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Amid concerns about American shipbuilding, the US Navy's top civilian official said this week that he was "floored" by a Pacific ally's capabilities in this space. The Navy secretary's comments came on the heels of an internal review that discovered that most of the Navy's top programs, including high-priority submarines, a first-in-class guided-missile frigate, and the third Ford-class aircraft carrier, are severely delayed by years, fueling worries from US officials about the ability to maintain our pace against great power rivals. During his keynote speech at the Navy League's Sea Air Space conference this week, Secretary of the Navy Carlos...

The Pentagon needs a third shipyard that can build nuclear-powered ships so the U.S. can keep pace with China and Russia’s nuclear modernization, a congressional commission said in a new report published Thursday. A third private shipyard would expand industry’s capacity to build nuclear-powered submarines, therefore bolstering U.S. strategic forces, according to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. The commission suggests the Pentagon “increase shipbuilding capacity, by working with industry to establish or renovate a third shipyard dedicated to production of nuclear-powered vessels, with particular emphasis on nuclear-powered submarines,” according to the report.

PASCAGOULA, Miss.—A $13.3 billion program to safeguard American interests in the Arctic has run aground on an old industrial challenge: cutting and shaping thick, hardened steel. U.S. officials are racing to procure new polar icebreakers because one of only two that the Coast Guard now sails has reached the end of its life, and the one assigned to the Arctic is out of service for maintenance every winter. Delivery of the first new icebreaker has slipped to 2028 from 2024 as designers, engineers and welders grapple with something the U.S. hasn’t done in decades: reliably shape hardened steel that is...

In a heated Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today, Alaska’s Senator Dan Sullivan accused the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Carlos Del Toro of breaking a critical shipbuilding law that legally requires the Navy and the Department of Defense to build a specific number of ships. The recent fight over amphibious warship procurement, as reported in a previous gCaptain article, played a significant role in the argument presented by Senator Sullivan. This comes two weeks after Congresswoman Betty McCollum – ranking member of the powerful Defense Appropriations Subcommittee – told Del Toro and Chief Of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday...

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is continuing to evaluate a proposal put forward by the U.S. Navy to procure two nuclear-powered Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers under one contract as a cost- and time-saving measure. “We are conducting an evaluation to ensure we have the warfighting capabilities to compete and win,” U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan was quoted as saying by Bloomberg News on October 19. “Any decision will factor in strengthening the industrial base and delivering best value for taxpayers.” While U.S. Congress approved the block procurement in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, U.S. ship maker...

Link only due to copyright issues: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/05/30/we-spent-3-days-on-a-top-ffgx-contender-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

South Korea will launch the first of a planned fleet of nine 3,000-ton indigenously designed KSS-III (Jangbogo–III-class) diesel-electric submarines next month, according to local media reports. The submarine will be launched at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard on Geoje Island, near the port city of Busan in the southeastern part of South Korea, next month. The keel laying ceremony of the first KSS-III diesel-electric submarine took place at the DSME shipyard on Geoje Island in May 2016 with construction intermittently delayed due to technical issues. The first-of-class boat is expected to be handed over to the Republic...

Last week, Congressman John Garamendi (D- CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee for Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, introduced The Energizing American Shipbuilding Act of 2018. The bipartisan bill, which would require the construction of over fifty ships and the creation of thousands of maritime and mariners’ jobs, is being carried in the Senate by Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS). In an interview with AJOT, Garamendi said that projections of 50 new shipbuildings by 2040 comes from “the legislationwhich requires a small percentage of exported crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to be transported on U.S.-built and U.S.-flagged...

ROBERTSDALE, AL (WALA) - Baldwin County has landed another manufacturer from outside the US. Canada-based AdvanTec Marine will be setting up shop in Robertsdale. AdvanTec manufactures closures and fittings for yachts and ships and this will be their first facility in the southeast US. The company plans to hire 46 workers and AdvanTec will be putting out an annual payroll of nearly two and a half million dollars. Most of the jobs are high-paying, skilled labor jobs. Very soon, an empty warehouse in the Robertsdale Industrial Park will be a thriving business once again. It’s been vacant since Hydrotech Industries...

An Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate. (Odense Maritime Technology) Ken Hansen, who retired from the Royal Canadian Navy in 2009 at the rank of Commander, is an independent defence analyst and owner of Hansen Maritime Horizons. He is a member of the Science Advisory Committee for Atlantic Oceans Research Enterprise, and a contributor to the Security Affairs Committee for the Royal United Services Institute. When it was first announced in 2011, Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy immediately became the most expensive capital procurement in the history of the country. Initially estimated to cost $38.6 billion, the 25-year plan more than doubles the amount...

