USS Montgomery suffers cracked hull......again

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wow,

These things are so chock full of SUCK that it's no wonder there's no room for things like guns...

As far as the comments about this being what you get when you try and reduce manpower and resources....

No, this is what you get when you have a navy so desperate NOT to do these things that they're willing to sabotage their own procurement efforts...

Aka Sea shadow threatened lots of personal fiefdoms and the ring knockers' path to prestige so when this program came along lots of people had lots of incentive to make sure it turned into the joke it currently is.

Aluminum seems like a good material, it normally doesn't rust, so it must be worth using right? Until you expose it to seawater corrosion. In my limited experience the stuff turns brittle and flakey, unless you go way out of your way to thoroughly cover it with paint and other corrosion preventative measures. Other metals usually get surface corrosion, and etch through. Still takes a long time, if it's anything solid like iron-nickel steel alloys. Aluminum tends to do this thing where it looks fine, until a crack or something occurs. Then it puffs up and gets bubbly. Then what you're left with is chalky flakes where you can poke your finger through it. Having as a hull material based on aluminum below the waterline probably wasn't the best idea. If the goal is trying to make it lighter for whatever reason, composites may have been a better choice - even if more difficult to fabricate with on that scale.

I wonder what they'll do to overhaul these things to get them up to spec?

Aluminum seems like a good material but it can not be used where steel comes in contact with it.

you get Bimetallic (galvanic) corrosion that will turn the aluminum to white powder.

Electricial currents traveling through the metals speeds up the process.

Aluminum is also brittle

the US navy has tried to build minesweeps from Aluminum but it never worked as the Aluminum would shear on the frame lines.
www.secretprojects.co.uk...

a reply to: Tardacus

if i was in command of this ship i would pull in to port for repairs but before they got underway i would tell master of arms to get me a navy version of an m-4 clear the area of personnel and open fire with procurement personnel below decks to show them how safe their new ships truly are.

In my limited welding experience one of the tests was to make sure welds were stronger than material being joined, in shear , bend and tension.

Just saying,