by Craig Hooper on December 29, 2010
…and Austal got the lowest per-unit award? Interesting. When all 10 ships of each block buy are awarded, the value of the ship construction portion of the two contracts would be $3,620,625,192 for Lockheed Martin Corp., and $3,518,156,851 for Austal USA. The average cost of both variants including government-furnished equipment and margin for potential cost […]
by Craig Hooper on December 4, 2010
Yesterday I got to chat with the Mobile Press-Register’s indefatigable reporter Dan Murtaugh about Congressman Gene Taylor’s (D-MS) change of heart about the LCS program. Frankly, I am delighted–Congressman Taylor, as an outgoing Congressman and confirmed LCS foe, had no real reason to promote the program. If he had done nothing, and allowed the Navy […]
by Craig Hooper on December 1, 2010
I had a chance to sit down with Paul McLeary to discuss SSBN(X) in this month’s Defense Technology International, reprising an Ares entry from early November. Here’s the quote–which shows that I do not hate Virginia-class submarines as my prior work has led folks to believe: Craig Hooper, a San Francisco-based national security expert who […]
by Craig Hooper on October 17, 2010
In the crowded world of floating naval memorials, hope springs eternal. In Jacksonville, an effort by the Jacksonville Historic Naval Ship Association to save an elegant former destroyer, the Charles F. Adams (DDG 2), moved ahead, getting support from the Jacksonville City Council. (The picture with the post is the ship as of 2002…a pity, […]
by Craig Hooper on October 4, 2010
Just a quick shill alert! My oiler article, “Running on empty” which has been floating around various viagra sales places in DC since February–has finally been published in the U.S. Naval Institute. Here’s the intro: Pressed by a brutal operations tempo, evolving strategic challenges, and a shifting Fleet structure, the Navy’s aging oilers can no […]
by Craig Hooper on September 28, 2010
The indefatigable Peter Frost from the Newport News Daily Press sunk his teeth into the Virginia Class sub-skin failures (which we have been covering here, here and here), leading to a nice article that, earlier this week, bounced the ball down-field a good bit. Sharing a story with the grand-old-man of naval observation, Norman Polmar, […]
by Craig Hooper on September 21, 2010
I joined the President of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, C. Michael Petters and Dave Heebner, the executive vice-president of General Dynamics Marine Systems, in a NDIA post on recent shipbuilding developments (i.e. the T-AO(X) acceleration). Here’s what Sandra Erwin, the Editor of their flagship National Defense Magazine, included of my interview: Lumping the T-AO(X) acceleration with […]
by Craig Hooper on September 12, 2010
Erstwhile NextNavy amigo Christopher Albon and I pounded out another call for more U.S. hospital ships–a second Great White Fleet, as it were. After watching many calls for new–or more–hospital ships go ignored, I can only wonder if things might change now that some new hospital ships, supported by a well-funded and savvy diplomatic corps, […]
by Craig Hooper on September 9, 2010
I had a chance to chat via email with Sac Bee scribe Jeff Mitchell on the debacle that is the USS Iowa preservation movement. That exchange provoked a
by Craig Hooper on August 12, 2010
Just as Iran claims that it is reverse-engineering their Bladerunner 51 and transforming it to carry missiles and torpedoes, BBC’s File on 4 put the transcript of my discussion of the Bladerunner threat online. Previous commentary here and the transcript is here. Unless Iranians are stuffing their re-makes full of explosive, I really don’t see […]