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japan, south korea, india... the united states has found

according to a report on the u.s. navy news website on the 3rd, the u.s. navy logistics support ship "wally schirra" has arrived at the shipyard of hanwha marine corporation in south korea for routine maintenance. this is the first time that a korean company has undertaken ship maintenance, repair and overhaul (mro) business for a u.s. navy ship. it also marks an important step for the u.s. navy to seek help from foreign allies to solve the problem of "difficult ship repair".

a u.s. military logistics support ship being overhauled by hanwha marine. (photo source: u.s. navy news website)

the report said that this logistics support ship is mainly responsible for supplying ammunition, food, repair parts and fuel to warships at sea. the ship is 210 meters long, 32.2 meters wide, and has a displacement of approximately 40,000 tons. after approximately three months of overhaul and maintenance, it will be redelivered to the u.s. navy. at the port entry ceremony of this "historic moment", more than 50 u.s. and south korean military and local officials from the u.s. navy's far east military sealift command, the south korean ministry of national defense, and the south korean defense acquisition program administration attended the on-site event. south korea's chosun ilbo described the maintenance of military ships as the highest level of shipyard maintenance business, which requires the ship's military equipment to be disassembled into parts and then fully maintained and updated to achieve performance similar to when it was first put into use. "because it is necessary to be familiar with the smallest unit of parts, only the original manufacturer or a trustworthy company can undertake such business."

south korean media revealed that the wally schirra belongs to the us seventh fleet stationed in japan. "against the backdrop of fierce competition between the us and chinese navies, the us navy needs to minimize the time ships spend docking for repairs and so on." due to the decline of the us shipbuilding industry, a large number of us navy ships are waiting in line for repairs, and it takes a lot of time to cross the pacific ocean to return to the us mainland from japan. therefore, "it is more advantageous to choose korean shipbuilding companies with high technical level and close relations with the united states as partners for the maintenance of us navy ships." earlier this year, when us navy secretary carlos del toro visited south korea, he visited the ulsan shipyard of hd hyundai heavy industries and the geoje island shipyard of hanwha marine. the us defense news stated that when visiting the korean shipyard, the us navy delegation led by toro was "shocked by the level of digitization and real-time monitoring of shipbuilding progress" and expressed a strong willingness to cooperate on "us navy ships going to south korea for maintenance." hyundai heavy industries applied for the u.s. navy ship maintenance qualification certification last year and completed the inspection at the beginning of this year; hanwha applied for the relevant certification in january this year and signed the certification with the u.s. navy sea supply systems command on july 22.

according to the u.s. naval institute, china accounts for nearly 50% of the global shipbuilding market, south korea and japan account for nearly 30% and 17% respectively, while the u.s. capacity is only 0.13%. matthew finnell, a senior fellow at the u.s. think tank center for strategic and international studies, said that although china has the world's largest shipbuilding capacity, south korea and japan rank second and third respectively, because it is not difficult to understand why the u.s. navy subcontracts the maintenance of ships to these two close allies of the united states. toro also visited mitsubishi's shipyard in yokohama, japan in march this year, and discussed the possibility of using japanese shipyards to assist the u.s. navy in repairing ships. during the visit of japanese prime minister fumio kishida to the united states, the u.s.-japan summit also mentioned allowing japanese shipyards to perform more maintenance work for u.s. navy ships to consolidate the military alliance between the two countries. according to relevant plans, japanese shipyards only need 90 days or less to perform maintenance operations on u.s. warships, thus avoiding sending these ships back to the united states for repair, saving about a month of sea voyage. zach cooper, a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute and a former pentagon official, said: "it is clear that the united states is having difficulty keeping up with the pace of china's naval modernization and the low-cost production of ships. one way to solve the problem is to work more closely with allies and partners and transfer some maintenance responsibilities to other allies."

