from the may-return-home-under-its-own-power-one-day dept.
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.]
Related Stories
from the more-money-well-spent dept.
El Reg reports
Weird new warship USS Zumwalt has broken down while on sea trials, three weeks ahead of her formal commissioning ceremony.
The futuristic $4.4bn vessel, which features a so-called "tumblehome" hull, suffered a seawater leak into the auxiliary lube oil system for one of her main propeller shafts, according to [U.S. Naval Institute] News.
The defect will take about two weeks to repair at US Naval Station Norfolk, it was said.
An absolute behemoth of a ship, the 16,000 ton Zumwalt--almost three times as big as the UK's already large Type 45 destroyers--was intended to be the lead ship of a new class of warships that would have cemented US naval dominance well into the 21st Century.
Instead, the entire program, supposedly for 36 vessels, was [canceled] after the third ship was laid down, thanks to some seriously eye-watering costs. The US Navy has since started buying new-build Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the basic design of which dates back to the mid-1980s.
Previous: The Zumwalt Class Destroyer: Another Defense Department Misstep?
Captain James Kirk Takes US Navy's First Stealth Destroyer Out for Sea Trials
(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.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Monday November 28 2016, @02:21AM
That feels too similar to the events of the 2016 election for comfort.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @02:57AM
That "Re:" should indicate that you're responding to a previous comment.
"WRT" would have been better there.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday November 28 2016, @11:04AM
Did Linksys make the headline?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @03:06AM
If you're going to (needlessly) change the m to www in the links to El Reg, the correct #FragmentIdentifier is #body.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by charon on Monday November 28 2016, @04:36AM
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 28 2016, @04:40AM
El Reg has a known problem of images not always loading correctly on the main domain, but working fine on mobile. Probably due to reduced scripting. You can see this mentioned within stories and footnotes. That alone is probably a good enough reason to link to m.theregister.co.uk.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Monday November 28 2016, @04:41AM
Now that I look it, I see an image on the main version, and no image on mobile. Maybe I'm full of it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:37AM
Exactly.
As I have said before, I index links so that our blind Soylentils who use screenreaders don't have to fart around finding the start of the article.
It is also below the story author's byline
Way down on my priority list.
Fully-sighted folks who are interested can easily scroll around and find that stuff.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 28 2016, @04:37AM
A new generation of eds to yell at.
Here, I'll change it back for you.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:44AM
...and, in the process, destroyed the reason for my complaint?
(Someone completely removed the indexing intended for our blind Soylentils). 8-(
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @10:59AM
Too bad. It puts more work to those of us who want it to be displayed properly on their non-mobile computer, and helps no one.
Fight the m.pest!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by janrinok on Monday November 28 2016, @08:13AM
It's not needless, as charon as explained. Just because you like it a certain way doesn't mean that is what we will impose on everyone. We do not format stories specifically for mobile devices. If TheRegister cannot get its images sorted so that they work on any device, then perhaps they will lose readership.
However, please feel free to join the ed team and help us release stories that everyone can read. You can also write suggestions for the editorial guidelines too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @10:51AM
Needlessly??? It saves the readers from doing it manually.
Those "m" URLs are a pest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29 2016, @03:36AM
Need a coloring book? A safe space? Do we need to bring in puppies? Extra tissues? Should we cancel your exams?
Quit being whiny.
If your biggest complaint about is a changed link, you really have it good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @09:37PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 28 2016, @03:31AM
You heard it from me, many months ago. That Zumwalt is a POS. I don't want to go to sea aboard it. Just wait until it sees a storm.
Wait - someone will spout off about modern ships avoiding storms. Same crap I heard about Steve Job's yacht. And, it's utter bullshit. A ship that can't go where the master wants it to go is a POS. Otherwise, the ship is the master, and the so-called ship's master is just a servant to the ship. If it doesn't fall apart first, the Zumwalt WILL face a storm. We'll just see about that stupid "tumblehome" design.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday November 28 2016, @04:21AM
I'm expecting it to eventually roll and sink to the bottom. Most likely it will happen in the first major storm it passes through.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Monday November 28 2016, @04:24AM
Frankly I'm more concerned with the mixing of the categories "stealth" and "guided missile destroyer." At a glance, they seem to work at cross-purposes, and looking deeper doesn't do much to dispel the notion. This thing is equipped with a million-watt radar which completely trumps any stealth features as long as it's on. And I'm having a very hard time thinking of any scenario where you would want to, short of system failure. So why spend all this extra $ making it stealth?
Also whatever the other features of the tumblehome design, it *does* mean that when punctured the ship will naturally sink faster in comparison to the other design, all other things being equal. This is why the French and Russian Battleships did so poorly, and it's completely logical and follows from basic physics. Ships don't just take a puncture and immediately fill with water - not without a truly massive hole or a large number of holes inflicted simultaneously. What happens is the water flows in through the hole at a steady rate and as it does so the weight of the ship increases and the level at which it floats decreases. In an Arley Burke, with the conventional hull, there's a counter force because as the waterline rises the hull becomes broader all the way up and down - significantly increasing the displacement, and slowing the rate at which the ship sinks.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @05:12PM
As someone who has ridden a FF during a tropical storm, "able to navigate around or through storms about as well as other destroyers" is not the least bit reassuring. The tumblehome hull would appear to me to want to dive when confronted with something like a rogue wave. No one has mentioned the $800K ammo either.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @04:02AM
We'll bitch and moan and then some, but then we would, wouldn't we? :) Welcome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @01:43PM
Not much detail on what happened.
"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,"
With mechanical and electrical things near the ocean, stuff happens.
But this should be the simple stuff.
Boats have had prop shafts going through the hull for a long time.
