# oh dear ...spanish sub stuff up ?



## dcm (Mar 2, 2017)

By MarEx 2018-07-19 20:50:25
Spain's newest submarine, the S-80 Plus, is too big to fit at its home port. A redesign to correct a buoyancy problem left it 30 feet longer than originally planned - about nine feet too long for the submarine slips at ****nal de Cartagena, the Spanish Navy's sub base. 
Due to a miscalculation during the design phase - a misplaced decimal point, according to a former defense procurement official - the original S80 hull form turned out to be too heavy by a margin of about 125 tons. To correct the problem, shipbuilder Navantia added three additional
compartments to lengthen the design and increase buoyancy, ensuring that the sub would be able to reliably surface from depth. However, this modification made the four-vessel series larger than the existing slips at Cartagena, and the Spanish government will have to expand them at an expense of approximately $20 million. In response to media reports, Spain's Navy contends that the length of the subs is a non-issue, as it has already planned to upgrade and modernize the docks.
Due to the design changes, the S-80 series is already well over budget: at $4.5 billion for four vessels, the program will ultimately cost nearly twice as much as originally planned. For comparison, competing diesel-electric subs typically cost less than $700 million per unit. 
Spain will also have to pay an additional, unplanned $150 million to prolong the service lives of its Cold War-era S-70 series subs, as the delivery schedule for the new S-80s has been pushed back. The first of the new class, the Isaac Peral, is now expected in 2022, rather than 2015, as was originally projected. The last will not be delivered until 2028.


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## Samsette (Sep 3, 2005)

That is close enough for government work - any government.


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## dcm (Mar 2, 2017)

I take it that is a tongue in cheek remark unless you have or a mate or relative does work for the NSW Government who have a problem with their new trains they have ordered see https://www.news.com.au/technology/...s/news-story/47bd2ee36f43cd3cdd2819078feb6011


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## Samsette (Sep 3, 2005)

dcm said:


> I take it that is a tongue in cheek remark unless you have or a mate or relative does work for the NSW Government who have a problem with their new trains they have ordered see https://www.news.com.au/technology/...s/news-story/47bd2ee36f43cd3cdd2819078feb6011


Ha, ha, ha! So not just in the maritime sector. I do rely on a source close to RCN activities that foster little confidence in governmental ability to always do the sensible thing.


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## ART6 (Sep 14, 2010)

Samsette said:


> That is close enough for government work - any government.


This is the way it works:

The government (which is composed of politicians) finds that it has a few bob of other people's money to spare, and ministers squabble over how that should be spent in ways that would enhance their credentials as loyal servants of the people -- but mostly for their constituencies. Among them, those whose constituencies once used to build warships, demand that more money be spent upon defence in order to protect our people from the Russian tide and whoever might be deemed a threat including the Isle of Man which could invade at any minute. Carried in Parliament because the minister for defence is the only one who supports the prime minister who would otherwise wave bits of paper declaring "Peace in our time!" and be kicked out of office.

So then a military expansion against this (not existent) threat. New warships needed, so create a committee to set out the design parameters and performance requirements. Staff that committee under the chairmanship of a retired judge who has long been a supporter of the ruling party, and take evidence from learned experts from universities who have never seen a warship in their lives and have no concept of what gun a soldier in a desert might need.

Finally a report from the expert committee to be studied by the minister, a process that should take him past his term of office when he can deny any knowledge of the committee or anything it recommended, although when pressed he can say that the opposition spokesman for defence was given leaked information from the defence forces in order to further their cause.

Now there is a new and vigorous defence minister in the new government that must quickly establish its credentials.The minister was a year ago the chairman of the Middle Wallop council but found himself elected to the national parliament with the support of the party. He has been a staunch party member for years and he is a close friend of the PM so he is chosen to defend the nation's security against the foreign hordes even though his previous experience of resisting foreign hordes was evicting a Gypsy encampment from the village green of Middle Wallop. Still, the expert committee report must be acted upon or the opposition party will accuse him of neglecting the safety of the nation.

A working party. That is the way forward, following the historical political principle that if you have no idea what to do, create a working party -- but caution! If in that working party there are too many people who know what they are talking about then they could recommend investment that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not countenance, and that would not be acceptable to a new minister threatened by the authority of the Chancellor. So then, appoint to that working party ten civil servants, half from the Department of Finance and half from the Department of Trade and Industry to first revue the findings of the first committee, unfortunately to find that the learned judge died five years ago and does not want to discuss the matter.

