New GAO Report: Timely Actions Needed to Improve Planning and Develop Capabilities for Battle Damage Repair
GAO Report 21-246, issued June 2, 2021, highlights the urgent need for the US Navy to both improve its planning process and to develop capabilities to complete the repair of battle-damaged ships. According to the report, “The Navy has not needed to triage and repair multiple battle-damaged ships in quick succession since World War II. After the end of the Cold War, the Navy divested many of its wartime ship repair capabilities, and its ship maintenance capabilities have evolved to focus largely on supporting peacetime maintenance needs. However, the rise of 21st century adversaries capable of producing high-end threats in warfare—referred to as great power competitors—revives the need for the Navy to reexamine its battle damage repair capability to ensure it is ready for potential conflict.”
The GAO Report goes on to highlight the key role of shipyards in repairing battle damage and the notes that the Navy’s, “regular maintenance capability is already operating at or above capacity,” and, more specifically, “our prior work has shown that the Navy’s maintenance process cannot keep up with the Navy’s present needs.” GAO then notes that “in 2020 we reported that the Navy is frequently unable to complete its scheduled maintenance on time and has incurred over 38,900 days of maintenance delay from fiscal years 2014 through 2020. This equates to losing the operational availability of approximately 15 ships on average each year.”
The Bartlett Maritime Plan™ is a public-private partnership which applies private capital to the solution of a public issue, allowing the US Navy to provide additional capacity and capability to the Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise without an adverse impact on the traditional budget accounts. This additional Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise capacity and capability will be provided by executing the proprietary, unique, and innovative acquisition plan developed by BMC to provide new, optimized design, fully staffed facilities for the Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise.
The Bartlett Maritime Plan™ is the only immediately actionable, definitive proposal which has been developed and formally proposed which can provide the urgently required new, optimized, efficient facilities to be staffed from a previously untapped skilled trades labor pool.
Our public-private partnership has ready access to the capital necessary to develop and build these modern state-of-the-art facilities.
Multiple third-party analysts in both the government and the private sectors have repeatedly and definitively concluded, most recently highlighted by this GAO Report, that the Navy’s current approach to ship maintenance has failed to achieve its objectives.
The Bartlett Maritime Plan is forecast to save the Navy >$100 million per year while having a positive economic impact of > 41,000 jobs created while solving the capacity and capability crisis in the Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise.
As an addition to the Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise, providing urgently required additional capacity and capability, The Bartlett Maritime Plan is not a threat to any existing public or private element of the Navy’s ship construction, maintenance, and repair industrial base.
Based upon this irrefutable evidence, immediate action is now required.
Let’s get this done!
Bartlett Maritime Corporation
Privately held Bartlett Maritime Corporation was formed specifically to provide support to the US Navy in the resolution of the capacity and capability shortfall in the US Navy’s Naval Shipyard industrial enterprise. The company also provides engineering and technical consulting support to the international shipbuilding industry. Bartlett Maritime Group is headquartered in Northeast Ohio, along American’s North Coast.