatever you want to call it, is absolutely perfect for commandeering a thousand drones to act as a swarm and inflict the most damage possible. An attack like that doesn't need deep thinking, only pattern recognition and lightning fast decision making, which current ai excels at.

>>64365943
Where did I say we are not preparing for it, zoomer? One thing is preparing for something in the future, the other is being a retart like you who goes all doomposting because you tought of a fantasy scenario. Deal with facts instead of what ifs.
>>64365955
case in point, you just spout buzzwords you don't know the meaning of

>>64366003
Come the fuck on, dude. We've had subject recognition in cameras for a decade.

>>64363088 (OP)
>Why is American shipbuilding so slow that Italian shipyards are being tapped to produce new FFGs?
Because our shipbuilding is absolutely maxxed out with all the traditional projects. Every single facility has something being built there. So if we want to scale FFG's over the short term it means we need international partners to build them.

>>64365820
This guy knows whats up. Navy had a fantastic idea
>just take an off the shelf product
and fucking ruined it.

Whats amazing is that its really, really, hard to fuck up a Frigate.

>>64365909
>muh cocnentrated thousand drones
Your drone launch and control teams are detected and decimated by precision fires before they can even start the things. Retard.

>>64366275
>moving the goalpost
We've had it since the early 40s, it's still beside the point of the discussion. Having subject recognition in a drone doesn't invalidate the current tacticts. Hence the final report on the China backed Houti drone attacks that almost saturated our carrier group because they wanted to rely on missiles etc. Cannons are going to be the way to go for medium range intercept, picking off those that will not fall into the sea from a EW attack.
As much as you want to slobber the botched up dick of Elon Musk, his statements about stealth aircraft being prey to a basic bitch camera with subject recognition is bullshit.

>>64366283
Maxed out with what? The US doesn't build merchant ships in any relevant quantity.

I will simp for Italian engineering. It's underrated. They are some of the best and fastest in deep tunneling for trains. They do a lot of good work in a variety of civilian and military fields. Nevertheless, all the US builds is warships; it's something the US should be efficient at.

>>64366316
>Maxed out with what? The US doesn't build merchant ships in any relevant quantity.
Naval vessels.

>>64366316
>Maxed out with what
Workforce

>>64363088 (OP)
Americans tend to overestimate how corrupt italy is, just like they underestimate how corrupt they themselves are. This whole constellation debacle sparked because the US admiralty watched the pentagon wars and though it would be funny to recreate the bradley's scene but in real life with a ship.

to some extent it is good they didnt finish and build a design considering how much naval war has changed in the past 3 years

>>64366513
It hasn't. If anything, naval (read naval, not littoral) combat has been the least affected by the advent of drones.

>>64363088 (OP)
The shipyard that will be building them is on Lake Michigan, at the border of Wisconsin and Michigan.

>>64363088 (OP)
The delay is because Fincantieri didn't do its fucking homework and made promises it couldn't keep because it didn't seem to understand what was going to be demanded of it. The base FREMM required changes to meet US Navy damage control requirements. Everyone knew this but Fincantieri did not seem to understand exactly what changes would be needed to get FREMM into compliance.

It wasn't a secret, they just fucked up.

The result was that a lot of modules around the base of the ship, you know, where you start building, had to be re-designed, and nothing could happen until that was done which delayed the construction of just about everything else.

Because we outsourced every industry in the US since the 70s.

>>64368217
Cope. Military shipbuilding is protected by law. Just because the Jones Act crippled merchant shipbuilding, doesn't mean that warships were effected in the way your just-so story would like it to be.

>>64368171
that's a straight up lie. the DoD repeatedly requested more and more heavy modifications on the hull, which has to be made larger and broader. which in turn fucks up with a lot of things including speed, buoyancy, stealth etc. you basically took a fremm and asked to make a battleship out of it mid design. also, the constellation is supposed to be made at marinette marine wisconsin, which means if you have to blame someone for the delays, blame those working there, because not a single one will come from italian shipyards.

>>64367833
drones are a thing since the GWOT, to say they sprouted up during the ukraine war like mushrooms is blatantly false. of course a tech almost 3 decades old would have counters, especially on ships.

>>64368357
If I'm wrong, then good. You really think I'm rooting against the US?

>>64365909
>a thousand alibaba drones
I cast 127mm HE airburst

>>64368171
Yes, yes, it's anyone but the USN's fault.

>>64368357
>protected by law
Words on paper do not prevent loss of institutional experience and qualified workforce.

>>64368413
No retard, Marinette Marine is owned by Fincantieri. The proposal came from them and the fuckups lie with them too.

