Originally Posted by
Asturias56
In the past we've always thought defence unit numbers would fall due to the ever-increasing costs (Augustine's Law) but I never thought we'd finish up designing something so complicated that it would be impossible to build at any speed - that article suggest 6 years for new Virginias - and we're already someway along the learning curve..............
What the article actually suggests is that its not necessarily the complexity that's the issue - it's the availability of skilled labour. That's in the design and fabrication elements as well as parts of the supply chain. Take steel - submarine steel is actually fairly specialised in its strength properties as well as toughness and ductility - driven by particular military requirements. You don't just rock up at the steel mill and pick up a couple of thousand tonnes of HY100 each week. That's before you get to the qualification and inspection procedures, or indeed the welding procedures. You've also got specialist casting and forging techniques to deal with. Because the throughput volume has been so low, it means that the industrial base (and NAVSEA) have not been able to support sufficient people to quickly ramp up scale - and it's not something you can just go on a course for, particularly when some of that knowledge was generated thirty years ago and may not have been curated as (with hindsight) it should have been. Throw in some new safety requirements/procedures, changes in what industry uses to produce things (continuously cast steel compared to batch casting) and it gets even more complex. Now add in complex fluid and electronic systems - all designed built and qualified to military requirements - and it's an even bigger challenge.
It all comes down to people - or availability thereof.