If so, it's about fucking time.
I'm more of a general-purpose blogger, I don't stick to a certain topic. But I've been critical for years about the LCS. A decade of wearing the blue suit, followed by decades of watching the Ft. Fumble Follies has led me to be very skeptical of the entire concept.
The LCS was sold as being kind of a lego-ship, where combat-mission-specific modules could be swapped in and out. Not that there was any serious funding for those modules, mind you. The LCSs have had serious construction problems (though to be fair, so have bigger ships, such as the LPD-17 class).
The whole idea of the LCS was to basically be a brown-water ship to beat up on people who don't have the capability to engage in naval warfare. The LCS can't take a punch, they don't have the crew size to fight a fire or to maintain the ships to the standards expected of a destroyer sailor. My feeling is that the LCS is a great ship if your idea is to drive everyone out of the Navy after their first tour (and to ensure that CPOs, XOs and COs of those ships all have divorces).
The LCS cannot play well with the rest of the Fleet. But neither could the PCs or the PCHs, which is why none of them lasted very long.
The Navy made a major mistake by neutering the FFG-7s and then getting rid of them, thinking that the LCS could do some of their tasks. (The Navy also made a mistake by getting rid of the 1052s without replacing them.)
I predict that however many LCSs the Navy builds, they are going to spend almost as much time in port as did a Soviet Navy DD. They'll be sold off rather quickly in about ten or fifteen years, if any other nation is foolish enough to want one. Most will be scrapped or sunk in SINKEXes.
The better choice would be to pull the plug on the program right the fuck now and stop the wastage sooner rather than later. But that's not going to happen.
(H/T)
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query littoral. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query littoral. Sort by date Show all posts
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
"This Ship Was Built to Flee, So You'd Better Know How."
At least one writer is celebrating the contract to award construction of Littoral Combat Ships, even though the ships are being built to commercial specifications, not military specs.
I know that some folks will point out that the Navy has not fought a red-on-blue ship-to-ship fight in 65 years. That misses the point.
A warship is built to go into harm's way, other than some exceptions like PT boats (which were made of wood and ran on high-octane aviation gasoline). The LCS seems more like a PT boat than an ocean-going warship. The LCSs will be able to go very fast over fairly short distances. They will not have the survivability nor the crew size to take damage of any consequence. So not only will an LCS not be able to take damage and keep on fighting, it may not even be able to continue to float.
This is not a concern that evaporated when Japan surrendered. The USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles and the USS Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine, both in the Persian Gulf, and both ships survived. USS Cole took a direct hit from 700lbs of explosives which detonated next to the hull and stayed afloat.
The LCS is a fighting ship with a glass jaw, designed to engage forces equipped with only small arms. They probably should be handed over to the Coast Guard.
I know that some folks will point out that the Navy has not fought a red-on-blue ship-to-ship fight in 65 years. That misses the point.
A warship is built to go into harm's way, other than some exceptions like PT boats (which were made of wood and ran on high-octane aviation gasoline). The LCS seems more like a PT boat than an ocean-going warship. The LCSs will be able to go very fast over fairly short distances. They will not have the survivability nor the crew size to take damage of any consequence. So not only will an LCS not be able to take damage and keep on fighting, it may not even be able to continue to float.
This is not a concern that evaporated when Japan surrendered. The USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles and the USS Samuel B. Roberts hit a mine, both in the Persian Gulf, and both ships survived. USS Cole took a direct hit from 700lbs of explosives which detonated next to the hull and stayed afloat.
The LCS is a fighting ship with a glass jaw, designed to engage forces equipped with only small arms. They probably should be handed over to the Coast Guard.
Friday, May 21, 2021
The Tug Fees Must Have Been Mounting Up
Just more than a decade after they entered naval service to great fanfare as the future face of the U.S. Navy, the first two littoral combat ships will be mothballed later this year, according to the Navy’s inactivation schedule for 2021.
The first LCS, Freedom, will head into inactive reserve status Sept. 30, less than 13 years after the ship was commissioned.
The second LCS, Independence, a separate class variant, will receive its shadow box on July 31 after just 11½ years of service.
The LCS concept has been sketchy right from the jump. It was pretty clear to a casual observer that all of those touted "mission modules" would never be built, or, if they were, they would not be built in the numbers required.
