Bad Welding in US Subs, again

In the news, but they're not novelty news:

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/NGC-In...5468/#more-5468

On May 14/09, a welding inspector at Northrop Grumman’s Newport News, VA shipyard did the right thing, and complained that a fellow inspector was signing off on ship welds without actually inspecting them. The inspector’s admission of wrongdoing created an extremely serious situation. He had supervised over 10,000 welds, on 8 Virginia class nuclear fast attack submarines (SSN 777-783, and SSN 785) and on the new nuclear aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush [CVN 77]. About 10% of the submarine welds were SUBSAFE joints involving critical parts or hull integrity.

The final report has now been released, but a similar issue has now arisen at co-producer General Dynamic Electric Boat…

Northrop Grumman Newport News and General Dynamics Electric Boat use a Shipyard Weld Status System (SWSS) to keep track of every shipbuilding weld – a total that can run to 300,000 for a Virginia Class submarine. Newport News has used that system to identify welds supervised by that inspector, which may force re-inspection. Northrop Grumman immediately informed the Navy of the situation, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) reportedly began its own investigation on May 20/09.

The effects of these revelations extended to an array of internal changes at the Newport News shipyard. Defense News offers more background in its informative article “Northrop Grumman Inspector’s Lies Raise Alarms.”

While that is an accurate title, it could just as easily, and accurately, have been titled “Northrop Grumman Inspector Tells Truth, Raises Alarms.”

But in retrospective, the case is worst. I remember to read some time ago the same thing in Norman Polmar & K.J. Moore "Cold War Submarines" about the very bad welding in Los Angeles and Ohio classes, giving for the Ohio class SSBN a test depth of 300 meters and for Los Angeles/Providence/San Juan SSN a test depth of only 290 meters (in consecuence, both classes only capable of intermediate depth in the PC game scale), compared with the gived test depth in the same book for the previous Thresher/Permit and Sturgeon classes of 400 meters (both classes capable of deep depth in the PC game scale), or the 396 meters stated in the same book for the Seawolf class SSN (I've changed the depth to intermediate for Ohio and Los Angeles in my personal DBs).

http://www.subsim.com/books/coldwarsubs.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBSAFE