The last ship design I worked on for the US Navy. This thing took decades to get though congress for final approval and they ended up building 1/3 of the ones the Navy wanted. Significant mission changes torpedo'd the guns, but a switch to missiles should maintain the lethality of the ship. I thought you might like to see something "different"! The technology should improve new ships being designed currently. Now if we can find workers to build them!
It certainly looks different. I guess those angular planes are designed to scatter radar energy? Sort of a stealth feature?
You could always try the Bath Iron Works in (duh) Bath ME. They have built more then a few Destroyers over the years.
That is who got the contract for this class. They currently have about 100 openings. The issue the Navy and industry is having is getting workers to return after the pandemic. https://www.reuters.com/business/ae...supply-chain-woes-labor-shortages-2024-04-02/
I find it interesting that there is so much bit--ing about the lousy economy, and industry can't fill secure, well-paying jobs.
Yah the country’s population is aging and at the same time we are doing a poor job training and teaching younger generations. The skills gap is growing. These are good paying jobs too…
Shipbuilding's issues began with the "Lost Generation" of the 70' and 80's when the industry was dead in the water -- everyone cleared out to other industries and staffing has never really recovered. The social / familial link to shipbuilding was broken, which was always an important factor as it is in the automotive industry. I know as a naval architect that we wear worried about the future in the early 80's -- "Let's hurry up and graduate so we can get into a dying industry" is a phrase I recall from that time. Then again, the problem is.not necessarily limited to the US. I am heading to Korea today to look at a shipbuilding project where one of the obstacles is -- you guessed it -- staffing.
I think that the Covid epidemic probably was a major contributor to today's labor shortage. Too many people got used to staying home and having the guv'ment hand out free checks. Please - I'm not taking a position on this - an argument can be made that had the feds not done what they did, there would have been a lot of foreclosed houses and hungry people out on the street; but it's still a bad habit to hand out "free" money.
I started in a shipyard and worked in maintenance and new construction throughout my career. Subs and surface! I started this thread as the last ship class I worked on is now built and completing final testing. Its also supposed to receive the new hyper sonic missile launcher.
Were these built at the shipyard in Mobile Alabama? I worked at our Mobile office for about three months several years ago. Our office overlooks Mobile Bay and I saw a ship very similar to this being built there.
They were all built at Bath, but the Zumwalt went to Ingalls for some upgrades and work in 2023. I think she will be homeported in Pascagoula. Should be quite a sight!
COVID unemployment relief went to workers who were not eligible for normal unemployment payments -- gig workers, etc-- or parents who couldn't work because their kids were suddenly at home with no schools or day care, etc, etc. The amount of money people received was in no way enough to get them to stop working and was most assuredely not enough to get them to never work again. Great talking point for people unsympathetic to the working poor or to people who suffered financially during the pandemic, but that is about it -- not grounded in reality at all. Maybe aim your ire at millionaires who took pandemic job support grants, got those debt forgiven, and now rail about how you "gotta pay your debts".
Interesting question John so I looked up the answer using Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of March 2024 the labor participation rate is 62.70% Vs a historical average of 62.84%. However it is less than march 2020 which was 63.4%. Of note it has been climbing in recent months so getting back over 63% seems reasonable this year. I did not find it, but I recall reading that men are participating at a lower rate than woman or are participating less than in the past.
I can bear witness to this statement as at my old company (I am now retired) I was the person responsible for applying for the COVID loans and payroll reimbursements. The owners of my company received two separate loans at 1.8 million dollars each which were completely forgiven. Additionally they received a little over 1 million dollars in payroll reimbursements. The company that I worked for was considered an essential business so we continued working at full employment throughout the entire COVID ordeal. The final total received by the company was just under 5 million dollars of taxpayer money given to the owners of the company. Thank you US government. It gets better. The owners of the company I worked for run a private equity group that owned a dozen companies. The management of each of those companies met on a weekly basis to compare notes and strategies for how to maximize the benefit from those loan forgiveness programs, so I heard exactly how much each of those companies received in free money from the government. In the end the owners received about $40 million free and clear. I believe the list of all companies that received free money is available to the public. There were thousands of company owners in the US that received these free government handouts.
12lives, sometime back, I sent you a post asking what you did in the Navy. I know you are retired and from this post I understand now that you are an engineer of some sort. I'm sure by now you know I spent a good deal of time in the U.S. Navy. Even worked at the Naval Academy for several years. I have to say, I'm intrigued with the newer ship designs that bring Stealth to Naval ships. I would love to see a radar profile of a Stealth ship. I have to assume; this will make it very difficult to impossible to hit one of our Naval Stealth ships with a missile by the Houthi terrorist, who have tried to hit our ships several times. What is your take on this level of Stealth? Is it good enough to avoid missile attacks? Appreciate your feedback. Vet (Navy)
Stealth technology has to cover more than just radar profile -- it also has to encompass radiated noise, heat signature, and wake generation, the last of which isn't such an issue for a plane but is for a ship. (Note: think "satellites" on the wake issue, though they can track subs too.) Hard to make a surface ship invisible to the old eye in the sky. Submarines can deal with all those a lot more easily than surface ships. I was involved in nascent / ground-floor navy ship stealth efforts in the 90's, and they did some cool stuff. I imagine things have evolved greatly since then.
part of the participation issue is boomers who "retired" during the pandemic and then decided they were through for good.