With a Navy commitment in hand to build 18 new Columbia-class nuclear submarines, Electric Boat in Groton is planning a hiring and spending spree that will be felt across the state. The company is gearing up to hire 2,000 new employees this year at its Connecticut and Rhode Island plants, with 1,350 jobs slated for Groton. Electric Boat employs about 14,500 people in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and that employment is projected to grow to 18,000 by 2030. Company President Jeffrey Geiger on Monday told business and legislative leaders during an annual update that the company will meet the Navy's...

The most expensive warship ever built has been delayed from hitting the front line because it is reportedly not ready for battle. The $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford Navy supercarrier - the first of three in its class with a total cost of $43 billion - could potentially struggle with planes landing and taking off, moving military weapons and being able to successfully defend itself, a memo obtained by Bloomberg News reads. The memo allegedly states 'poor or unknown reliability issues' were identified in a letter dated June 28. 'These four systems affect major areas of flight operations,' Defense...

The Republic of China Navy (ROCN) Program Office recently announced in Taipei a major indigenous development programme spanning ten vessel types. It represents a desire for Taiwan to be less dependent on the US for naval requirements. Indigenous production calls for spending of US$14.7 billion over a 23-year period out to 2040, including submarines, destroyers, guided missile frigates, landing platform docks (LPD), 2,500t multipurpose transports, additional catamaran-hulled Tuo Jiang-class corvettes, rescue vessel, ocean surveillance ship, minelayers and tugboats. Interestingly, an ROCN press release a day earlier included a landing helicopter dock (LHD), but it disappeared at the official briefing without...

The U.S. Navy has fallen into a troubling pattern of designing and acquiring new classes of ships that would arguably best be left as single ship or at most in limited numbers. It’s also building several types of new aircraft that fail to meet specifications. The Navy is developing a new class of supercarriers that cannot function properly, and has designed them to launch F-35 fighters that are not ready to fly their missions. This is all happening during an era of out-of-control budgets, which bodes poorly for American sea power and leadership ahead. That the Navy is concentrating larger...

An arm of the House Armed Service Committee wants Reagan-era spending for the Navy, even as the service seeks to shed ships and aircraft amid potential defense budget cuts down the road. The Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee wants to hike shipbuilding to $20.6 billion — $2.3 billion more than the Obama administration’s budget request, according to a subcommittee markup of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act released Tuesday in Washington. The markup calls for more of everything — from ships to missiles — and faster production of carriers and submarines. The subcommittee’s recommendations remain far from enactment. The full...

The Government has announced the tenderers and build locations for three shipbuilding programs, namely OPVs (Sea 1180), the Pacific Patrol Boat replacements (Sea 3036) and the future frigates (Sea 5000). Twelve Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) will be built initially in Adelaide until first steel is cut for the future frigates, also pre-determined for that city. Up to 21 Pacific Patrol Boats will be built by Austal in Henderson, WA. ''''As part of the Competitive Evaluation Process (CEP) three designers [for the OPV]have been shortlisted; Damen of the Netherlands, Fassmer of Germany, and Lürssen of Germany to refine their designs. This...

Video from Maine Imaging Photography showing the U.S. Navy’s Zumwalt (DDG-1000) entering Portland Harbor following sea trials in December. The Zumwalt is the first of three planned Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers being built for the Navy by General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Maine.

France transferred several pieces of advanced technology and know-how to Russian shipbuilders before the Mistral warship deal was put on ice following Western sanctions, a news report said Thursday. “According to the contract between the Russian Defense Ministry and France's DCNS [shipbuilding company] there are three types of technology that were transferred,” said Alexei Diky, the director of military-industrial cooperation at Russia's massive state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), RIA Novosti reported. Under the 1.2 billion euro ($1.4 billion) deal, signed in 2011, France was to build two Mistral-class helicopter assault ships for Russia and transfer shipbuilding expertise to the Russian...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 11 (UPI) -- Israel is acquiring four advanced Sa'ar-class corvettes from Germany over the next five years under a $480 million deal signed on Monday. The ships, which will be built by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems but fitted with Israeli-made weapon systems, Israeli news reports said. The deal was signed in Israel by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and visiting German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. The ships will be used as part of a program to protect Israel's expanded Economic Exclusion Zone in the Eastern Mediterranean, where recent explorations discovered major oil and gas...

On Monday, eight months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned the first Project 15A guided missile destroyer, INS Kolkata, the first of its successor class vessels - INS Visakhapatnam - was launched into the water at Mazagon Dock Ltd, Mumbai (MDL). INS Visakhapatnam, the first of four stealthy destroyers coming up under Project 15B, began taking shape on January 23, 2013, when MDL started fashioning 2,800 tonnes of Indian-made warship steel into the warship's hull. With this partly-build structure now floating in water, INS Visakhapatnam will be built up by 2017 into a 7,334-tonne behemoth. After trials, it will be...