There were quite a few things that might have worked out for the LCS. But they take a shitload of contractor maintenance that, on most ships, was done by a ship's crew. The manning plan for the ships ensured that the sailors on board would treat the ships like rented mules. One could sum up the problems with the LCS by noting that it was one of the dumb ideas of Rumsfeld's DoD, right up there with the gutting of surface officer initial training that led, in part, to at least two collisions at sea.
And it didn't take a rocket scientist to foresee the problems that arose with the LCS program.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Little Crappy Ships are now "Frigates"?
So sayeth SecNav.
What the Navy once called frigates and, before that, Destroyer Escorts were ships that were designed to escort convoys, replenishment ships and landing ships. They were primarily ASW ships, built for blue-water warfare.
LCSs are glorified offshore PT boats. They don't have the crew or the capability for extended open-ocean operations (like DE/FFs did). The very word "littoral" implies that they are designed to operate where brown water meats blue water-- not very far offshore. And certainly not in the middle of the ocean. So far, it hasn't been proven that the LCSs can operate very far from a support base (or ocean-going tugs).
Calling a LCS a FF is like calling a 3-wheeled motorcycle a "sedan".
What the Navy once called frigates and, before that, Destroyer Escorts were ships that were designed to escort convoys, replenishment ships and landing ships. They were primarily ASW ships, built for blue-water warfare.
LCSs are glorified offshore PT boats. They don't have the crew or the capability for extended open-ocean operations (like DE/FFs did). The very word "littoral" implies that they are designed to operate where brown water meats blue water-- not very far offshore. And certainly not in the middle of the ocean. So far, it hasn't been proven that the LCSs can operate very far from a support base (or ocean-going tugs).
Calling a LCS a FF is like calling a 3-wheeled motorcycle a "sedan".
Monday, March 16, 2026
World Refuses to Clean Up Trump's Mess (Updated)
As of today:
Trump has been demanding that NATO step in, but as the Germans pointed out, Trump started this war and it is not NATO's war:
The Germans have also just pointed out that most of the NATO nations have small navies and their largest ships are frigates, they're not going to make a maningful contribution compared to the US Navy.
Even so, the surface Navy is little more than a pale shadow of what it was during the Cold War. All that's left are one class of destroyers and some aging cruisers. The large number of frigates that they had are long gone, without replacement. The littoral-class ships are a joke (something that I've been going on about for awhile).
But back to the point: Trump's style (if you can call it that) has been as well-thought as a toddler's. He breaks things and demands that others clean up his messes. Right now, he's not asking for help, he's demanding it, and the rest of the world is saying "thanks, but no." He's forgotten that most of those countries are democracies, their governments answer to their people, and, thanks to Trump's badmouthing and tariffs, they are not at all interested in sending their young people to help pull Trump's chestnuts out of a fire of his own making.
Bloody Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan seem to think that no matter what the outcome will be, it's going to be awful.
And he apparently doesn't understand that oil is a global commodity. Because he's either stupid or he believes that his MAGAt followers are.
The big winner in all this is Trump's boss, Putin. Russia gets to sell some of its oil at market price. And NATO relationships between the Trump Administration and the rest of the Alliance will be further strained. We'll be lucky if it can be repaired somewhat in 2029.
Admiral Painter was right.
UPDATE ON THE HORMUZ COALITION (Mon, March 16):
🇫🇷 France: REJECTED
🇬🇧 UK: REJECTED
🇮🇹 Italy: REJECTED
🇪🇸 Spain: REJECTED
🇯🇵 Japan: REJECTED
🇳🇴 Norway: REJECTED
🇨🇦 Canada: REJECTED
🇦🇺 Australia: REJECTED
🇩🇪 Germany: REJECTED
🇨🇳 China: NO RESPONSE
🇳🇱 Netherlands: NO RESPONSE
🇰🇷 South Korea: NO CONFIRMATION
Trump has been demanding that NATO step in, but as the Germans pointed out, Trump started this war and it is not NATO's war:
Stefan Kornelius, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, told reporters in Berlin that Germany will not participate in any military operations in the region.
“This war has nothing to do with NATO. It’s not NATO’s war,” Kornelius said. He stressed that NATO is an alliance focused on defending member countries’ territories, not intervening in conflicts outside its borders.
The Germans have also just pointed out that most of the NATO nations have small navies and their largest ships are frigates, they're not going to make a maningful contribution compared to the US Navy.
