LCS: Putting Tabasco on a Dog's Breakfast

VADM Rowden, Commander of Surface Forces, has issued a statement of what is going to be done to make the LCS hulls into a semi-usable asset.

There are some good things. One of which is ditching the "swappable mission modules" bit (of which, none have had any demonstrated utility as of eight years after LCS-1 was commissioned). Another is establishing shore-based non-contractor support, sort of like an ashore tender. There will be training support, again, non-contractor. The first two hulls of each class will be training ships. And all of that will be under the command of the LCS squadron commander. Finally, the "multiple crews manning multiple ships" idea, so favored by the MBAs in Ft. Fumble, is gone, replaced by blue/gold manning.

All of which is probably nearly as good as it'll get. I remain skeptical that the LCS hulls will ever be of more than marginal utility, as they are too lightly manned to remain at sea for any extended operations. And without pouring a lot of assets into supporting the ships, even a two-crew model is a recipe for lousiness.

But we shall see.