the us navy has already approached india for help in repairing ships. l&t shipbuilding, cochin shipyard and mazagon shipyard have all obtained certification to repair ships for the us navy and have signed relevant agreements. in 2022, l&t shipbuilding completed a routine overhaul for a us navy dry cargo supply ship for the first time.

how difficult is it to repair a us warship?

although japan, south korea, and india all have considerable shipbuilding and maintenance capabilities, the help these countries can provide may not be enough to meet the huge maintenance needs of the u.s. navy.

the uss boise attack nuclear submarine waiting for repair. (source: u.s. naval institute website)

the us navy ships currently undergoing maintenance in south korea and india are all supply ships rather than combat ships. on the one hand, this is related to the us navy's concern about the leakage of core secrets of combat ships, but on the other hand, it is restricted by relevant domestic laws in the united states. the chosun ilbo mentioned that according to the merchant shipping act (also known as the jones act), which stipulates that ships sailing in the united states must be made in the united states, the maintenance of us navy combat ships must be carried out in the united states. it is reported that the so-called merchant shipping act was enacted in 1920 based on the experience of world war i. it stipulates that shipping between us waters and ports can only be carried out by ships built in the united states, registered in the united states (flying the us flag), owned by americans, and operated by us citizens or permanent resident crew members. us shipyards must also provide maintenance services for the us government fleet. only merchant ships shipping between us ports and foreign ports are not subject to this restriction. the starting point of the merchant shipping act is to protect the us shipbuilding industry, protect us commercial shipping, and use protectionism to cover up the us shipbuilding and shipping industries, forming a favorable competitive situation with international competitors, but it eventually became a classic case of protectionism harming the country and the people.

cooper said that the us navy's reliance on allies to assist in ship repairs is being fiercely opposed by us shipbuilders, who have been protected by the merchant marine act from foreign competitors. but the undeniable reality is that the continued decline in the us shipbuilding industry's ability to build and repair ships has seriously affected the us navy's combat readiness.

the us foreign policy website criticized that during the reagan administration, the us actually gave up the commercial shipbuilding industry in the name of free trade. from the 1960s to the 1990s, the us navy closed seven public shipyards. today, the maintenance of military ships is mainly undertaken by four naval shipyards: norfolk, virginia, portsmouth, maine, puget sound, washington, and pearl harbor, hawaii. however, a large number of main battleships built during the cold war are seriously aging, and the amount of maintenance work required continues to increase. the workload of these naval shipyards has long been saturated.

the report said that the maintenance work of the us navy shipyards is currently facing three major problems: backward infrastructure, insufficient technical personnel and shortage of related supply chains. for example, a bloomberg report in 2023 revealed that the four naval shipyards responsible for nuclear submarine maintenance had a large backlog of work, resulting in nearly 37% of attack nuclear submarines being out of service awaiting maintenance, a significantly higher proportion than 28% in 2017 and 33% in 2022. the us government accountability office said that from 2008 to 2018, us navy ships lost 10,363 combat days "due to delays in and out of shipyards" - equivalent to more than 28 years.

the main reason for this situation is that the dry docks and other infrastructure of the four naval shipyards of the us navy themselves require a lot of maintenance, repair and modernization. for example, the no. 3 dry dock of the puget sound naval shipyard was built in 1919 and has no nuclear fuel processing qualifications. submarines must first remove nuclear fuel elsewhere; and the dock is shallow, and the "los angeles" class submarines can only be docked or undocking at high tide. relevant statistics also show that these four naval shipyards have a total of 17 docks that can provide maintenance and maintenance services for the old "los angeles" class nuclear submarines, but the new "virginia" class nuclear submarines are longer and have a larger displacement than the "los angeles" class, and there are only 7 docks that can provide maintenance for them. only the no. 6 dry dock of the puget sound naval shipyard on the west coast of the united states can be used to repair aircraft carriers, which has also caused the situation of "waiting in line for repair" of us aircraft carriers to become increasingly serious.