It is a necessary part of the political environment that every elected representative and, particularly, minsters, have to be seen to be doing something even if the electorate don't know or care what that is. So the working party reports, and it requires a new warship or three for the navy, a new generation of tanks for the army, new personal weapons for our brave soldiers. The working party recommends the establishment of a procurement committee to develop the technology in all of those areas of procurement and, inevitably, there are members in that who have the right of veto because they are secretaries of the Department of Finance. 

In order to be politically correct the minister appoints four lay members in the expectation of tempering the wildest ambitions of the hawks, but three of them are county councillors, two of whom are left-wing activists and one of whom is a born again Christian who insists that the Word of The Lord will prevail. The third one is a driver from London Bus who was not really paying attention when he was recruited. 

So now the procurement committee establishes the required design for the new warships that will defend the people from the invading hordes that have yet to be identified. They will be both state-of-the-art that has also yet to be identified, but they will satisfy the two ancient admirals on the committee who think that the Battle of Jutland was the pinnacle of naval achievement, and orders will be placed with Asian yards because the finance section of the committee decided that theirs were the lowest tenders. That, upon delivery, it was found that every nameplate on every valve, everything on the bridge, everything in the user manuals for the plant, equipment and guns, had to be translated into English from Korean at the expense of one new ship, does not detract from the evidence that your government is determined to secure your safety.

Meanwhile the committee turns its attention to the nation's army, where its experts decide to seek tenders for a new armoured vehicle and new personal weapons for troops. In order to minimise costs the new tank is designed to be constructed on the chassis of a Ford Mondeo (or Hyundai) because parts are readily available from any motor factor in the world with the possible exception of Afghanistan where the minister has yet to visit. Rifles for individual soldiers will be replaced by 0.177 airguns in order to placate the left-wing activists and Born again Christians on the committee in order that the weapons will not actually hurt anyone and threaten their human rights.

In the fullness of time (or in the term of the current government, which is much the same thing), the nation will be protected from an aggressor with warships that don't work but which were cheap as long as they stay in port, with an army that is incapable of hurting anyone as long as it stays in barracks and restricts itself to ceremonial duties in trooping for inspection by the minister for defence. The minister will portray that to the world as the first humanitarian military and an example to potential aggressors of what could be coming to them if they mess with us.

Not to be left out of the international arms race the committee also commissions the design of new aircraft for the air force and it issues invitations for proposals. A small company in Guatemala comes in with a price that is attractive to the finance section of the committee, and they submit a design for a new stealth fighter that will be invisible to radar and everything else including eyesight as long as it never takes off. Fifty will be ordered, subsequently reduced to two when a proportion of the defence budget has to be taken to fund increased expenditure upon the vanity projects that the prime minister deems essential. The Air Chief Marshall will be relaxed with that having been promised by the defence minister that he will be approved to buy twenty Sopwith Camels with 0.303 machine guns, every aircraft of course having been upgraded in the United States to accommodate Rolls Royce Trent jet engines that won't fit but which cost ten times that of the actual aircraft. The engines will be built under licence in the USA by General Electric, and even those five ever purchased for five million dollars each before the order was cancelled will be stored in a government depot in the Cotswolds, in case someone with a calculator can convert the American Imperial dimensions of the engines into metric in order to fit them into the next planned generation of Sopwith Camels.

But then: There is a crisis somewhere in the world an there is a need for a peacekeeping force or even, God Forbid, a need for an aggressive force to enforce the peace or defend the nation's interests. No problem there for the politicians because they can then lay on the propaganda thickly and call upon the nation's youth to go forth and achieve heroism without the tools to do so. Ignore that latter point and celebrate the former, because the common people will be immersed in mourning their children and will not remember how those children were sacrificed upon the whim of politicians who risked nothing other than the vote that kept them on the gravy trough.

So how do we all repeatedly end up with these sorts of situations? Simply, because we elect politicians who create committees who end up designing and funding camels when trying to design horses! (Sad)


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## dcm (Mar 2, 2017)

yes ….BUT it keeps the money going around and is then called progress


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## Samsette (Sep 3, 2005)

That is it in a nutshell or two, Art. (Smoke)


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## KEITHMAR (Oct 8, 2012)

ART6. You Sir, are a Master Cynic, and You should give private lessons ! The world needs more people like You . as usual Your comments are priceless!!....Regards .K:M:


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