Next US Navy submarine has a big welding flaw and incompetent contractors

The US Navy is spending $128 billion to build twelve Columbia-class nuclear missile submarines. A costly mistake on ballistic missile tubes almost passed undetected.

Contractor BWX discovered welding problems and notified primary builder Electric Boat. This led to a halt to the installation of the missile tubes. Electric Boat admitted this week that the faulty work will cost $27 million to fix over the course of the next year.

Cold War era Ohio-class subs are aging out at 42 years of age. This is very old for submarines. They are too old to safely patrol at crushing depths.

The US Navy now has 12-person teams conducting intrusive inspections on the tubes and other parts of the submarine.

The Navy had assumed the competence of Electric Boat. These are the first new missile submarines in many years. There has been a loss of skilled workers.

24 thoughts on “Next US Navy submarine has a big welding flaw and incompetent contractors”

  1. LOL, covering up a problem isn’t exactly being open. And having been survived a number of maritime inspections in my day, the results won’t be in the paper because they’re dry, boring and technical to the point that J-school grads neither have the back ground to understand them nor the interest to learn.

  2. LOL, covering up a problem isn’t exactly being open. And having been survived a number of maritime inspections in my day, the results won’t be in the paper because they’re dry, boring and technical to the point that J-school grads neither have the back ground to understand them nor the interest to learn.

  3. At least the flaws were discovered, and will be fixed. For the scope of the project, this isn’t too bad.

  4. Now as a person who complains about government waste and stupidity I feel that I need to point out that:100 * $27,000,000/$128,000,000,000 = 0.02%So the $27 million bill is two hundredths of a percent of the overall cost.Move along folks not much to see here.

  5. You honestly think that they will be open about all this? No. Only those in ‘the know’ would. The rest of you need to be kept in the dark so your reactions in any audit/investigations are appropriate.:)

  6. Not true. Newport News Shipbuilding in VA constructs nuclear subs and is an alternative to Electric Boat.

  7. Based on my somewhat antiquated experience in shipyards; it’s not. The simpler explanation is that the sub contractor, BWX, caught a defect that Electric Boat was hoping wouldn’t get caught. That $27M will almost certainly be on their loss ledger.The problem is that EB is the ONLY submarine builder in the US, so they have leverage if they can convince the Navy that it would drive them out of business. Intrusive welding investigations throughout the boat will definitely delay construction.

  8. Brian, Brian, Brian…this isn’t not a ‘bug’. It is a ‘feature’. It is no accident that these ‘defects’ were ‘discovered’. This all to extend the pork train. The pork will flow!

  9. Generally one has to eat their own mistakes. There is a surgery center in Oklahoma that doesn’t take insurance and they can’t bill you for their own mistakes. They have 5% the infection rate of normal hospitals that get to charge your insurance for the hospital supplied infection. I wonder what the rate of problems would be for government contractors that had to eat their mistakes and not get a new infusion of money and profit.

  10. One might argue it’s unsafe for any boat (sub) to patrol at “crushing depths”….maybe the Ohio class simply have shallower restrictions based on age?

  11. Now as a person who complains about government waste and stupidity I feel that I need to point out that:

    100 * $27,000,000/$128,000,000,000 = 0.02%

    So the $27 million bill is two hundredths of a percent of the overall cost.

    Move along folks not much to see here.

  12. You honestly think that they will be open about all this? No. Only those in ‘the know’ would. The rest of you need to be kept in the dark so your reactions in any audit/investigations are appropriate.

    🙂

  13. Based on my somewhat antiquated experience in shipyards; it’s not. The simpler explanation is that the sub contractor, BWX, caught a defect that Electric Boat was hoping wouldn’t get caught. That $27M will almost certainly be on their loss ledger.

    The problem is that EB is the ONLY submarine builder in the US, so they have leverage if they can convince the Navy that it would drive them out of business.

    Intrusive welding investigations throughout the boat will definitely delay construction.

  14. Brian, Brian, Brian…this isn’t not a ‘bug’. It is a ‘feature’. It is no accident that these ‘defects’ were ‘discovered’.

    This all to extend the pork train. The pork will flow!

  15. Generally one has to eat their own mistakes. There is a surgery center in Oklahoma that doesn’t take insurance and they can’t bill you for their own mistakes. They have 5% the infection rate of normal hospitals that get to charge your insurance for the hospital supplied infection. I wonder what the rate of problems would be for government contractors that had to eat their mistakes and not get a new infusion of money and profit.

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