When the submarine USS Hartford crashed into a Navy ship back in 2009, the future for the nearly billion dollar machine looked bleak. It had sustained massive damage to several critical areas of its structure, it was already part of the aging Los Angeles class of submarines, and frankly, time has moved on with respect to submarine technology.
In simpler terms, the submarines that are being built today are far more advanced, complex, and constructed in a very different way than the methods used in the older machines. Things are so different in fact, that General Dynamics Electric Boat divison (Which has the greatest true/not true name ever as the “electric boats” are nuke subs!) went to some of the retired engineers that developed the Los Angeles class to come back into the game to assess the damage, come up with a plan, and oversee the fix of the Hartford. They came back and worked with the whippersnappers to get the sub fixed and back to being seaworthy in about two years time from the date of the accident.
The most critical part of the repair was a patch fix to the pressure hull, the actual physical structure that keeps the water outside of the sub. When the Hartford crashed that pressure hull was damaged and a 150 sq/ft section of it needed to be cut out and patched. We can only imagine the skill level of the welders involved on that part of the job!
Hit the link below for the whole story. We thought it was cool because there is a never ending stream of bad news each day regarding how our skill sets as a nation are eroding, our abilities are eroding, and our capability to innovate and overcome are slipping as well. This story shows that there’s still some very handy folks working every day in this country and we as a people are capable of conquering even the toughest tasks, mechanical or otherwise when we put our all behind the effort!
Thanks to Bob Jepson for the tip!
USS Hartford is Repaired by General Dynamics Electric Boat
The same thing is happening in the nuclear industry, and probably others as well. When, at the end of the Bush administration, it was decided to add new nukes to existing sites (saving decades of litigation in the process, litigation being something we continue to get better at) it was discovered that the people who designed and actually built them were no longer around. Recall also when they wanted to look at another round of lunar landings, we found that the actual construction and operation of those things bore little resemblance to the as-built devices; there had been a lot of fix it on the move things done that nobody wrote down. Dumb down the schools, unionize everybody so they have no need to advnace themselves or innovate, and this is what you get. This, along with lots and lots of lawyers.
hmmm.. whippersnappers – if the old farts had done a better job of passing on their knowledge, the next generation wouldn’t have needed their help.
Hard to find anyone from “the next generation” who wants to learn, work, or shut up long enough to listen to the voice of experience to learn something. At least that’s been my experience…
marcus, unionize everybody? You apparently don’t understand the actual decline of the union in this country over the last 40 years… The reason we don’t advance or innovate anymore is because all the major technological corporations cut their engineering budgets in the ’80s and ’90s in a misguided attempt to control costs and stay competitive with foreign companies that didn’t have half as much top level management as American companies and didn’t pay their low level employees living wages.
The lawyer thing is a whole ‘nother problem…
Bucyrus Erie and others also found this problem. When the Canadian oil sands became economically feasible to tap, big mining equipment was ordered. But they had no welders with the skills needed to build anything. No one bothered to learn to be a first class welder because we don’t build anything in our country anymore. Other countries never developed anything themselves, they just stole our designs, and let us do the hard part.
I was there today as a matter of fact. Awesome stuff to see there.
While it’s a moot point here, since a new sub would have been made in our country…this does demonstrate how much money and jobs can be found when the old, obsolete, out-of-style, ect, is repaired rather than simply replaced by the latest and greatest.
I agree 100% with Marcus. Amen.
LAME STORY FOR AN AUTOMOTIVE BOARD
Chad and Brad bust their collective butts around here to bring us content, albeit not always that great, but the goal is to keep us informed of what is happening, showing us things we’ve never seen.
And they do this for FREE! Also they polite and never speak ill of any of us, we should respect their house and act as guests. Many of the posts on here are just plain dumb. The board is like our home, sure there’s some real losers here but let’s not cause any problems, let’s be positive and let’s try hard to keep the place clean so if new advertisers come in to take a look around, they see happiness and not the dumb postings. Remember, Brad/Chad let us come here for free, you don’t see that too much on the Internet anymore. Let’s keep it the way it is! Thanks for listening.
a welding story is always a good one. This fits in with a missing realm of automotives…
Has Brad&Chad run out of automotive topics? HELLO, there’s a lot of goings on with the 4 wheel world, this topic is LAMESHIFT.
Great story Chad, Thanks!
Anything sporting 2 nuclear reactors and a bevy of nuclear torpedos is NOT lame.
One reactor, no nuclear torpedoes. Sorry.
Despite what you may read, 688’s are still among the steathiest, most versatile platforms out there…. and they are paid for.
Great article, BTW.
You are right ironbutt. I was in the wrong column of my history of submarines book. My bad.