by Craig Hooper on June 29, 2021
It is really annoying to publish a story where Navy PR sources tell me that on-land testing of the Freedom Class gear is still underway, only to see another part of the Navy, barely twenty-four hours after I posted this, trot out Vice Admiral Roy Kitchener, the commander of naval surface forces, to tell a […]
by Craig Hooper on June 14, 2021
POGO is doing some interesting work on keeping shipyards accountable. The indefatigable Jason Paladino has a pretty good explainer up, talking about the Shipyard Act–identifying concerning issues like the “no-strings-attached” aspects of the $25 billion shipyard supplement, the apparent “quid-pro-quo” on the lobbying/campaign donation side of the shipyard business, as well as questioning the private […]
by Craig Hooper on June 7, 2021
Here’s the link. So the Freedom Class’ combining gear fiasco–which smart people saw coming waaaay back when LCS-1’s combining gear was first delayed–is moving ahead, with the Navy expecting Lockheed Martin to deliver a tested fix by “early” FY 2022. Good luck. As a pessimist, I suspect this announcement was too aggressive, when the Navy […]
by Craig Hooper on June 7, 2021
Link is here and here. My first column with the Marine News constellation of trade magazines! The Maritime Commerce Cutter fleet is due for an upgrade–and the entire class will be the Coast Guard’s primary inland representative as America’s waterways undergo both an economic renaissance and enormous technical change. These boats are unglamorous, and, while […]