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General Dynamics

DDG-51 Cut: Not The End, But Maybe The Beginning Of The End?

by Craig Hooper on May 22, 2021

I discussed the “surprising” DDG-51 cut in the Portland Times Herald last week, and, while I get the frustration about how the Congress and the Navy seem to treat “multi-year” and “block” buys as more piggy-banks than real obligations, I think you’re stupid if you don’t believe the DDG-51 is going to end sometime in […]

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In Press: Discussing BIW’s Production Delay

by Craig Hooper on August 31, 2020

I had the opportunity to exchange a few emails with the Times Record’s indefatigable BIW scribe, Kathleen O’Brien, last week on a story “Strike, Pandemic Further Delay Production at Bath Shipyard”. In light of the strike and COVID-19, Bath is more than a year behind schedule. The locals, of course, are concerned about the implications of the delay.

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Let’s Build a New National Shipyard, Part II

by Craig Hooper on February 9, 2019

In continuing the discussion sparked by my recent DefenseOne.com proposal to build a new National Shipyard, let’s take a few minutes to examine maintenance work-load estimates. Even though low-balling the cost of operations and maintenance is an old, long-standing habit in certain parts of the Pentagon, the game is no longer fun, and it needs […]

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Let’s Build A New National Shipyard, Part I

by Craig Hooper on January 22, 2019

I published a commentary over at DefenseOne.com last week, suggesting that the Navy commission a new public shipyard. You can read it here, but the general gist is this: The U.S. Navy’s four public shipyards are overwhelmed. Budget documents show that their workload exceeds their capacity by 117 to 153 percent — that is, there’s too much to get done […]

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Inside the CBO’s Attack on Public Naval Shipyards

by Craig Hooper on September 24, 2018

The misguided drumbeat to privatize America’s four remaining public shipyards is proceeding apace. The latest volley, fired by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is a September 2018 report, “Comparing the Costs of Submarine Maintenance at Public and Private Shipyards.” CBO researchers looked at the DSRA costs (Docking Selected Restricted Availability) for SSN-688s over the PAST […]

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How Big Defense CEOs Can Try To Manage Mr. Donald Trump

by admin on January 1, 2017

In the Trump Era, “Big Defense” CEOs must either market themselves as visionary, “national” assets or wait to die under withering attack from the White House. Look, for any defense company has a big marquee program like the F-35, the Ford Class Carrier or the SSBN(X), being a colorless, faceless and largely anonymous means of […]

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Fred Harris Hangs Up His Hard Hat

by admin on December 1, 2016

Fred Harris, great shipbuilder that he is, is out. His “retirement” was expected–the General Dynamics Corporate Office tends to be intolerant of failure, and Fred had staked his future on the OPC bid that Bath lost. It’s something of a sad tale. Three years ago, Fred Harris was on top of the world. NASSCO was […]

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The Fight For DDG-1004 Has Begun

by admin on March 9, 2015

Love the DDG-1000 or hate it, supporters of America’s multi-billion dollar “battleship-as-destroyer” program have largely been–up to now–quiet on the sidelines of Washington’s unseemly post-Sequestration budget scrum. In the vast array of American defense programs desperate to avoid closure, an old survivor like DDG-1000 (previously known as the arsenal ship, the DD(X), etc., etc.) has […]

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End The “Five Naval Shipyards” Meme

by admin on November 12, 2014

A few decades and a couple defense cuts ago, some wise ‘ole marketer floated the concept that America’s national security depended upon the guaranteed health of the (then) six “large” U.S. naval shipyards: Northrop Grumman’s Avondale, Ingalls and Newport News yards and General Dynamics’ Bath Ironworks, NASSCO and Electric Boat acquisitions. This idea of a […]

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To Sell U.S. Combatants Overseas–Follow the French!

by admin on July 31, 2014

U.S. naval ship vendors could learn a thing or two from the French, as they’ve thusfar fought off extensive American efforts to intrude on France’s niche market in small surface combatants. It’s almost embarrassing.  Despite American efforts to sell the Littoral Combat Ship, the French Gowind-Class corvette “family of ships” has quietly taken big bites […]

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