Aviation Week has a lengthy story about the problems bedeviling the USS Freedom, the lead ship in the littoral combat ship class. Corrosion, watertight stern doors that are nowhere near watertight, lube oil leaks, seawater leaks, sailors covering machinery with shower curtains to protect it from seawater leaking, discussions about increasing manning, ship weight growth and the list just goes on and on.
The Navy has pounded more than eight billion dollars down the LCS rathole. When questioned about it, the Navy spokesweasels spout doubletalk and gobbledygook. When they were asked about what the reporter saw, the Navy's response was, in essence, "We weren't there, we don't know what he saw."
As much as I could easily blast the Navy for screwing up the LCS program, those problems likely pale in comparison to the LPD-17 class problems.
It's not the first time that the Navy has been involved in designing turkeys. The Claud Jones class of destroyer escorts were regarded as being pretty much unsuitable; they were among the first ships to go after the Vietnam War ground to a halt. The Mitscher class of destroyers had reliability problems over their entire lifespans.
Then there is the point that the LCS is, although not designed for open-ocean combat, is sure as shit to get sucked into that role. The Knox and Perry classes of frigates were built to escort convoys of merchant ships, supply ships and amphibious warfare ships. They weren't built as carrier escorts and they weren't fast enough to keep up with one that rang up a flank bell. But there weren't enough destroyers to do the job, not after the last of the World War II destroyers were decommissioned, so frigates ended up pulling duty as carrier escorts.
In many ways, what is going on with the LCS class is history repeating itself. But not entirely. Many of the issues with the LCS, along with most of the issues with the LPD-17, stem from the Navy's cutting back its own ability to closely supervise the design and construction of its warships. The government had turned that function over to the contractors, who had a vested interest in papering over problems.
And so, the desire to cut the costs of a program and let the private sector go it cheaper has led to greatly-increased costs. Not that there is anything new with that.
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6 comments:
Take the old Dreadnaughts out of mothballs. They can still be useful with long range weapon upgrades and the 16 inch batteries, while outmoded, are a great psychological weapon.
Won't be good idea. One of the problems with the Iowa class was that they had to shoot WW2 ammunition. The capability to make those rounds evaporated after the war. The ability to make replacement barrels for the guns also is gone. And even with the reduced manning of the 1980s ships, the Iowa class warships required a shitload of people to operate and maintain them.
The time of the battleships, like the time of the triremes, is past.
Sadly, the last of the replacement barrels went under the hammer not too long ago. Details and photographs at:
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-enought-to-make-navy-veteran-cry.html
:-(
I'll bet the Freedom is world class at targeting wealthy stockholders with guided bombs of taxpayer cash. I'll bet the lucre-delivery systems and taxpayer soakers are best in the world. USA! USA!
Don't be TOO harsh on the Claud Jones class. They were a prototype design and an experiment to see just how austere an open ocean escort could be. The Navy was buying small classes of destroyer escorts with an eye to having a production ready design at hand if the need for a massive shipbuilding mobilization was called for.
And they also didn't go whole hog and decide to build 55 of them.
So while they were indeed failures, they led to a remarkable string of very successful ship classes.
Well, not to mention that the Iowa class was laid down in 1940-1942, i.e., 70 years ago. Ship years are about the same as people years. Would you want 70 year old grandpas being front line troops in the U.S. Army? Same deal with ships that old -- decades of wear and tear have taken their toll, especially given the lack of care they got in the mothball fleet.
Barrels, ammunition, etc. could all be made again if desired. We're not talking rocket science here, making the jigs and casting forms to make and bore new barrels and stamp new shells and igniters (the powder was bagged powder so that's an easy one) would be a PITA but quite doable. It just doesn't make any sense to do so, given the lack of functioning ships to use them, and the lack of any real need for battleships today -- if there's shore installations worth battering with them, the shore installations will be guarded by anti-ship missiles that far exceed the range of a battleship's main guns, meaning the battlewagon is basically a giant cruise missile carrier at that point -- and we have a lot cheaper ways to haul lots of cruise missiles into a battle zone.
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