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El Reg reports:
The US Navy's most advanced ship yet, the $4.4bn stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt, has had to be ignominiously towed through the Panama Canal after its engines failed yet again.
While cruising down the intercontinental waterway, the crew spotted water leaking from two of the four bearings that link the destroyer's advanced electric engines to its propeller drive shafts. Both engines locked up shortly afterwards, and the ship hit the side of the canal, causing some cosmetic damage.
[...] Repairs are expected to take at least ten days and may mean the ship doesn't get into its home port until next year.
This is the latest in a long litany of failures for the USS Zumwalt that have raised questions over the efficacy of the new class of ships. Originally the US planned a fleet of 32 of the advanced destroyers, but the eye-watering cost of the craft has since seen that cut to just three vessels.
[...] It's natural to get teething problems with a new design, particularly something as revolutionary as the USS Zumwalt. But the Navy has already decided to revert to an older class of destroyer for its fleet upgrade. It seems someone on the general staff actually read Arthur C Clarke's warning tale Superiority .
Previously: USS Zumwalt Breaks Down During Sea Trials
[Ed note. Superiority, linked above, is a science fiction classic; well worth reading.]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday November 28 2016, @02:20AM
I'd cut the defense budget by 25%, and the NSA by 50%. If, after a couple years stuff like the F35 and Zumwalt were still going forward I'd cut defense by another 25%.
It's time for unlimited budgets to end. You say what you want, companies say "I can do that" for $xxx, and they get $xxx do deliver. No cost plus, no changing specs middle of the road. Pentagon says "I want this", contractor sez "Ok, $x", Pentagon sez "Sounds good".
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @02:27AM
Gov't bidding works like this... Bid is $x, final cost is $x*3, and most of it was pocketed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @02:55AM
At least it's not $x 3. "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @04:52AM
Its worse than that.
The bidder know that they will raise the price at time of bidding. They factor that into the whole effort.
The govt negotiators are completely out of their depth compared to the high paid corporates - not to mention its not "their" money they are spending to begin with.
Then add layers of political pork barrelling and more obvious forms of corruption....
And then you get to the final figure.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 28 2016, @06:53PM
"Government shall take 0.5% ownership of the company for every 1% that the payments exceeds the project's budget".
Tell me how much it's gonna cost, or be so afraid of your own estimate that you don't bid. Someone is always willing to bid, are you gonna miss out?
Obviously, in most cases, the contractor will argue correctly that the darn politicos and Pentagon keep changing the requirements, causing the delays and therefore the end cost.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday November 28 2016, @02:29AM
I agree, in fact, there are other ways to funnel the money to the military industrial complex and intelligence -- For example, the CIA with the help of the military reopened the lucrative Afghan heroin trade (which the Taliban had under control before the American invasion) and the drug and gun-running operations going on between America and Mexico, to name a few. And if those dry up, there's always being able to sell Stingers and MANPADS to terrorists back in the Middle-East.
Oh, wait, a civilian airliner was shot down and shrapnel from American weapons was found in the rubble? Russian Hackers and fake news did it! Russians! Fake!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by BK on Monday November 28 2016, @03:29AM
For all of their faults, things like the F35 and the Zumwalt are how the military learns what works and what doesn't. These projects cost because they are on the bleeding edge trying to do things that were only theoretically possible when the project started.
If you were dictator, your empire might be protected by guys with pointy sticks because you were unwilling to risk overages trying to build a smelter and other technologies to put bronze tips on those sticks.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 28 2016, @04:04AM
Sorry - I can't accept "learning" as a reason to piss away billions of dollars. The contractor should have built the damned plane, THEN tried to sell it to the government. The whole F-35 thing is a case of the tail wagging the dog. And, the stupid dog masturbated to the entire deal.
The Zumwalt? The tumblehome design was a proven design, in the days of wooden ships and iron men. Steel ships, not so much. The ONLY steel tumblehomes ever made were produced by France, sold to the Russians, and used for target practice by the Japanese because tumblehome has it's limits. The all electric engines? I don't trust them any further than I can throw them. That whole modular design sucks, and the small crew sucks more.
There is simply nothing about the Zumwalt that I like, and none of it justifies the expense involved. They could have learned the same lessons from a much smaller, and much cheaper ship. You realize, despite the fact that they call this a destroyer, it's actually a cruiser? Not a "light" cruiser, but a cruiser. Why did they choose to make such a large, expensive prototype? They could have built a couple of corvettes, or a frigate, for much much less. And, both of those are more suited to litorral duties than a cruiser is!
(Score: 1, Troll) by BK on Monday November 28 2016, @04:26AM
I can't tell whether you are talking about the the Zumwalt or the LCS classes that seem to have similar problems but are build for different roles. My read on the Zumwalt is that it is closer to a BB in role - an enormous surface to surface capability but not much else. And the future home of a big freaking experimental laser gun.
That idea works only if they can sell it to someone else if the USA opts out -- say China or Russia or ISIS -- without restriction. Paying for the research is the price of exclusivity and control.
Yes... and if this ship represented 2/3 of the naval construction budget, this would have been incredibly stupid. Instead, it was/is probably a mistake, but a minor one in the overall scheme that serves a purpose... which you don't like.
Well there goes public funding for education.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday November 28 2016, @07:24AM
Sorry - I can't accept "learning" as a reason to piss away billions of dollars.
I stopped reading right there.
