Posted on 12/06/2005 7:29:59 AM PST by Paul Ross
How many non-Great Lakes ship building facilities are left in the US ?
Yes, we have to fund ILLEGAL ALIENS, the pork-loaded highway bill, massive medicare expenditure, and the failed "GOVERNMENT OF LOUISIANA" --- far more important than national defense.....
Thank you George, and Washington!
I think we are seeing an impending clash not just with the domestic spendaholics in Congress...but between the DOD and the White House/OMB which has been underfunding the Navy ship-procurements right along...and was on track to cut our subs back to only 28.
Who builds in N.O. ?
I thought Avondale was gone. For some reason, I was thinking there were only two US yards capable of turning out a destroyer...
"Newport News (Norfolk, VA)"
Newport News Shipbuilding is in ... well ... Newport News. There is a Navy ship repair facility in Norfolk, though.
NGSS and Bath are the only two currently building destroyers. But Avondale is still around.
riverdawg - [Homer Simpson] dooh [/Homer Simpson] I stand corrected. Newport News Shipbuilding is in Newport News.
Too bad none of the Great Lakes yards...
Part of the problem, IMO, is not just Congress and the Administration, but the bloat at defense contractors and at the pentagon.
I'm so disgusted with the report I read on NIP, I could spit copper nickels.
Have we recuperated from the downsizing of the Military that Clintoon managed? No.
Is a 313-ship Navy what we really need?
I say we need more than that, and the budget doesn't even reflect getting to the 313. This is insane.
From the "Brief of all Briefs", it has been shown, historically, that some nation poses a threat to the US evey 25 years. True, Russia may not be a threat right now - and I emphasize the "right now", but in 15 more years?? Will it be Pakistan? Indian? China? Korea?
They are all buying everything they can get their hands on from Russia.
And we are not going to be prepared.
Ping lists?
This isn't a complete list, but right off the top of my head:
Ingalls in Pascagoula, MS; Newport News in Newport News, VA; Electric Boat in Groton, CT; Avondale in Gulfport, MS; New Orleans, LA. IOW, not much and all owned by either Northrop Grumman or Generay Dynamics.
ping
BTTT
Maybe. Keep in mind how artificial the $10 billion Navy procurement budget was...and the Adminstration only gave them $6.8 billion of it this last year. The U.S. yards are being starved, and its no wonder there are no longer any economies of scale. There is just no scale to have any such economies. This would appear to be a serious example of the budgetary defense implosion that is a legacy of too-lengthy a defense "holiday" that GWB never really SERIOUSLY addressed. For him, it appears to have been mere campaign rhetoric, and "transformation" was supposed to make the need to actually DO SOMETHING about it "go away." Like magic. Won't happen, and instead we will be seing more stories like THIS ONE from today:
Electric Boat To Lay Off up to 2,400 Workers
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
About one in five workers at General Dynamics Electric Boat submarine shipyard are getting a lump of coal for Christmas.
John Casey, president of Electric Boat, told workers Dec. 6 that the company will lay off between 1,900 and 2,400 employees by the end of 2006. A shrinking workload is the reason, according to an internal company memo.
“These reductions are the result of pressure on the Navy’s shipbuilding budget,” Casey said in the memo.
Casey made the announcement at the company’s annual business briefing for state and local elected and appointed leaders from Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Electric Boat has about 11,800 employees, primarily at its facilities at Groton, Conn., and Quonset, R.I.
The company was the lead shipyard in developing the Virginia SSN 774-class nuclear attack submarine for the U.S. Navy and is handling the conversion of four ballistic missile submarines into SSGN cruise missile and special operations boats. But with design work largely coming to a close for both those projects, and the Navy showing no signs of building more than one submarine a year, the company felt the need to downsize.
“We have to adjust the business accordingly,” said company spokesman Bob Hamilton.
Electric Boat shares construction of the Virginia-class submarines with Northrop Grumman’s Newport News, Va., shipyard, and nine submarines currently are under contract. But industry representatives and analysts for years have warned the shipyards would be hard-pressed to maintain their work forces if the Navy sticks to its current plan of building only one submarine per year, at least through fiscal 2011.
The company also is facing the loss of its repair and maintenance work on attack submarines, which two years ago accounted for more than half its revenue. The Navy is shifting that work to its publicly owned yards, primarily Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, a facility that had been targeted for closure by the Navy but now, after a September decision by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, is to remain open.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.