According to a state watchdog agency, the sufferers of the US Navy Littoral Combat led to the eastern Pacific in the Ocean in the east of Pacific in the Ocean of the Navy. (Shannon Renfroe)
The navy has to throw away its worn -out Shipbuilding PlayBook if it wants to expand her fleet enough to meet the critical national security needs, said a congress watch dog agency.
The defective planning approach of the service for the design, structure and delivery of ships has led to enormous cost increases, delays in the integration of ships and missed performance goals, said the state accountability in a report on Tuesday.
The GAO found that poor purchase decisions are deteriorated by a budgeting process in which the navy ensures long -term financing before the full extent of a project is understood.
The Navy has about 296 numbered ships from the Battle Force, including aircraft carriers, destroyers, U -boats and combat logistics ships. But the service wants the fleet to grow to 381 Battle Force ships over the next 30 years.
The report throws doubts about the ability of the Navy to achieve this goal unless his acquisition approach orders “with innovative practices that promote timely, predictable development and provision of new, fully efficient ships”.
To improve performance, according to the report, the Navy should use proven ship design and product development practices based on the approaches of industry-leading companies.
“Leading practices offer the Navy a short -term way to restore credibility towards the operational fleet, the congress and the taxpayer,” the report said.
The GAO added that since 2015 the agency has given 90 recommendations to determine design practices from commercial shipping drivers and builders who can use the Navy.
Although the service has agreed to many recommendations, it has only implemented about 30 of them completely or partially, said the GAO.
The recommendations include commercial shipping practices that ensure that the expectations of the costs and requirements are better informed.
The Navy is currently determining these expectations when the design of a ship is unstable or is in the works, which leads to inadequate information on decision -making. This increases the risk of higher costs and delays, the report says.
The use of the industry model would help the Navy avoid problems such as those that have led to $ 10 billion in cost overruns to build the Littoral combat ships and destroyers of the Zumwalt-Class.
In addition to the additional expenditure, the ambitious plan to add development technologies to destroyers led to years of delaying.
Ultimately, the Navy was forced to reduce the number of destroyers of the Zumwalt-Class from 32 to just three, each with $ 10.6 billion at a price of $ 10.6 billion, more than seven times the original estimate, said the GAO.
In the meantime, the Navy found that according to the report, the destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class met the latest state of the mission requirements.
While the navy took some measures to improve the shipbuilding results, it is not clear that the service has fully understood or applied from previous errors, said the GAO.
According to the agency, two newer programs of the Constellation class and the middle landing ship or the LSM-like problems have problems.
The Navy started working on the first star band in 2022 with a then estimated price of $ 1.3 billion. Since then, however, the estimates have proven by more than 200 million US dollars, and the delivery of the ship has been delayed by three years to 2029, according to the report.
Using faulty metrics, the navy found that the design of the ship was concluded with almost 88% when the building contracts were awarded. A later assessment of the service showed that the draft progress was only 70% completed.
As a result, the construction is breastfed, while the Navy and the Schiffbauer negotiate important technical requirements, said the GAO.
Unrealistic design plans have also contributed to delays and probably higher costs for LSMS that transport marines and their supplies, said the agency.
The program is to revise its cost estimates and schedules, said the GAO.