secondly, the continued decline of the us shipbuilding industry has caused a serious shortage of technical personnel. according to the us columbia broadcasting corporation, as experienced old workers retire, it is difficult for the us shipbuilding industry to hire workers with qualified skills. for example, the service time of the us coast guard's new icebreaker was forced to be postponed by 4 years. the main reason is that the ship uses a high-strength alloy steel. if the welding process is not up to standard, there is a risk of quality damage. however, us shipyards have not been exposed to this type of steel for many years, so how to redevelop a safe and efficient welding process has become a problem.

in addition, since a considerable number of the us navy's active ships have been in service for too long, the related parts manufacturers have gone bankrupt, which has greatly increased procurement costs and waiting time for repairs.

the pentagon's 20-year grand plan has little effect

the pentagon has also come up with solutions to the severe situation of delayed maintenance of us navy ships. in 2017, the us navy proposed a "shipyard infrastructure optimization plan", which plans to spend 20 years and a huge amount of us$21 billion to carry out comprehensive modernization of four naval shipyards.

according to a report released by the u.s. government accountability office, from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2019, the four u.s. naval shipyards originally planned to complete 51 maintenance tasks, but only 49 were actually completed, of which 38 were not completed on time, with a total delay of 7,424 days. among these delayed tasks, 10 aircraft carrier maintenance tasks were delayed, with an average delay of 113 days; 28 submarine maintenance tasks were delayed, with an average delay of 225 days. after investigation, the u.s. navy admitted that these shipyards have aging facilities and unreasonable layouts, and urgently need to be modernized and upgraded, otherwise problems such as low work efficiency and gradual elimination will become more and more serious. especially for the maintenance of u.s. navy nuclear-powered ships, the infrastructure of these shipyards can hardly meet the needs. according to the "shipyard infrastructure optimization plan", in the future, digital twin technology will be used to establish digital models of the shipyard's welding workshop, pump and pipe workshop, material warehouse, office space, etc., and study the best layout method to improve the production process, reduce ineffective working hours, and improve operational efficiency, so as to ensure that u.s. navy ships can efficiently enter and exit the dock and complete maintenance projects. at the same time, most of the equipment in these shipyards has long exceeded its service life and cannot be maintained by the original manufacturers. according to the plan, the us navy will develop specific plans for the improvement of key equipment in the shipyard after completing the modeling and simulation. the us navy plans to invest $150 million in equipment renewal investment each year, and after 20 years of continuous investment, the average service life of shipyard equipment will reach industry standards. however, the project also faces huge challenges: the digital twin technology currently used requires a lot of software and time, which means huge investment; the plan takes too long and is "distant water cannot save the nearby fire"; in addition, the us congress and the navy often change the scheduled plan, so whether the "shipyard infrastructure optimization plan" can continue to advance is still unknown.

in addition to upgrading and transforming these four naval shipyards, the u.s. navy is also looking for other help - contacting overseas allies to help solve the maintenance of some logistics ships is one of the efforts. the u.s. navy is also trying to use the docks of private shipyards for maintenance work. for example, the "boise" attack nuclear submarine has been waiting in line for maintenance at the norfolk naval shipyard since 2015, but due to the accumulation of related maintenance work, it did not wait until 2018 to enter the dock. after that, the u.s. navy transferred its maintenance work to the private newport news shipyard. it was not until february 2024 that the submarine began maintenance. it wasted a full 9 years at the dock.

in order to solve the problem of insufficient professional talents, the u.s. navy has jointly built training academies with shipyards across the country and cooperated with relevant technical schools to provide workers with the skills needed to build high-tech ships. at the same time, shipyards also provide additional subsidies to retain these technical workers.

in addition, some us media have called for the reopening of some closed naval shipyards to increase maintenance capacity. the us pacific daily news website called for the reopening of the us navy shipyard in guam, which has been closed since the 1990s and has been sealed ever since. the report claims that reopening the shipyard can provide maintenance for us navy ships deployed on the front line of the western pacific.