Austal, America’s newest warship-builder, is still scrambling to recover from the late-June revelation that the USS Independence, the Littoral Combat Ship it just built for the U.S. Navy, is “aggressively” disintegrating.

But the shipbuilder probably isn’t the only party at fault in the case of the disappearing warship. “I think this issue reflects poorly on the entire LCS and Navy acquisition process, rather than just Austal,” Eric Wertheim, author of the definitive Combat Fleets of the World, told Danger Room.

Also suspect: General Dynamics, the Virginia-based shipbuilder that helped Austal’s recently-established Alabama yard produce Independence. General Dynamics subsequently ended its partnership with the upstart Australian firm and announced it would compete with Austal for future LCS contracts. After the split, General Dynamics was in a position to undermine Austal’s reputation, whether purposely or not.

The overall picture is one of poor planning, sloppy design and possible corporate infighting, and which has huge implications for the Navy as it struggles to build its future fleet.

The 418-foot-long Independence (pictured) is slowly disappearing due to a process known as “galvanic corrosion,” where electrical current passes through a join between two different metals — in this case aluminum and steel — causing one of them to break down at the molecular level. Independence will be spending some time in San Diego for repairs.

The Navy has systems for dealing with galvanic corrosion, but did not include them in Independence’s design. And early on neither Austal nor General Dynamics seemed terribly alarmed at the omission. It’s possible they planned to control corrosion with rigorous, post-delivery maintenance procedures.

The news of Independence’s corrosion, initially published by Bloomberg, could not have come at a worse time for Austal. The Australian-based shipbuilder was still getting established in the U.S. market while also lobbying to build copies of the lightweight vessels for Saudi Arabia — a deal that could be worth billions of dollars.

There had been plenty of skepticism about Austal’s mostly-aluminum version of the LCS even before the Pentagon reported pockmarked metal around the steel engines of the brand-new Independence. The Navy has long preferred mostly steel warships over largely aluminum vessels. Aluminum is cheaper and lighter, but steel is more durable — and that can really matter on the high seas and in combat.

But as part of the late-’90s-early 2000s “transformation” craze, the Navy was eager to replace older ships with newer, supposedly cheaper ones. In the minds of some top admirals, that meant aluminum, regardless of that metal’s deficiencies. It also meant opening up the $15-billion-a-year U.S. warship market to foreign companies specializing in small, lightweight vessels. That was Austal’s cue to establish its American division.

In part to help pay for the aluminum ships, the sailing branch prematurely decommissioned dozens of steel warships that were still in the naval equivalent of middle-age. The drawdown had an unintended effect: it made the need for vessels so urgent that the Navy and shipbuilders might have felt pressure to cut corners on new designs and their construction. A whole generation of high-tech new ships — not just LCS — shows signs of sloppy planning and building.

“I think the Navy quite possible ‘threw out the baby with the bath water’ by retiring perfectly good ships … and replacing them with untested, untried and unproven technology for the sake of ‘transformation,’” Wertheim said. Independence’s disintegration is just one consequence.

It didn’t have to be this way. Despite its relative inexperience with warship-building, Austal claims to have extensive expertise managing corrosion on the hundreds of aluminum ships it has built for civilian customers. Should the company have alerted the Navy about Independence’s design flaw?

Perhaps, but when? Austal and General Dynamics manufactured Independence as a team, using Austal’s Mobile River facility. But once the ship entered Navy service, maintenance became General Dynamics’ sole responsibility. Then in early 2010, the two companies ended their partnership. And a few months later, the Navy settled on Austal and Lockheed as the prime LCS builders, effectively barring General Dynamics from ever getting a piece of the small-warship pie.

Instead, General Dynamics started pushing hard to sell the Saudis a version of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. If the Saudis buy LCSs from Austal, they might not need the Burkes. There’s no evidence that General Dynamics deliberately allowed Independence to corrode in order to damage Austal’s chances at winning the Saudi contract. On the other hand, there’s no strong incentive for the Virginia company to meticulously maintain the ship.

Now, Austal might have spared itself some heartache by mentioning the corrosion issue earlier, even though it wasn’t solely the company’s fault or responsibility after all the corporate shuffling was said and done.

In any event, Austal seems determined to ensure that future LCSs don’t suffer Independence’s fate. “We are eager to move beyond short-term remediation and help the Navy, from the design stage on, apply the best practices in corrosion management to the entire Independence-variant LCS class,” Austal USA president Joseph Rella said.

Coronado, the next Austal-built ship, will get “new anti-corrosion surface treatments,” Austal spokesman Craig Hooper told Danger Room. And the vessel after that, Jackson, will be delivered along with “an array of tested corrosion-management tools and processes,” Rella said.

“In the end I do think that we’ll eventually fix the problems with LCS … just like we’ve always been able to fix problems with ships in the past,” Wertheim said. “But I do hope that DoD can use this as a learning experience.”

The major lessons? Take your time designing new ships, build them right and brace for corporate shenanigans. In the meantime, hold on to older vessels that are still working just fine, as insurance. And remember: aluminum corrodes when it touches steel.

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