Degraded U.S. shipbuilding industry
hobbles Navy quest for bigger fleet
to counter China, Russia
Washington Times,
by
Joseph Clark
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
7/13/2021 12:24:06 PM
America’s dwindling domestic shipbuilding industry has lawmakers worried about the Navy’s ability to keep up with China and Russia. Now that China has surpassed the U.S. to have the world’s largest navy, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that the service must make strides toward building a larger fleet. Reaching the goal, however, is hobbled by a domestic shipbuilding industry that has been in decline since the mid-1990s. The Navy currently operates just four public shipyards tasked with maintaining the nuclear-powered fleet and roughly 20 private shipyards certified to build and maintain the service’s conventionally powered ships. China, by comparison, operates more than 1,200 shipyards
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Jesuslover54 7/13/2021 12:30:35 PM (No. 844379)
We need more gay pipefitters.
10 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Proud Texan 7/13/2021 12:36:20 PM (No. 844386)
Ribicon is spot-on!
11 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Toby Ten Bears 7/13/2021 12:38:26 PM (No. 844391)
Wait until you see how far behind Space Force is...
5 people like this.
I remember during DS II, a Marine had written on a white board while in county " The Marine Corps is at war, America is at the mall."
"Joe six pack" and "Box wine Brittany" are clueless wrt anything outside their myopic little social bubble. China? Iran? national debt? energy? not their problem, Anyway, why should they be knowledgeable about concerned about such things, their little Johnny and Joanie are safe at the kiddy kennels awaiting pick up by one of the soccer moms who has drop off/[ick up duty that week.
Not their problem that Capt (fill in the name), Ltjg (fill in the name), and Major (fill in the name) are/go into harms way. Not their kid.
3 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
skacmar 7/13/2021 1:33:23 PM (No. 844432)
Sure we have less ship building capacity. But they are culturally and racially sensitive and can identify as whatever gender they want to! That will surely help to build better ships. We can't build ships. It's too hard and people don't want to do those jobs. They all want to be Tick Tok stars and stay at home workers. Blue Collar is bad. Manual labor like ship building is looked down on (dirty, smelly, Trump voting, Walmart shoppers!) by East/West Coast elitists.
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
red1066 7/13/2021 1:39:17 PM (No. 844436)
Parents don't want their kids to work with their hands for a living. It's viewed as degrading and low class by far too many people. Jobs such as pipefitters and welders make be a little dirty, but the pay those people make is anything but low class. I went to college, but didn't start to make REAL money until I started getting my hands dirty working with my hands. While I am proud of getting my degree, the jobs didn't pay squat.
6 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 7/13/2021 1:52:10 PM (No. 844453)
A simple solution is staring us in the face - - - -
- - just let China rebuild our Navy.
6 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Hermit_Crab 7/13/2021 3:02:19 PM (No. 844517)
I'm much more worried about our degraded military than I am about their degraded weapons makers.
2 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
snapper451 7/13/2021 3:30:02 PM (No. 844544)
It is very simple, what we have is MAWA - MAKE AMERICA WEAK AGAIN!
The Obama/ Xiden/ Clinton / Harris way.
3 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
DVC 7/13/2021 3:52:03 PM (No. 844565)
Making steel, welding, wiring and plumbing are icky and dirty, physically hard work. Young men and women are advised to 'get a college degree, don't work in a factory or in industry.'
So, we have 100 times the number of lawyers that are sane, 10,000 more underwater basketweaving instructors than we need, millions of unemployable 'ecology experts' and damn near zero steel making and shipbuilding capability.
Trump had steel companies rebuilding and expanding their facilities in a few short years. The Evil Dems are crushing that. If we want to build a ship we'll have to buy the steel from China, or Japan or Korea, and even then, very few ships can be built due to lack of shipyard companies.
In WW2 we built over 100 aircraft carriers, including 30+ of the largest, fastest ones in the world, dozens of new battleships, many tens of cruisers, many hundreds of destroyers and destroyer escorts. We built 2,700+ cargo ships called "Liberty ships", some built in as little as a week, or less.
Today an aircraft carrier takes at least 5 years to build ONE.
5 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Starboard_side 7/13/2021 4:02:26 PM (No. 844582)
A large part is the defunding of our military over the past couple decades.
Most of the shipbuilding jobs in the United States are very high-paying union jobs, and require U.S. steel, and parts.
Wonder if the perfumed princes at the top of the military have the fortitude to fight for what they need, and push-back against those in Congress (House mostly) who want to allocate those funds for social programs instead.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Venturer 7/13/2021 4:12:26 PM (No. 844592)
Ships are pretty much just targets for missile attacks anyway.
1 person likes this.
I worked at a Shipyard for 35 years. Today they can't get these kids to show up and work. Management is terrible with all this touchy feely training and not on the job. Shipbuilding is a hard industry, a lot more complicated then people think, just ask Northrop Grumman. It's not a fuselage with seats. I can't even imagine the bidding process today with all these new diversity requirements.
5 people like this.
You Chinese just wait until the launch of the USS Gayflower. You are DOOMED!
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
curious1 7/13/2021 6:17:39 PM (No. 844738)
All this is due to the American citizens letting election fraud continue, letting dimo-commies actively work against the Republic's best interests and not string up or put up against the wall every dimo-commie they can find. Until that attitude changes things are going to continue to degrade.
4 people like this.
The four public yards cited don't build ships - only repair them (not that nuclear refueling is small potatoes), although there are other private yards with the drydocks needed for the repair business. The four public yards BRAC'd after the Cold War aren't coming back and the only 5 remaining construction yards with the capability and capacity to deliver major combatants belong to Huntington Ingalls and General Dynamics. The contraction is to the point where Navy shipbuilding and the associated multi-billion dollar contracts is now hyper-political. Note the pro- legislators mentioned: Wicker (MS - Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula); Wittman (VA - Newport News Shipbuilding); Collins (ME - Bath Iron Works).
Today's ships are complex systems of mechanical, electrical, and electronic engineering that take years to complete, so we rely on our technological advantage (whether real or perceived) over our enemies to maintain control of the seas. China has caught up in terms of raw numbers and isn't far behind on the technological side so something will need to be done.
Finding competent workers is another challenge. Nobody charts a course in high school to work in a shipyard upon graduating. A good portion of the workers in the San Diego yards drive across the border every day.
2 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
MickTurn 7/13/2021 8:43:21 PM (No. 844868)
No problem, all we need are rainbow painted row boats...Our guys can have slingshots and spit wad straws...we'll easily defeat the Chicoms...NOT!
1 person likes this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
mifla 7/14/2021 6:21:46 AM (No. 845184)
In 1945 we needed a large fleet. Now in 2021, not sure that is true any longer, given today's technology.
0 people like this.
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USA is run behind the scenes by intelligence agencies that in theory have the best interests of the nation at heart. The question is, which nation do they represent? USA was de-industrialized after WW2, specifically to advance other nations at the expense of the USA, transitioning us to a "service economy" in which we are destined to become servants to nations that can produce material goods.