Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships • Hacker News Board

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#171

Post by littlestymaar » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 6:38 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #139

kingcharles wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Surface ships are now just sitting ducks. Does the US have more carriers under construction? You need carriers to launch planes, but I guess the future could be quadcopter drones launched from subs?

The concept of "carriers" might change as they start to carry smaller unmanned planes - quadcopters tend to be at a disadvantage to fixed wing drones when longer ranges and longer loiter times are required. The solution to ship-killer weapons is decentralization, replacing a single juicy target with many dispersed targets. A Predator or Bayraktar sized drone designed for naval operations could be launched from a "dro…

You don't necessarily need a light UCAV to make this work, for the record the variant B of the F35 is easier to deploy from smaller boats than a TB2 or a predator while also being orders of magnitude more capable.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#172

Post by msrenee » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #109

ethbr0 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so? The only major warships the Navy operates are carriers (Nimitz, Ford), amphibious assault ships (Wasp, America), cruisers (Ticonderoga, the last of which was commissioned in 1994), and destroyers (Arleigh Burke, forthcoming DDGX). Ignoring the LCSs as a complete cluster#_$&. Maybe you're thinking of the Spearhead-class EPFs [0] and the issue with high sea states? But those were designed from the gro…

Probably the USS Independence - https://www.wired.com/2011/06/shipbuilder-blames-navy-as-bra... Not a capital ship, nor quickly written off - but 2,300 tons (light) is between the Allen M. Sumner- and Gearing-class (late WWII) destroyers. And "forgot that aluminum hull + steel propulsion hardware + salt water = galvanic corrosion" is a "never bothered to calculate GM" (the metacentric height) level of cluster#_$&'ing…

Missing galvanic corrosion as a serious concern while making an aluminum and steel ship is pretty impressive. I guess they didn't actually miss it though. In your article, they say a cathodic protection system appeared on a list of things that were originally planned for the ship, but left off in the end. Which is incredible to me.

I'm definitely in the learning phase with respect to how different metals and alloys interact, but I'm pretty sure I would have caught that myself. Galvanic corrosion is a pretty well-known issue when dealing with aluminum.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#173

Post by rdtwo » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #158

epolanski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also like the part of looking sharp, this is also a non-zero factor in any field, including IT. Between two professionals, if one looks sharp, clean and fit, while the other one does not, it is hard not to conclude one has also more self discipline.

There are dozens of us! While I have certainly seen idiots with nice clothes make bad decisions in management, I do think that all things being equal, some level of professionalism is beneficial to an environment. Attitude and aptitude are critical, and I think dress can help the former.

More often then not I see folks that are faking it all dressed and proper. The people that are the heavy lifters can dress down because they know they are the heavy lifters and they don’t need to pretend. It’s a power play of sorts

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#174

Post by robocat » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

1970-01-01 wrote: post #25

Rust-free? How over budget should we go trying to make an all-aluminum and carbon fiber carrier? Is fiberglass ok or are we planning on making submarines too?

Some discussion on the use of Aluminium “Advances in Aluminum Relative to Ship Survivability”: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.69...

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#175

Post by msrenee » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #103

sgent wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military must follow all EPA regulations as a general order, but someone at a high enough rank in the pentagon can make an exception for a specific rule/reg.

I'm scratching my head as to why someone in the pentagon wouldn't do this for hull maintenance on seagoing vessels. It seems rather important.

Probably because the chemicals they were using are pretty nasty and were used in high volumes. They were doing a lot of damage to the environment and there are alternatives. They just haven't been approved yet for use by the navy. It's not a good look to continue using damaging, outdated methods because your bureaucracy is so bad that can't utilize new technology.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#176

Post by msrenee » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #91

Victerius wrote: post #7

The Navy builds its ships with steel, and the grades of steel used in the construction can experience rust. Solutions: Switch to 100% stainless steel. Stainless steel is an alloy and contains a minimum of 11% chromium. This allows the formation of a protective film of chromium oxide which acts as a shield against rust. The protective film will re-form if damaged. Corrosion resistance can be further enhanced with the…

Stainless steel is prone to stress cracking corrosion (SCC) in saltwater environments which causes catastrophic sudden failure when under load. You REALLY don’t want that in a ship. Galvanizing basically works like anodic protection. Already used, but a galvanized coating will disappear (even a very thick one) in just a few years at sea, and can’t be reapplied in the field effectively. Paint works better. Cor-ten wor…

I honestly don't know too much about the maintenance that goes on when a ship is underway, but I do know that stainless releases hexavalent chromium when you're welding on it and requires a number of extra considerations for safety.

