In THAT ?
They are throwing away MY money and YOUR money…..
WTF are they allowed to do THAT?
For the U.S. Navy, buying warships that are defective, unfinished or both has become the norm.
The habit is expensive, dangerous and leaves overworked sailors to deal with faulty ships in need of repair from day one — yet it has escaped sufficient scrutiny in Washington.
Contrary to the Navy’s own policy, and despite spending nearly $16 billion on average in each of the last 30 years on new warships, most U.S. combat vessels are delivered from private shipbuilders with flaws significant enough to impair the vessels’ ability to perform missions or to keep crews safe, according to recent audits conducted for Congress.
On top of these identified glitches, still more systems unexpectedly break down on ship after ship shortly after the Navy starts operating them.
Take the USS Coronado, one of a class of small shore-hugging vessels called Littoral Combat Ships. The Navy accepted the Coronado in 2013 even though its system for distinguishing enemy ships and aircraft from friendly ones wasn’t working, according to the Government Accountability Office. What’s more, a key radar was so flawed it could have fired missiles in the wrong direction.
Both deficiencies were only fixed months after the Coronado was already in use.
The Coronado also experienced frequent breakdowns in a communications system. And a coupling on one of the ship’s engines broke in the Pacific Ocean, causing the crew to return to port for repairs.
“I just wish there were people brave enough to say, ‘Damn the torpedoes, this has to change,’” said Craig Hooper, a former vice president at Alabama shipbuilder Austal USA, which constructed the Coronado. Hooper is now a senior analyst at the Gryphon Scientific consultancy…..
image….PopularMechanics