Socialism Vs Capitalism | Rutgers University Vs Libertarian Institute

One never knew the “brown-water” (riverine) navy would take to the high seas in this alpha example of engineering excellence.

Did you know they designed the Ford with no urinals? We all know why and those toilets instead of the water-less urinals so common today have extraordinary performance during turbulent sea states. They based the toilet system on that used in commercial aircraft. Have they ever been on a commercial aircraft? Those are and always have been terrible.

No urinals on a ship at sea.

In addition, in another stroke of planning and foresight, the eleven weapons elevators, which sailors use to move provisions between decks, are too small to accommodate a pallet jack or forklift. They weapons elevators are also set on a serial circuit so if one goes down they all malfunction.

The USS George HW Bush (CVN-77) has the same toilet system and the same problem. Is it unreasonable to expect the Ford, costing about 6 billion more than the Bush, including working and updated shitters?

Acid flushing is a standard routine to clean out VCHT (Vacuum Collection Holding Tank) systems on every single ship in the Navy.

You can’t make this shit up…

In the famous words of Scotty from Star Trek III: “The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”

Ship workers had to use an expensive acid wash to the tune of $400,000 each time that a toilet was stuck.

The toilets were supposed to work like those on a commercial airplane but they became an embarrassing problem. And even though the remedy was so pricey, the Navy had no plans to change the toilet design that serves over 4,000 people on the floating air bases.

$400,000 To Fix a Toilet? U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier Is a Problem

In a cavalcade of calamities from a skilled workforce to a broken acquisition process to  a strategic deficit disorder that does not acknowledge the Revolutions in Military Affairs that are dominating and radically changing how naval warfare is evolving.

The US Navy has the most advanced twentieth century naval surface combatant force on Earth in 2025. In the emerging salvo competition with quantity having a quality all of its own, the US surface navy is continuing to reinforce technology that is increasingly inadequate and anachronistic in the evolving war continuum. Warship force projection requires the ability to safely transit to the area of operations, fight the ships and bring them home. Yemen has proven that even non-naval powers can soundly defeat the US Navy. Has Yemen sunk a US vessel yet? No. Has the Red Sea drama spent billions in munitions in a critically shallow magazine inventory? Yes. Has Yemen forced the Navy to be on the verge of “battle stations” at all time.

As the article below illustrates, the ship-building crisis will take years if not decades to turn the ship around on creating and building (and maintaining) both surface and subsurface manned ships. I suspect by the time the USN fixes the acquisition problem, the entire notion of manned surface naval vessels may be a moot point.

Absent a mass firing of flag officers and senior government managers, none of this will be repaired and made right.

Over the next three years, the Navy plans on retiring 13 more ships than it will commission, shrinking the fleet to 283 ships by 2027. According to the Navy’s current plan, the fleet will grow to 515 crewed and uncrewed vessels by 2054. To reach that goal, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Navy will spend more than $1 trillion, nearly $36 billion each year for the next three decades on shipbuilding alone.

It remains unclear if the Navy can realize its plan, even if Congress provides the funds. Ramping up naval construction is not simply a matter of resources. The Navy spent $2.3 billion between 2018 and 2023 to increase the capacity of the submarine shipyards. Despite this investment, the production rate for Virginia-class attack submarines decreased from around two boats per year to 1.2.

In just 10 years after the end of the Cold War, the number of skilled shipyard workers shrank from 62,000 to 21,000. The number of workers has increased since 2001, but shortages remain. During a 2024 symposium, the director of the Navy’s Submarine Industrial Base Program said the United States needs to hire 140,000 workers just to meet the needs of the current submarine building program.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-navy/

Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me

Princetonians for Free Speech:

“On April 7 at 6pm in McCosh 28, radio host and author Scott Horton will speak on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and touch on other points from his new book;Provoked:How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, hosted by the student group, Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC).”