You know you have a problem when the Wall Street Journal features your problem – Submarine Repair Crisis

Alistair

What a great article about the debacle that we face in relation to submarine and ship repairs. Our country has a problem with remembering the past. I am reading a book about Building American Submarines, 1914-1940 by Gary Weir and you would be stunned by how similar the situation today to what it was like a hundred years ago. For decades, the country ignored the skill building needed to build and maintain the fleet. It is a cycle that repeats itself after every war. People make the assumption that there will be no more wars and the cost of maintaining the skills and equipment is just too high. But more wars do come. Mankind just can’t help themselves.

I was a career submarine engineering technician. But after I hit my twenty years, the government was anxious to just rid themselves of all those excess ships and people. We used to have a large collection of submarine and surface ship tenders that were filled with skilled technicians. We also had floating drydocks forward deployed to places like Scotland and Guam manned by trained technicians. We could fix and return to service nearly any sub or surface ship with the exception of replacing nuclear fuel. Nearly all of that is gone. I decommissioned the floating drydock in Scotland and came home to Norfolk only to decommission the USS Hunley (submarine tender).

In comparison, the USS Proteus served during World War 2 (1944) but continued in service up until 1999. No new tenders have been built to replace the ones decommissioned and we only have two left. Both of the ones in service have a hybrid crew of civilians and sailors. My experience with civilian work crews is that they are overpaid and undermotivated. The Pearl Harbor navy shipyard is and always has been a horrendous money pit where ships go to languish in the tropical sun. Months turn to years as schedules slip further and further. The stories I could tell you.

The country will be in real trouble if we have to defend ourselves now. The Chinese can flood the zone with new technology and weapons that will render our fleet inoperable in the early salvos. The inability to repair the survivors will force us to resort to other weapons and that will lead to Armageddon.