Tim Colton has some very interesting thoughts today.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-21/roughead-says-fragile-ship-base-must-be-factored-in-review.html?cmpid=yhoo
ROUGHEAD DOESN'T GET ITElectric Boat is a strategic asset, so there is an argument there, but as far as capacity goes Tim Colton makes an interesting point.
Bloomberg News reports that the CNO bled all over the TV cameras this morning over the "fragile" state of the shipbuilding industrial base. Read the story here. He's talking about the so-called "Big Six", of course: the rest of the industry is doing just fine. But this problem is not difficult for most of us to understand. The Reagan Administration drove the number of large shipyards down to six, when the goal was a 600-ship Navy. The goal now is a 300-ship Navy, plus or minus, with an increasing proportion of mid-sized ships that don't have to be built in big shipyards. So why would we need six big shipyards? We don't, of course: we only need three, but I'll settle for four, at least for the time being. We need Newport News, but we don't need Electric Boat. We really don't need both Bath and Ingalls, but we should probably keep them both, if only to give us some flexibility. And we certainly don't need Avondale, because NASSCO is several orders of magnitude better. Admiral Roughead, the Navy is not exempt from the pain. Bite the bullet! Show some leadership, for crying out loud, or head for the golf course. April 21, 2011.
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