Posts tagged as:

shipbuilding

Over on Forbes, I’m banging away at the opportunity Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron have this week to deepen an ongoing Franco-US maritime relationship at the G-20 meetings. I have long extolled the strategic value of France’s strategically-useful maritime holdings, and, as we are already working together on maritime security and carrier integration, we should […]

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In Marine News: Shipbuilding And The Navy of Tomorrow

by Craig Hooper on August 5, 2021

Last month, I had a piece published in one of the magazines in the MarineLink constellation–the link is here. Please go read it! For the piece, I was charged to discuss the technical and geopolitical drivers of naval shipbuilding, so there was a lot to cram into the essay. It’s a bit dense. At any […]

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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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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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Bath Ironworks: What’s Next?

by admin on November 13, 2016

Poor Bath Ironworks. Over the past decade, Bath has endured one heck of a fall from grace–going from a favored ship-production site and world-renowned naval combatant manufacturer to, well, something of a demoralized mess. It’s serious. Wandering around the Navy Yard, I have never heard the Navy semi-publicly vent over a shipyard’s attitude and performance […]

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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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In naval shipbuilding, General Dynamics is crushing the competition. They are simply outthinking and out-maneuvering everyone. It’s not a twist of fate, either–they’re reaping the rewards of a lot of solid strategic thinking and years of strategic positioning. They’re hitting at all cylinders. Over at today’s Defense News, Chris Cavas gives us all a lesson on […]

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The current global crop of “conventional” frigates (which I loosely define as a multi-purpose combatant of somewhere in the vicinity of 2,000-4,500 tons), has reached something of a developmental dead end. These ships cannot be improved–or, in the case of foreign models, brought into compliance with U.S. Navy standards and then improved–without a huge investment–An […]

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So, last week the Small Surface Combatant Task Force announced a call for ideas on a small future surface combatant, complete with substantial pricing and production information and–if a boat-load of pricing and production data wasn’t enough–operational concepts as to how the ship will fit and fight with the fleet. Goodness. Where does one sign […]

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If the Navy is going to spend time thinking about new frigates or pondering “up-gunning” the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), then America should also be thinking about developing a low-mix, austere DDG-51. Look, if the U.S. Navy is looking for a low-end Destroyer, then why not use the excellent high-end DDG-51 as a starting point? […]

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