Trouble On The High Seas For The USS Gerald R. Ford
Categories: Military, News
Well, not so much trouble but rather a set of mysterious events and by mysterious events, we don’t mean that Casper the Friendly Ghost is haunting the ship. Rather, the Navy has time and time and time and again found a way to put off shock testing for the new Gerald R. Ford-class carrier. Promising instead to do the testing on the next ship to be delivered in the Ford-class.
Taking advantage of opportune moments such as the departure of SecDef Mattis and his successor resigning, before finally, Mark Esper took the reigns, the USS Gerald R. Ford was slated to get shock tested in 2016, but through “clever” and “skillful” maneuvering (basically Congress gave the Navy an out in 2017), the shock trials were put on hold. Then with all the chaos in the DoD, the Navy hoped shock testing the new Ford Class Carrier would be put off until the deployment of the USS John F. Kennedy, the second carrier to carry the Ford designation.
What is shock testing? Well all the Navy guys and gals who served aboard ship/boat, know. It’s a big fuckin’ deal. Basically, the ship goes out to sea, and several large explosions are created in close proximity to the ship, but not close enough to cause massive damage, to see how the ship would theoretically hold up during battle. It’s basically a torture test for these multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers to see if they can last through a significant battle or if they have some serious flaws that need to get addressed in future designs.
And what is the Navy doing? Kicking the fuckin’ can down the road.
“Oh let us do it on our next carrier, we promise we’ll do it on the next one.”
As we age, it never ceases to amaze us that adults use the same bullshit kids do when trying to get out of cleaning their room. They’ll spend hours and days and months and years doing EVERYTHING BUT, the one thing they were asked to do. When if they’d just done it in the first place, we could have identified problems, gotten a fix out, and had confidence in our platform.
Fuck. Procrastinators suck major asshole, and not in the cool fun way your lady tried that one time and you’re afraid to admit you liked.
Shock test the fucking ship already. We’ve got other shit to do and you’re holding up the fucking line.
Makes you wonder what are they afraid of doesn’t it?
Yep, but you’re off the mark. The problem is greater than that. The Ford was f’d up by the builder per scuttlebutt and it took a lot to get her back to “norm” where it could be remotely seaworthy. You don’t limp back to port and go back in the shipyard for minor issues before you’ve ever been deployed. I don’t know “her” status now, but hopefully lessons learned will be applied to the rest of the class. I guess one can glean a lot from this report and the references therein.
You obviously don’t understand how pre-commisioning units work, all ships typically go into the ship yard after the report to their homeport to have work done that wasn’t covered under the construction contract, it is cheaper to do it that way than changing the original contract.
The big dollar contracts and contractors get away with far more than the public will ever know.This includes the top Navy brass.