The Government Accountability Office blames poor planning by the Navy and poor performance by contractors for waste in the program to modernize 11 Navy cruisers, which has produced only three ships scheduled to return to the fleet.
“It was also an oversight issue, right? The Navy just was not holding these contractors accountable for doing quality work.” Shelby Oakley, director in the Government Accountability Office's Contracting and National Security Acquisitions team.
Mothballing the ships wasted $1.8 billion from efforts to extend the service life of the Ticonderoga-Class cruisers. So far, only the Norfolk-based USS Gettysburg has returned to sea – 9 years after the project started. In late December, the ship was part of a friendly fire incident, when it shut down a Navy fighter in the Red Sea.
The cruisers were sent to private shipyards in San Diego, Washington and Norfolk. BAE Systems in Norfolk worked on the Gettysburg along with the USS Vicksburg and USS Anzio.
The GAO found numerous problems with the effort to modernize the Vickburg. At one point a contractor cracked a sonar dome during installation. The contractor was not supposed to install the dome without Navy supervision.
Replacing the dome cost the Navy $1 million and several months of delay. A contractor also used unauthorized, off-the-shelf projects to finish the work, Oakley said.
“The contractor still was having challenges with getting it pressurized, because it's a pressurized dome,” she said. “They took steps like using the Gorilla Glue and the Flex Seal to seal it. They were never able to do it.”
The GAO found the Navy typically did not fine contractors for poor work and the cost of rebuilding the ships kept rising. The Vicksburg and Anzio have been decommissioned before returning to the fleet.
The report does not name the contractors or subcontractors who performed the work.
“Our work was conducted under the engineering and quality specifications of the contracts and guidance from onsite Navy personnel,” according to a written statement provided by BAE.
The company added – “Cruiser modernizations are exceptionally complex and demanding projects for all parties involved.”
The Navy also took the unusual step of reducing the ships’ crews from 350 to 45 sailors during the extended maintenance. The Gettysburg’s full crew did not return until 12 to 18 months prior to deploying with the USS Truman Strike Group in September.
Without a full crew to maintain the ship, the cruisers degraded even further because of a lack of routine maintenance, according to the GAO report.
Congress ordered the Navy to modernize the aging Ticonderoga Class cruisers, which provide missile and air defense for carrier strike groups. The $4 billion modernization program was designed to extend the service life of the cruisers by five years, but the Navy has only committed to deploying the three cruisers once after they leave the yard.
“Nobody's happy with the outcomes of this cruiser modernization effort, because we're not getting what we expected from it from spending that $4 billion,” Oakley said.
GAO is concerned that the issues could bleed into modernization plans to rehab aging Arleigh Burke destroyers and amphibious ships. Along with the Navy, the same private shipyards are expected to perform the work.
“Several new modernizations are coming underway,” Oakley said. “If we kind of screwed this one up so much, how can we make sure that it doesn't happen again, especially, with the destroyers coming on board.”