Its pretty clear you haven't a clue about economics, money flow, and have no concept of where money actually goes when you spend it. Given that, how could anyone trust anything else you have to say.?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 28 2016, @01:01PM
You stopped reading right there - that is YOUR failure. And, obviously, you stopped thinking as well.
Like a lot of other people, you seem to believe that the ONLY way to do business, is the current, corrupt system that we have.
In what other industry does the paying customer pay for R&D, development, experimentation, both successes and failures, and guarantee a cost-plus profit? And, what do we get for this? One boondoggle after another. Seemingly, each generation of military industrial complex management becomes less and less connected with reality. We have a POS gen-five aircraft being pushed to the fleet, which can already be challenged by Russia and China. Air superiority my ass.
The ships - what is wrong with the idea of building a few SMALLER ships to test the design, rather than committing to a damned CRUISER?!?! (again, I remind you that the Zumwalt is a "destroyer" in name only) They could have built 3 or 4 corvettes for a fraction of the cost of the Zumwalt. Or, two frigates. Or, even a couple of real DESTROYERS. (I also remind you that I was a destroyer man - I know a destroyer when I see a destroyer)
It may or may not cost billions to research quality weapons platforms and the weapon systems - but you seem to have missed the "piss away" part of "piss away billions of dollars". We paid for better than state-of-the-art weapon systems, and what we got was shit.
Every military contractor should be held to account. If/when they FAIL to deliver what they promise, then they DON'T GET PAID!!! We've had more than enough of this cost overrun being covered by the taxpayer. That is pure idiocy. It amounts to giving your CEO's multi-million dollar bonuses when they FAIL to produce. Idiocy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 28 2016, @09:12PM
In what other industry does the paying customer pay for R&D, development, experimentation, both successes and failures, and guarantee a cost-plus profit?
Law firms. I think it goes a long ways to explaining why legal action is such a money sink.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @01:12PM
Sorry - I can't accept "learning" as a reason to piss away billions of dollars.
I'll argue against that in a different tangent than everyone else, in that we have enough tech level to defeat any realistic enemy we should actually be fighting. So from a world peace perspective the world is a more peaceful place if the military is investing in truly gigantic electric motor controllers or sharks with lasers on their heads. They're pretty good at turning $ into pallets of 5.56 ammo and then shooting it at people, as an alternative. Or they're pretty good at turning $ into waterboarding torture gear.
Sure there are MWR funds to improve the troops lives and the VA, but aside from those two area I can't think of any place more peaceful for the military to spend dough than on research.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 28 2016, @02:18PM
Good enough points, except, all the military/industrial money seems to be independent of money spent on the troops, or for humanitarian purposes. It also seems to be separate from routine military expenditures. That is, there will be plenty of small arms and cannon ammo, no matter how much might be spent on high profile platforms. These R&D deals are all individually hammered out by congress, I believe. Whereas, smaller deals are alloted for annually, and the departments are more or less permitted to decide how much to spend, and how.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @02:36PM
I donno about that, there's a big DOD budget that all comes out of and every R+D program I'm aware of has always operated starved for cash, such that they could move faster if they had more $$$. I've never heard of a medium to long term R+D program that had more money than they knew what to do with such that they couldn't hire more grad students or other empire building activities in worst case.
Also the DOD might have issues, but they're not completely insane and they are at least semi-competent, such that yes it would be highly unusual for the army to run out of 5.56 rounds or MREs on a worldwide basis. Some general officer in the quartermaster corps would lose their job in an instant if they even came close to running out of bullets and beans.
So I'd observe the same things you do, but get somewhat different conclusions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mhajicek on Monday November 28 2016, @04:21AM
How many billions of dollars to learn that "jack of all trades master of none" applies to aircraft?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Informative) by BK on Monday November 28 2016, @04:30AM
I'm guessing about 1500 billions. [goodreads.com]
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @11:08AM
Billions? Trillions!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @12:57PM
And you would not even have pointed sticks, but a rock that keeps enemies away paid like it were made of diamond.
If you cannot deliver on time and on budget YOU pay with your pocket, or go to jail. PEOPLE WILL LIKELY DIE FOR YOUR MISTAKES.
If you get kickbacks, you should be sent to remove mines with faulty equipment. Together with your able sons and nephews, so we take care of the genetic aspect too.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @02:01PM
things like the F35 and the Zumwalt are how the military learns what works and what doesn't.
That's a big problem that's going to require a new way to look at military procurement soon enough.
From "the old days" right up to today, the first models off the assembly line were pieces of junk that failed and were unreliable. Its OK to manufacture 20 POS-tier B17 or Sherman tanks or M16 if the assembly line was gearing up to make 100x as many once the bugs were worked out.
Now we shut down the line either when the bugs are worked out, or before! The last B17 off the assembly line kicked the ass of the first one, so my grandfather said, more or less. The problem is the last Z off the assembly line is quite possibly the first one, and we're never going to get to produce the ass kicking completely debugged Z series. We most certainly could produce a Z class ship that accomplishes everything promised if we get to make 30 of them. But we are not, so they're never going to work.
Eventually the military will figure this out and its going to be an interesting culture shock when we plan to build 500 tanks instead of 10000 or three aircraft carriers instead of fifteen. It won't necessarily be cheaper but the bar will be much lower. The bar being lower probably doesn't matter in the long run because the entire surface fleet will be sunk about 5 minutes after we start a war with a real naval power which makes things weirder yet.