VA is WAY ahead of schedule
I can't wait to hear what all of you, particularly Bubblehead, have to say about this fantastic news from the New London Day (free subscription required):The Groton-based USS Virginia could deploy later this year, more than a year ahead of what would be a typical schedule, becoming the first nuclear submarine to go on an official mission before a year of testing and a year of repair, top Navy officials said this week.*Looking over at bothenook* Any of you old goats have similar experiences? *snicker*
posted by WillyShake @ 5:09 AM
4 Comments:
Now let me see for this article and other recent news,
Lead unit in the class and a year ahead of schedule.
Short circuiting the PSA a possibility.
Need in the fleet for surge deployment.
Pioneering constructing concepts by EB made early deployment possible.
Unit deployed from New London Based squadron.
Navy re-evaluating number of subs required in fleet.
Navy may have under estimated costs of closing New London.
Navy dragging it’s feet on releasing base closing details.
Intel in Clinton Administration under played China’s military buildup.
Is it just me or does closing New London and scaling back the number of Virginia class boats sound more like an accounting exercise than an informed military decision?
I put my thoughts down over at my home blog... Short version -- I'm eating crow on this one; I'm one of those who thought with all the new stuff, they'd never get within a year of the delivery schedule...
Short notes:
--Design fixed after the SEAWOLF, uh, learning process.
--Production line eased by prototyping and LEAN manufacturing.
--SUBTECH.
--No loss of focus with other ship classes.
--Good leadership.
BTW I would like to point out here that DD(X), which was DD21 and SC21, started about the same time as Centurion (now Virginia).
Same time.
Four keels laid for one.
Not even paper for the other.
That's leadership.
I'm nothing short of impressed, given my first boat being new construction...we made/broke some records in getting out of the yard, but not even close to this.
Guess they learned the lessons of many years of building, and applied some LEAN initiatives to the process.
Hope it pays off (in other words, I hope they didn't miss/shortcut anything that'll come back to bite 'em...)
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