The first rule is that a little water will get in, so design the shaft system so this hurts nothing.
The previous failure was attributed to a heat exchanger in the lube oil system.
Perhaps this was mis-diagnosed?
Hopefully, the Navy hasn't built a ship that is more complicated than they can get crew to operate.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by WillR on Monday November 28 2016, @05:31PM
There was a plane crash some years ago where both engines on an airliner died just before landing, and it crashed short of the runway. There was a long chain of failures leading up to the accident - water present in the fuel (but it was within tolerances), it had been flying over Siberia on an exceptionally cold day, they made a long descent with near idle power so the engine oil was cool, then they increased power (and increased fuel flow) on the final approach. Ice in the super cold fuel accumulated in the fuel-to-oil heat exchangers faster than cold engine oil could melt it, clogging them up, and both engines starved.
Someone casually reading about it in the paper (or now, the news aggregator link-o-sphere) would get the impression that it was a total surprise to the people who design and fly airliners that it gets cold at high altitude (over Siberia, in the winter...)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @01:52PM
advanced electric engines
The advanced part is the controllers and systems integration, not the electric drive itself. The idea has been tried on and off since WWI (one not two)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-electric_transmission [wikipedia.org]
It would work fine for the Z, but you know how engineers love to optimize things, so the Navy invested in a lot of programs to F around with advanced motor control stuff and various wild optimizations leading to impressive performance but unreliable performance.
The best computer analogy I can come up with is its quite easy to build a desktop PC that's utterly reliable and usefully productive although perhaps heavy and not terribly fast. Meanwhile there exist people trying to build ever smaller boxes with ever more fans and they try to overclock such that they can make a $50 CPU do the job of a $60 CPU although it'll take $300 in fans and crazy water cooling and the result will crash every 3 hours.
What the Z is doing is unusual, but its an ancient idea thats had varying levels of success historically and they're running up to and far beyond realistic levels of operation, and finding those limits the hard way. Well, technically better this way, than in combat.
Unclassified sources claim the Z has 80 MW of electrical generators (probably more) hooked up to two 40 MW electric motors (probably more) on a 15 kiloton hull. I'm just saying that a century ago our own navy had excellent results with electric drives using 20 MW of on board generators and 5 MW per prop on a 40 kiloton hull. The ability to build a motor controller that digitally synthesizes 3-ph power at 40 MW out is very impressive but it smells like fundamentally the problem with pushing 40+ MW per shaft isn't the drive electronics (although I imagine they've created some impressive fireworks LOL).
Its not useless in that the Z must go like a bat out of hell, classified of course, when its working at all of course, if you have 80 MW on a 15 kiloton hull and a century ago a mere 20 MW on a 40 kiloton hull got "eh 20 sumthin knots unclassified". I would imagine the only limit to acceleration is cavitation.
Here's a puzzler to think over. A century ago a electric drive FREAKING BATTLESHIP was the same length as the Z and only about twice as fat. So they're trying to BS this stealth ship as a 2010s destroyer LOL. The Z is a skinny battleship not a mere destroyer. Probably some political or treaty or legislation bullshit requires us to pretend its not a battleship, but its a battleship. There was a classic plot device in Asimovs Foundation series where he fictionally made the point that dying empires always supersize the F out of everything before they collapse. A battleship sized destroyer is very bad news for the American Empire. Of course its not isolated in that burgerland supersizes food, people, car/SUV, and houses. Not looking good, USA.
Another fascinating analogy is the Z has a tenth the (wo)manpower of the Tennessee. Remember those old WWII pictures of the entire crew on desk and its shoulder to shoulder like 5 ranks deep? Well the entire crew of the Z on one side of the ship would be like one sea(wo)man for every six or so feet. They could almost lay down on desk head to foot in a row from bow to stern if they allow a little wiggling and maybe stretch around the ends a bit. This is insane because in a battle they might lose ten men if a shell hits and on the Tennessee that really sucked for those ten men of course, but at least the ship isn't gonna sink because theres 1390 other men to save the ship and put out the fire or WTF and keep on fighting. On the Z losing 10 men is at least 10% of total combat effectiveness, and that kind of loss might end a mission completely depending on who got hit. We're kinda going back to wooden ships and iron men in that the modern navy is all about the crew because there's so dang few of them they become hyper critical to mission success. The T had 25 five inch guns and if one gun crew got hit, they lost 4% combat effectiveness and carried on with the other 24 guns, not to mention the main guns of course. The Z has two, repeat, two, 155mm arty for ground support and if "the crewman", as in singular, who knows 155mm gunnery gets hit the ship is no longer combat effective for ground support. Of course the thing is mostly a VLS missile launcher but its interesting to think that it carries 80 missiles which is very near one per crew.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Monday November 28 2016, @04:16PM
useful info imparted, as per usual...
thank you for your ongoing contributions, dont always agree, but you are almost always informative and evenhanded...
thank you
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday November 28 2016, @07:17PM
I think their point is that they don't expect to get hit.
The Battleships were like working trucks designed to take major abuse during visual range bombardment, but dish more than they took before finding a quiet place to bend the plates back the right way. This is a fancy sports car. It will lose most of its advantages if hit, but thanks to progress in automatic sprinklers, plus airtight compartments, it won't necessarily sink easily even with major flooding.
As someone pointed out, it's a lot harder not to get hit if you don't have your almost-million-dollars shells to shoot from far BVR. And I'm curious what modern radars and having waves over the top do to the advertised stealth. We know the Serbs had found that a small frequency tweak could negate the F-117's stealth, I'm curious how wideband the Z's stealth really is.
A first-gen concept is always expensive, and at least this one won't sink with 1400 lives...