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...Lockheed Ruins Eight 123' Coast Guard Cutters!



 
 
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Old May 21st 07, 03:57 PM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy,sci.space.station
Andre Lieven
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Default ...Lockheed Ruins Eight 123' Coast Guard Cutters!

Henry Spencer ) writes:
In article ,
Andre Lieven wrote:
Yeah, its pretty amazing. One might say that the USN and USCG might
suggest to their US suppliers that the USN and USCG might not be
averse to buying ships and boats from overseas.
That might put a scare up the " more efficient private businesses ".


If you want efficiency, I'm afraid you have to look elsewhere than the
government's captive design bureaus. Suitable companies *do* exist within
the US; the trouble is that they're not "qualified suppliers", and also
that they're typically averse to contracts where the paperwork tonnage
exceeds the vessel tonnage (which might not be an issue with the USCG but
certainly is with the USN).


In which case, thats unrelated to this USCGC matter...

The current situation among defence/space contractors really is mostly the
government's own stupid fault.


Read Patrick Tyler's " Running Critical; The Silent War, Rickover and General
Dynamics ", and get back to me about that; that case involving the bulk of
production of USN attack and boomer subs back then, including the general
manager of Elco FLEEING US jurisdiction to avoid criminal prosecution.

It's in the nature of the larger and more
established firms in a field to merge into still bigger ones, especially
when business is bad.


Right, thats " free enterprise untrammeled " at work. Hardly the gov't
fault or responsibility.

I'll add this one: " HMO V/ Cdn. Medicare... "

The way you prevent this from producing monopolies
or oligopolies is to keep the door open to aspiring newcomers --


Given what happened to the Tucker Automobile Company over a half a
century ago, its clear that, even with car production, this is rarely
possible. Up the technical sophistication of the good to be produced,
*and* the diminished size of how many can/will be bought, and that
trait towards corporate centralisation is only magnified.

Who owns how many networks and cable channels ? How many cable companies
are available to buy from where you live ? Etc.

both by
going easy on the paperwork and the "qualified supplier" rules, and by
making sure that some of the work comes in packages of suitable sizes (the
one-big-contract-every-ten-years syndrome guarantees steady shrinkage of
the contractor pool, since it's naturally politically impossible to take
any sort of perceived risk with such megacontracts).


In smaller cases, like the Canadian Navy ( Or, most smaller navies ),
there isn't the money or a real need to keep producing warships. Note that,
after the run of 12 Patrol Frigates ( Halifax class ) were built, no more
naval construction was on tap. As with those ships, and the existing
4 modified Tribals, the fleet had all the ships it could afford to run.
( More than that, actually, as the refitted Tribal HMCS Huron was laid
up 6 years ago due to insufficient manpower, and she will, this year,
be scuttled as an artifical reef. )

For all intents and purposes, space is such a limited market up to now.

A strenuous effort
to preserve competition at all levels, preferably *including* full
production, also helps: "you can have one contract for the price of two,
or two for the price of two".


Indeed. Ask Parliament and Congress for the $$$ to fund continued
production. In the case of the latter, and for thingys related to this
newsgroup, that wasn't/isn't happening.

Your point about production costs/rates is quite accutrate. But, when
the need and/or $$$ isn't there...

Much though I hate to say it :-), the current mess is *not* the fault of
the current White House.


g Agreed, and thats why I never suggested or hinted that it was.

The previous one, and the one before that, and
also the two or three before that, were just as inattentive about this.


Again, agreed.

(The consolidation of established firms has been more conspicuous in the
last 10-15 years, but it was happening long before that. In 1961, the RFP
for the Apollo CSM -- very much a qualified-suppliers-only affair -- went
to *fourteen* companies.) And the vultures are now coming home to roost.


It happened faster in the UK aero industry, but its arrived in the US, too.

And, you know what is all too often true about effective monopolies...
cough Automotive gasoline companies cough.

Andre


  #2  
Old May 22nd 07, 01:25 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy,sci.space.station
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default ...Lockheed Ruins Eight 123' Coast Guard Cutters!



Andre Lieven wrote:

Read Patrick Tyler's " Running Critical; The Silent War, Rickover and General
Dynamics ", and get back to me about that; that case involving the bulk of
production of USN attack and boomer subs back then, including the general
manager of Elco FLEEING US jurisdiction to avoid criminal prosecution.


That's a very good book indeed.

Pat
 




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