Rep. Garamendi in November 2024 "Our industrial base has failed us." If he had ever sat in a USCG/shipyard meeting, his quote would have been "our insanely bloated federal bureaucracy has failed us miserably." Be careful what you wish for, Finland. You have no idea...
It's far from obvious that MIL-SPEC is superior to commercial standards. I spent a fair bit of time going through the stability and compartmentalization standards last year. It's hard to compare, as the calculations involved are simply different. What I can say is that the hull strength, compartmentalization, stability, and redundancy requirements of a commercial spec icebreaker that carries passengers- like Le Commandant Charcot- are quite stringent. A panel of shipbuilders and other experts who looked at this in 2017 recommended commercial specs over MIL-SPEC- they had more time, more people, and better access to the specifications that I do.
That being said, our current icebreakers aren't armed (beyond small arms). I think the PSC is supposed to have some 30mm guns. And there aren't many ice-strengthened combatants worldwide. The Russian project 23550 icebreaking patrol ships that have featured so prominently in press reports have a deck gun and deck space for a containerized missile system- something we haven't seen deployed yet anywhere.
For the U.S. Coast Guard, if you want a combatant, you can bring one along. For the projected price of our PSC you can get about 2 commercial-spec PC2 icebreakers and a National Security Cutter with change. If we need ice capable combatants- and we may at some point-I think it's best to give that mission to the U.S. Navy.
Commercial ships' survivability with respect to hull strength and stability is optimized for external natural events and impacts (Weather, waves, grounding) as well as potential collision cases with other vessels. In these terms, passenger vessel requirements are very stringent and produce a higher survivability potential compared to an AHTS like Aiviq which is most likely, based on public info I could gather, a Sub 60 person SPS Code vessel.
When designing Naval vessels to so-called "MIL-SPEC" (Hate this term in shipbuilding), more survivability vectors need to be taken into consideration. The additional vectors are created by the fact that the ship might also need to survive active combat.
Survivability is already a strain on ship designs as making something super survivable would make it an immovable object at sea. These additional vectors on naval vessels put even further strains on the designs and therefore tradeoffs need to be made.
The total survivability of a vessel is the sum of all these vectors, and this sum needs to be below a certain maximum fraction of the total build weight and volume to be able to call it a ship and not a barge.
Naval vessels are therefore not as survivable when it comes to the elements and collisions, as these are reduced to make room for combat survivability through Shock testing, Speed, Manevureability and Fire protection optimization. A Commercial vessel luckily never has to test to see what happens if you get hit by a flying or subsurface object at high speed combined with a payload of explosives, but if that happens, it is below the surface faster than a naval vessel.
EDIT: Why hasn't anyone been able to produce a high performing and survivable naval vessel that ALSO can perform in ice conditions? There's too many vectors. But if someone cracks this one, it will be a new generation of vessel design.
Rep. Garamendi in November 2024 "Our industrial base has failed us." If he had ever sat in a USCG/shipyard meeting, his quote would have been "our insanely bloated federal bureaucracy has failed us miserably." Be careful what you wish for, Finland. You have no idea...
I think come back after DOGE doc drop. Heads gonna roll.
Substituting commercial standards for MIL-SPEC is fine until the shooting starts.
It's far from obvious that MIL-SPEC is superior to commercial standards. I spent a fair bit of time going through the stability and compartmentalization standards last year. It's hard to compare, as the calculations involved are simply different. What I can say is that the hull strength, compartmentalization, stability, and redundancy requirements of a commercial spec icebreaker that carries passengers- like Le Commandant Charcot- are quite stringent. A panel of shipbuilders and other experts who looked at this in 2017 recommended commercial specs over MIL-SPEC- they had more time, more people, and better access to the specifications that I do.
That being said, our current icebreakers aren't armed (beyond small arms). I think the PSC is supposed to have some 30mm guns. And there aren't many ice-strengthened combatants worldwide. The Russian project 23550 icebreaking patrol ships that have featured so prominently in press reports have a deck gun and deck space for a containerized missile system- something we haven't seen deployed yet anywhere.
For the U.S. Coast Guard, if you want a combatant, you can bring one along. For the projected price of our PSC you can get about 2 commercial-spec PC2 icebreakers and a National Security Cutter with change. If we need ice capable combatants- and we may at some point-I think it's best to give that mission to the U.S. Navy.
Commercial ships' survivability with respect to hull strength and stability is optimized for external natural events and impacts (Weather, waves, grounding) as well as potential collision cases with other vessels. In these terms, passenger vessel requirements are very stringent and produce a higher survivability potential compared to an AHTS like Aiviq which is most likely, based on public info I could gather, a Sub 60 person SPS Code vessel.
When designing Naval vessels to so-called "MIL-SPEC" (Hate this term in shipbuilding), more survivability vectors need to be taken into consideration. The additional vectors are created by the fact that the ship might also need to survive active combat.
Survivability is already a strain on ship designs as making something super survivable would make it an immovable object at sea. These additional vectors on naval vessels put even further strains on the designs and therefore tradeoffs need to be made.
The total survivability of a vessel is the sum of all these vectors, and this sum needs to be below a certain maximum fraction of the total build weight and volume to be able to call it a ship and not a barge.
Naval vessels are therefore not as survivable when it comes to the elements and collisions, as these are reduced to make room for combat survivability through Shock testing, Speed, Manevureability and Fire protection optimization. A Commercial vessel luckily never has to test to see what happens if you get hit by a flying or subsurface object at high speed combined with a payload of explosives, but if that happens, it is below the surface faster than a naval vessel.
EDIT: Why hasn't anyone been able to produce a high performing and survivable naval vessel that ALSO can perform in ice conditions? There's too many vectors. But if someone cracks this one, it will be a new generation of vessel design.