Apparently you can Free Market™ so hard that it makes a crippled warship

the contractor

Who we dare not name apparently

could milk the development process given that the government would reimburse the company for the research and development costs.

The process incentivized the inclusion of nearly two dozen new, unproven technologies. This complicated the development process and delayed delivery by at least three years and increased costs more than 25%, from $10.5 billion to $13.2 billion.

This spending has done little to improve the vessels’ capabilities. But the inclusion of so many new technologies did create economic opportunities all over the country. More than 200 suppliers, spread across the country, build components for the Ford-class program.

Specifications for the system said it could launch more than 4,000 aircraft before and between any critical failures. But, as with many modern electrical systems, EMALS has proven far less reliable than expected. The Navy and Department of Defense haven’t released specific figures for several years, but reporting in 2021 shows the Ford’s catapults failed after only 181 launch cycles.

That’s less than 5% of spec for those keeping score at home

The Ford has four catapults, so the crew can shift from one to another in case of a failure. But the catapult system includes a significant design flaw. Sailors do not have any way to electrically isolate each catapult. To work on one, the entire EMALS system has to be deenergized. That means the crew would have to stop launching aircraft to make repairs. Doing so would be clearly problematic if multiple catapults failed at the same time during combat operations.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get more absurd