So any sailor doing any kind of patching or repair to whatever part of the hull is stainless needs extra education and extra PPE. As well as monitoring for blood levels and other health issues. Nothing insane, but an added inconvenience in an already inconvenient job.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#177

Post by nradov » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #139

kingcharles wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Surface ships are now just sitting ducks. Does the US have more carriers under construction? You need carriers to launch planes, but I guess the future could be quadcopter drones launched from subs?

The concept of "carriers" might change as they start to carry smaller unmanned planes - quadcopters tend to be at a disadvantage to fixed wing drones when longer ranges and longer loiter times are required. The solution to ship-killer weapons is decentralization, replacing a single juicy target with many dispersed targets. A Predator or Bayraktar sized drone designed for naval operations could be launched from a "dro…

The size of carriers is driven not so much by the size of strike aircraft (regardless of whether they're manned or unmanned), but rather by the need to launch larger AWACS aircraft, conduct flight operations in heavy sea states, provide enough hangar space for maintenance work, and carry enough aviation fuel and munitions for several days of high intensity operations. Even a slight decrease in size severely impacts those areas. In other words, carrier effectiveness doesn't scale linearly with size; a 20% reduction in size might result in a 40% loss of effectiveness. And a hypothetical drone carrier probably wouldn't even be much cheaper.

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#178

Post by hollerith » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #140

sevensor wrote: post #17

This looks like the same phenomenon as the crisis in staffing nurses that was discussed here the other day. Careerist, indifferent management giving the people on the front line inadequate resources and then blaming them when things start to look shabby, or when someone dies. Scapegoating the people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, who are tired, inadequately trained, and inured to a climate of normaliz…

> Why does this malady strike the U.S. Navy and healthcare so severely? Totally government run in the case of the military, and healthcare is the most heavily regulated industry (by far) in the US. Heavy bureaucratic regulations make an organization unable to adapt to local and/or changing circumstances. I read in the book "The Pity of War" by Ferguson that the reason the death rates of the German army in WW1 were so…

>the reason the death rates of the German army in WW1 were so much lower than that of the British

If the advice you just gave is so good, why couldn't you (or the book's author) have found an example in which the side following the advice actually won the war?

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#179

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:43 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #124

Former Navy (nuclear propulsion) here. That by no means makes me an expert, by I will share a couple of thoughts: Ships rust. Officers don't chip paint and paint. Technical enlisted and NCOs don't chip paint and paint either. Junior, and especially unrated (not trained in a vocational area yet) enlisted do. This looks like a simple case of being undermanned, and/or having "too many chiefs and not enough braves". Real…

[deleted]

Re: Top navy admiral wants rust-free ships

#180

Post by sgarland » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

metaphor wrote: post #154

killjoywashere wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Navy physician who has dealt with COVID and fatigue, I think the chronic low pay contributes to a lack of people which leads to overwork, exhaustion, a sort of "this is my lot in life" acceptance of mild to moderate depression. And you get to the point you just look away for your own sanity. Healthcare workers get paid less as you get closer to the coasts. And military gets only very modest pay adjustments for h…

> A colonel in Kansas may live like a king, but a captain in San Diego can't afford a house. Assuming both sought living accomodations outside of free base housing, I was curious what those figures actually looked like[1]: - O-6 colonel stationed at, e.g. Fort Riley, KS 66442, would draw up to an additional $1500 without dependents, $1911 with. - O-6 captain stationed at, e.g. NAS North Island, CA 92135, would draw u…

There's plenty of reason to not buy. What if something catastrophic happens while you're gone for six months? What if you struggle to close on your house in time to move? How sure are you that the market will appreciate enough in the ~3 years at a given station to make back the realtor fees?