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Comment by 1970-01-01 | Hacker News Reader

1970-01-01

Rust-free? How over budget should we go trying to make an all-aluminum and carbon fiber carrier? Is fiberglass ok or are we planning on making submarines too?

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The all-aluminum Independence Class ships barely lasted 10 years before corrosion and other design problem meant all three had to be scrapped.

It's too bad since I liked the concept and the new technology being tested out on the ships. There was even speculation one of the ships would have the first working rail gun installed.

Someone should put together a list of the significant operational successes of the LCS fleet.

Could have bought a lot of paint.

If you read the article, they talk about how commercial merchant marine vessels use modern coatings and materials, but that the US Navy has not approved their use after several years. Another failure.

The modern materials are required since the EPA outlawed the coatings they used to use that actually worked.

I thought the military had exemptions on EPA compliance for stuff. For example: US Army tanks use depleted uranium projectiles. Those are definitely not good for the environment.

The military must follow all EPA regulations as a general order, but someone at a high enough rank in the pentagon can make an exception for a specific rule/reg.

I'm scratching my head as to why someone in the pentagon wouldn't do this for hull maintenance on seagoing vessels. It seems rather important.

Probably because the chemicals they were using are pretty nasty and were used in high volumes. They were doing a lot of damage to the environment and there are alternatives. They just haven't been approved yet for use by the navy. It's not a good look to continue using damaging, outdated methods because your bureaucracy is so bad that can't utilize new technology.

Aluminum has its own problems in saltwater such as galvanic corrosion.

Some discussion on the use of Aluminium “Advances in Aluminum Relative to Ship Survivability”: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.69...

Pykrete doesn't rust!

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