Introduction: Reflections on an Iron Ball and the Navy’s Decades Long Failure to Build Effective and Affordable Surface Combatants

An Iron Ball

Here is a reflection on something that matters but too many people aren’t paying attention to, and they have not for over two decades. Pardon me it is a long reflection that I have already spent several days in writing so I will break it into about three articles. This is at the suggestion of a paid subscriber who thought it might be better to break such a large article into small sections.

There is a crisis in Navy shipbuilding, especially surface combatants, but encompassing Aircraft Carriers, Submarines, Amphibious ships and auxiliaries. I will return to that after my reflection. I will go through the history of how we got here, the successes of the 20th Century and the disasters of the 21st Century.

LCDR Breedlove and Senior Chief John Ness

When I was in high school, my assistant NJROTC instructor, Senior Chief (Cryptologic Technician) John Ness had a special award. He called it the Iron Ball Award, given monthly to the cadet who “could foul up an Iron Ball”. It was a 10pound shot put ball mounted on a plaque. I believe that the people designing the U.S. Navy’s new surface ship classes since the early 2000s deserve that award far more than any NJROTC cadet ever did.

In Navy Junior ROTC we learned a lot. It wasn’t about dressing up and being able to drill. Our textbooks included The Bluejackets Manual and the Naval Officer’s Guide. We learned seamanship, navigation, solved navigation problems, learned to use nautical compasses and sextants, to take bearings, read nautical charts, learn about satellite navigation with LORAN, learned about the use of radar, sonar, damage control and firefighting aboard ship. We also learned about ship design, construction, damage control, and weapons systems.

USS Agerholm DD 826

USS Pyro AE-24

USS Coral Sea CV-43

USS Mount Vernon LSD-39

USS Frederick LST 1184

USS Gray FF-1054

Chief Ness and LCDR J.E. Breedlove ensured that we got plenty of at sea experience aboard active duty Navy ships. I spent over 70 days at sea in high school aboard a variety of warships; the USS Agerholm, DD-826, an updated Gearing Class destroyer, the USS Pyro, AE-24 an ammunition ship, the USS Coral Sea, CV-43, a Midway Class Aircraft Carrier, the USS Mount Vernon, LSD-39, a dock landing ship, the USS Frederick, LST-1184 a landing ship rank, and the USS Gray DE/FF 1054, a Knox Class Destroyer Escort, later designed a Fast Frigate.

Aboard the ships we were placed under instruction in different departments of the ship. I frequently ended up in operations, navigation or signals, aboard Agerholm I got to pass 5” shells to the loader in a twin 5” 38 caliber gun mount during a gunnery exercise, and and help man a towing hawser in exercises with the USS O’Callahan and USS Carpenter DD-825. I got my fill of the engine rooms and boiler rooms of steam powered aboard Mount Vernon, pretty quickly. Not just that, required reading included articles from the Naval Institute Proceedings magazine, about naval strategy, new ship designs, and developing weaponry.

That was in the mid-to-late 1970s. Back then with the Vietnam War recently ended nothing military was fashionable, which made me a bit of a nerd. But, regardless of Vietnam, where my dad served I had always wanted to serve in the military, and I loved the Navy.

I was young but I wanted to learn, something I never quit doing. In college I ended up going through Army ROTC rather than Navy ROTC which told me to enter as a non-scholarship student I would have to change majors from History to hard science, mathematics, or engineering before my senior year. I was polite and said who will help pay for my way through two more years of college without changing my major and adding two to three years of college expenses and debts. They told me to walk down the hallway and talk to the people in green uniforms. Poof, I was beginning 17 1/2 years in the Army, without losing my interest in the Navy, my study of Navy history, ship design and development, or developments in naval warfare and operations. I know that’s weird, but being weird takes work, one has to apply critical thinking even when looking at subjects outside their current environment in order to keep learning. I was still so Navy in my soul that my entire time in the Army I rooted for Navy in the Army-Navy Game.

As a historian that makes me good. As a citizen that makes me better because I realize what is happening and why, more than most Americans.

Tomorrow I will go into the early 20th Century history portion or this article. It is the tale of successful and adaptive ship designs that served from the Second World War until the Cold War, and the ships that followed them. That will be followed with an article about the decimation of the U.S. Public and Private shipbuilding and repair industries from the 1990s on, then an analysis of the failed or failing designs of this century, and the problem in trying to safely “recycle” our nuclear powered aircraft carriers, which takes decades each, tying up dry docks in Public, that is Navy shipyards which are also needed to conduct maintenance periods and overhauls for active carriers.

I have been writing about all of those but after looking at this I think my subscriber was correct to break the article up into more manageable parts.

Have a great night and as always, watch your six.

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