The geniuses there thought Constellation had been ordered to the same shock tolerance, redundancy/separation, subdivision, and acoustic hygiene standards that the USN used for Freedom and MMSC. This was not the case, which is a pretty serious fuckup.

Worse, after they made that realization and started doing real work they realized basically none of the base FREMM design was compliant.

Even worse, the majority of changes to compartments and mounts had to be made to those below the waterline - which are also the parts of the hull that start construction earliest. Which delayed everything else.

>>64368357
>Military shipbuilding is protected by law.
Didn't prevent Marinette Marine from having such a skilled labour shortage that they could optimistically build a single frigate a year, even before running into cost overruns, problems or calls for design changes.

And they are not unique in that. The whole dman militay shipbuilding industry is in a massive labour crisis because there just isn't enough people willing to sign up with them after like 40+ years of "blue collar jobs are inferior and you need to go to college if you want to succeed in life" cultural mentality dominating the US.

>>64368456
That's kinda contrary to what's been reported. I really am failing to believe the builder wasn't aware of the requirements.

It's reported that the Navy themselves hadn't finalized the design before ordering its construction.

>>64363134
yes its so heckin based we cant build ships anymore, as long as trump doesn't get credit for it! dipshit

>>64368473
Have they tried improving pay and conditions?

>>64368559
Pay has been climbing, but the problem with conditions is that, well, work conditions in shipbuilding are always going to be a damn sight less comfortbale than white collar work. It's a physically demanding job. Heat, cold, humidity, exposure to chemicals, dust and fumes, danger of serious work accidents etc. It's started to shift for the better after COVID, but it's a very glacial thing.

>>64368509
Fincantieri's original proposal provided design and delivery timeline of 5.5 years, which is basically copy-pasted from their LCS construction timelines. In terms of building US warships, the LCSs are the only experience they have so they base a lot of their assumptions on similarity to past experience and assume that any minor requirement related issues can be smoothed over with relatively modest effort. Problem is that an LCS is half the tonnage of FFG-62 while being built at a significantly reduced damage control spec. Fincantieri has zero experience building to actual normal USN damage control requirements so they don't really realize just how substantial the required changes may be. By the time they bring in the people who actually run the numbers and to figure out what changes are necessary they they realize that they've committed to impossible timelines because the ship they just promised to build actually requires a lot more base level changes than they thought it would.

>>64368424
I'm saying that military shipbuilding isn't something that got btfo'd the way American civilian shipbuilding did. Its schlerosis can't be blamed on them jobs being shopped off to them dang orientals the way it can for consumer electronics, for example.

>>64368559
This is at odds with industrialization. The profit margins for making things is far lower than IP and services. Effective industrialization is not a cushy sinecurial jobs program.

>>64368357
>Military shipbuilding is protected by law
Muh piece of paper means anything

>>64368599
Retard

>>64368171
This isn't Fincantieri, it's the fucking Navy. They didn't even finish designing the class when the start-construction deadline hit. Instead of finishing the design and just taking the hit on the delay, they tried to save face and have Mariette Marine start building before they even had any of the finalized modules. The whole point of the Constellation was to take an off-the-shelf design and run with it, but after picking the FREMM, the Navy went retarded and started making changes to literally everything. At this point, it almost would have been faster to go with a clean sheet design.

Navy officers in charge of the program are literally lying to Congress about how things are going. If the problem was with the builder, the Navy would sell them out. Instead, the Navy is blatantly lying to save their own skin. Marinette Marine didn't have any problems turning out LCS ships, but all of a sudden they don't know how to weld on the Constellation?

The GAO has reported that the problems are the from the Navy constantly asking for major redesigns and then refusing to spend the money to test them, as they are required to by the laws that allocated funding to them. The design doesn't even have any finished fucking plans.

>>64368456
How is it the shipyard's problem when the Navy doesn't even have a finished fucking design? Every time the yard submitted a finished design, the Navy demanded more changes. The original design was supposed to be ~40% different. Now the design is ~85% different. It's total retardation by the Navy. Picrel is the problem. Rear Admiral Tom Anderson, former project manager for the LCS and current retard of charge of Constellation.

>>64368565
>Pay has been climbing
Last time I looked at this a few months ago, Marinette Marine was paying welders the same as the assistant manger of the local weed store and house cleaners. They aren't competing with white collar, they're competing with literally everyone and coming up short.

>>64368599
Unlike civilian shipbuilding, the US builds dozens of warships a decade. 10 Arleigh Burkes were commissioned between 2010 and 2020.

