US Navy Littorals are cracking.

[FriendlyStranger]

I just yesterday watched a 2008 documentary called Factory City.... about a factory in China that has over 17,000 employees. Bright, modern, extremely efficient with an absolute demand for quality. The emloyees live there, work there, have families there, and are 100% devoted to their job.
Having now worked in 7 factories alone, for well over 40 years...I can tell you with absolute certainty we cant come ANYWHERE near that level of production/efficiency or loyalty.
Its free to watch..utterly fascinating, and totally changed my mind on how they work in China.
I still go way out of my way & will pay more NOT to buy China made stuff when possible...but Ive yet to see USA made computers, phones, ect.
And its a cold hard fact what markm said...a LOT of USA made products are poor quality crap. Ive lived long enough to remember when it wasnt that way at all. Damn shame.
Personally- I blame WALMART for getting that Made in China ball rolling before Sam was even cold in the ground. Then, everyone else had to follow to stay competitive.

Demoralize the US population, promote greed/profit above all, get your half baked intellectuals into positions of power in business, let China seize the means of production.


Communism is like rust and slowly eats away at you.

More than half Canada's Navy vessels are either being repaired, modernized or otherwise at reduced readiness
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada...uced-readiness

Inside Canada's troubled efforts to build new warships
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fri...nada-1.5474312

A design still in flux

Most of his concerns revolve around the new support ships, which the Liberal government says are in the process of being built now.

The written responses, tabled in Parliament, note that the projected cost for the two supply ships — $3.4 billion — remains under review "as the design effort finalizes."

Perry said he was astonished to learn that, "seven years and half-a-billion dollars into design work on an off-the-shelf design," the navy doesn't have the support ships, even though "the middle third of the ship is built" — and officials now say "the design effort isn't finished."

Usually, he said, ships are designed before they're built.

The head of the Department of National Defence's materiel branch said most of the preparatory contracts were needed to re-establish a Canadian shipbuilding industry that had been allowed to wither.

Navy’s aging warships getting harder to repair: Defence report
https://lethbridgenewsnow.com/2020/0...ence-report-2/

OTTAWA — The Royal Canadian Navy’s maintenance facilities are having an increasingly tougher time fixing Canada’s warships because of staff shortages, lack of spare parts and the age of the fleet, according to an internal Defence Department study.

Canadian warships starting to show age, replacements years away, Navy commander says
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadi...says-1.5722351

Canadian navy needs to recruit 1,000 sailors to crew new warships: Commander
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadi...nder-1.5723427

The commander of the Royal Canadian Navy is sounding the alarm over a shortage of sailors, saying he needs about 1,000 additional mariners to crew Canada's warships.

[AKDoug]

And LAZY AS HELL. I can tell you stories from sun up to sun down, and barely scratch the surface of what Ive personally seen, heard & experienced the last 2-3 years alone.
The 27 or so and under crowd Ive been around are WORTHLESS..almost to a person. I can & do daily outwork and outdo any of them...they are the whiny-est, crying-est bunch of pussies Ive ever heard. Im sorry gents but that the honest truth, our work ETHIC, or lack thereof, is simply atrocious. Im CONSTANTLY asked, last night even.."why you do so much" or "why you do that, you dont got to"...man that pisses me off. How our military can be an effective fighting force with shoddy made gear, lowered standards and the limp wristed peckerwoods, Id like to know. Do the high-ups think they can overcome this with technology? At SOME point theyve got to have MEN ready to put rounds downrange and if need be, fix bayonets, so to speak.

You're hanging with the wrong crowd and the hiring practices of whatever company you work for is junk. I employ 24 people as of yesterday. 8 of them are under 25 and 12 of them are under 30. They all kick ass. So much so that I've been basically able to quit working unless I want to. I see the same amount of percentage dead-beats from my 22 y.o.'s high school class as I do from my class in the 80's.

[SomeOtherGuy]

Good news is they just launched another one.

They are littorally junk.

The fail is hard on these. The LCS Independence class in particular could be an amazing light, fast amphibious ship and/or mini aircraft carrier, if it fundamentally worked. And the Freedom class could have been cool ultra-fast corvettes, if they actually worked, and had any weapons capable of sinking something larger than a recreational fishing boat.

The Zumwalt class would have been intimidating, if they had any ammunition for their guns.

Oh well, I guess the USS Gerald Ford might actually do something useful this year, only 13 years after its keel was laid.

[Straight Shooter]

You're hanging with the wrong crowd and the hiring practices of whatever company you work for is junk. I employ 24 people as of yesterday. 8 of them are under 25 and 12 of them are under 30. They all kick ass. So much so that I've been basically able to quit working unless I want to. I see the same amount of percentage dead-beats from my 22 y.o.'s high school class as I do from my class in the 80's.

FYI- I dont & wouldnt "hang" with ANY of these clowns. Cant wait to get away from them when shift is over. I currently work for one of the worlds most recognizable snack makers, and have worked for several well known companies over the years, and this latest current crop of valedictorians arent worth a tinkers damn. Having said that- it is refreshing to hear your experience is totally opposite of mine.
And I DEFINITELY agree that most of the companies Ive worked for have crappy, crappy hiring policies.

[Defaultmp3]

Google "cha bu duo", and perhaps you'll get a more realistic idea of how PRC manufacturing is.

The PRC is far closer to being like Russia in being a paper tiger than y'all think, IMO. The USA certainly has its share of problems, but this doom and gloom shit is way hyperbolic, with a heavy dose of rose tinted glasses look at the past.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

If I were in Congress, I'd say want to know why they don't want the old boats and are clamoring for new ones. On the Zumwalt and the cLittoral ships, who are the 100 admirals that will be fired and banned from working in the MIL industry because they are proven incompetent. Someone has to pay, besides the tax payers...

MIL seems to always want to get new stuff, and then complains about maintaining it. Everyone wants to go to the garden shop and gets plants, but no one wants to weed the garden.

[chuckman]

I think it was early in the Trump admin the Navy gut a huge appropriation to build new ships, like, many more new ships. I wonder what happened to all of that.

Edited to add article: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wire...lder%20vessels.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-n...rs-subs-2022-3

I get wanting subs and carriers--the backbone of a forward deployed fleet--but does it have to be at the expense of a well-rounded fleet with cruisers and destroyers? Not to mention, we still don't have the amphibs we need to support the Marines in a significant conflict:

https://news.usni.org/2022/05/10/mar...ibious-warship

[titsonritz]

I'm sure it was all a ploy to get the Chinese to steal junk plans, haha, we showed them.

[Diamondback]

Seems to me that instead of buying these we shoulda bought Japanese Hyugas. Better workmanship and they already have a fully developed "mission modules" ecosystem called an Air Group. Sub hunting? Load up some Seahawks. Standoff land attack? F-35s. Beach assault? Crane a couple Zodiacs full of SEALs over the side.

Unfortunately, all this shows us is that Pride of Craftsmanship is critically endangered here...

[alx01]

U.S. builds best warships in the world, period. No other country in the world have such expertise. This is not to say that German, British, or French ships are bad. Any design, especially as complex as a modern warship will have its own share of problems. All gloom and doom is being promoted by either rather incompetent whiny mid-level officers who seek to make name for themselves by complaining, or by ship building companies themselves who have a newer designs or need new repair contracts.