I think some of the underlying inefficiencies for why the US got btfo by Samsung, Daewoo/Hanwha, and Imabari long before China got onto the scene are reflected in the struggles shipyards are facing, but the US does have practice making warships.

>>64363088 (OP)
It's the end of the U.S. global hegemony, accept it.

>>64368583
If you want sufficient quantity and quality of workers, you'll have to pay them an actually competitive wage, not what you think should be competitive, train them, and offer incentives for retention.

>>64369127
The logical conclusion of this line of thinking is American ports, which are some of the least automated and inefficient in the world.

>>64369271
So? they work just fine and are among the last well paying jobs around. Keep them that way.

>>64368171
>>64368413
The Navy chose the Fincantieri/Marinette proposal knowing that it didn't meet their requirements because they thought that choosing a mature design would help them get congressional approval, and also because the whole LCS boondoggle was caused when the senator from wherever Marinette is at threw a fit when Austal won the LCS contract, so the Navy offered to buy both designs to get his support. The decision to pick the FREMM prevented Marinette from crying to their congressmen again, and got the Navy out of having to buy the last few Freedoms that they never wanted.

The situation with the Constellation class is 9 parts politics and 1 part redesigning the ship to do what they actually need it to. Hopefully this time they'll actually be allowed to build it.

>>64369333
>they work just fine
That's the thing, though. They don't. Just another case of crumbling and obsolete infrastructure.

>>64369333
They don't. Shitholes like Colombia have better ports.

This is the contention between "reindustrializing means good jobs" and "reindustrializing means doing things". And they are largely opposed.

>>64369337
Honestly, after all the delays, I wonder how hard it would be to bring Type 26 up to USN damage control standards. The main reason it wasn't considered was because they only wanted hulls that had been built and had most of the bugs worked out.

>>64365909
> a thousand
Billions.

>>64363088 (OP)
>Why is American shipbuilding so slow
Because they don't want to hire anyone under the age of 65

>>64365909
>all controlled by an integrated interconnected AI system.
May I see it?

>>64369271
Actually, it puts pressure on employers to increase automation and modernize. Besides, if you don't like it, your potential workers can just go get a comparably paying job at McDonald's, a call center, a wearhouse, a construction site, Walmart, etc. Hell, they might even get certifications or classes at the local community college partially paid for if they do and have a better life now and in the future over if they chose the local shipyard.

>>64369436
The best choice would have been the Austal Frigate since the Navy has already pretty much been troubleshooting it for a decade and it shares a lot with ships currently in service. But that was a non-starter because the media and Congress both hate the LCS program and Independence in particular, they never would have been allowed to build them.

>>64368633
Makes you wonder why they tried to do the same thing for so long. Sunk cost fallacy?

i propose we adopt the JMSDF's DDs

>>64368171
Then why did the Navy insist on buying a design not up to Navy standards?

>....

>>64368171
US Navy fucks up and its fault of everyone that isn't US Navy.

>>64363109
>>64363134
>No Enterprise in the USN

Taiwan invasion indicator.

>>64368473
>>64368559
>The whole damn military shipbuilding industry is in a massive labour crisis because there just isn't enough people willing to sign up with them after like 40+ years of "blue collar jobs are inferior and you need to go to college if you want to succeed in life" cultural mentality dominating the US.

I don't know how this argument has managed to become so pervasive with 'culture warriors'. Western economies require advanced skillsets involving management, systems theory, research, heuristics and simple creativity and none of those things are going to see a fall in demand. They're not even mutually exclusive, a good degree in material science will let you walk into a job on a yard.

But to return to the point; there's fuck all workforce across the entire economy simply because nobody is spending time and money training the next generation and anyone that does choose to invest in its workforce will immediately have their new mid-career immediately poached by competitors due to skills demand. Pay and conditions suck but that's an entry-level problem, a few years of experiance and a specialist qualification will lead you to start naming your price. This is a systematic problem that is only going to get worse as those experts who started their career in the 80s and 90s retire without having trained anyone to replace them. The solution politicians have come up with is 'more apprentices' but nobody is offering apprenticeships or is going to take the risk on a new starter with resources and taking those limited experts off the line to teach the FNG the trade.

>>64375106
>there's fuck all workforce across the entire economy
Just not true. There is significant underemployment in the USA. The unemployment figures are a lie, its more like 10%. The issue is that they are mostly niggers, weebs and the obese. You couldnt use them to sweep streets, nevermind build ships.

>>64375136
>There's no workforce
>N-No there is workforce but there isn't because it's invalids [random /pol/ noises and unsolicited opinions about Israel???]

>>64375438
>unsolicited opinions about Israel
You brought that up yourself thoughever

>>64368171
Complete bullshit