Even so, the surface Navy is little more than a pale shadow of what it was during the Cold War. All that's left are one class of destroyers and some aging cruisers. The large number of frigates that they had are long gone, without replacement. The littoral-class ships are a joke (something that I've been going on about for awhile).
But back to the point: Trump's style (if you can call it that) has been as well-thought as a toddler's. He breaks things and demands that others clean up his messes. Right now, he's not asking for help, he's demanding it, and the rest of the world is saying "thanks, but no." He's forgotten that most of those countries are democracies, their governments answer to their people, and, thanks to Trump's badmouthing and tariffs, they are not at all interested in sending their young people to help pull Trump's chestnuts out of a fire of his own making.
Bloody Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan seem to think that no matter what the outcome will be, it's going to be awful.
And he apparently doesn't understand that oil is a global commodity. Because he's either stupid or he believes that his MAGAt followers are.
The big winner in all this is Trump's boss, Putin. Russia gets to sell some of its oil at market price. And NATO relationships between the Trump Administration and the rest of the Alliance will be further strained. We'll be lucky if it can be repaired somewhat in 2029.
Admiral Painter was right.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
The Sino-Capitalist Hollowing Out of the U.S.
In a recent blog post, BadTux discussed the Chinese long-term hollowing out of the American economy. He mentioned that a hollowed-out economy can't maintain a first-rate military, at least for very long.
But it's more than that. American military strategy in the 20th Century was, at its core, pretty basic. The US would let the Europeans kill each other while American companies would make weapons that the US would sell (or lend) to the favored side. Remember that the premier American pursuit aircraft of World War Two was initially designed and built to meet a British RFP. The rifle that the vast majority of Doughboys carried in World War One was first built for the British Army and then rechambered for the American cartridge.
The strategy of allowing the Europeans to bleed each other out before the Americans would intervene in force also allowed to the mobilization and equipping of a large American army consisting mostly of draftees. This avoided the cost of having to maintain a significant standing army, but enabled the fielding of millions of soldiers. But it required an industrial base capable of rapidly equipping such an army.
That industrial base has been hollowed out, both by Pentagon/Government/Administration mismanagement over decades.
A case in point: CDR Salamander has noted that the Navy has commissioned four littoral combat ships in just under six years. The LCS is a small, lightly armed ship.[1] In that span of time, as the good Commander has noted, the Navy commissioned 32 Perry-class FFGs. If you go back another decade or so, within that 5.75 year time window, the Navy commissioned all forty of the Knox-class frigates (1969-1974) and initial series production of 30 of the Spruance class (1975-1980).
This country has apparently lost the ability to simply design, procure and build complex weapon systems.[2]
But it goes deeper than that. Being able to rapidly equip an army required an industrial base that could shift to making military materiel. Any cursory perusal of the industrial history of the Second World War will show that companies that made consumer goods and industrial equipment transitioned to making military goods. Whether car plants or washing machine factories, they made stuff for the armed forces.
Over the last few decades, the bright boys of American industry, the capitalists and the banksters, have been actively engaged in closing American industrial plants and relocating production to nations as close as Mexico and as far as China. Go into any sporting goods shop and you will likely find that for anything other than firearms, everything that you may want to buy was made in a foreign nation.
How secure does this make us? In the First World War, Mexico was wooed by the Germans. In the Second, while the Mexicans declared war on Germany in 1942 after U-boats sank Mexican ships. Their combat contribution was one squadron of US-built P-47s that saw service beginning two months before Japan was nuked.[3]
As for China, well, they have either at times been an active enemy or a serious hindrance. The Chinese have been more-or-less complicit in the nuclearization of North Korea. It is not too big of a stretch to see China as the principal strategic adversary of the West in this Century. And yet, we keep selling them our industrial base.
Which makes one wonder about the patriotism of the capitalists and the banksters who are complicit in this. Oh, they probably salute the Flag and wear flag pins and other symbolic nonsense, but when it comes down to money, those fuckers would sell their daughters into whorehouses and sell their grandparents' carcasses to rendering plants if they could make a buck on the deal.
Lenin probably really didn't say that "capitalists will sell us the rope that we use to hang them all." But it is nonetheless true.
_____________________________________
[1] I kind of hesitate to refer to it as a "warship", as it's pretty much a fast-moving target.
[2] Other than maybe submarines.
[3] Contrast that to the efforts of Brazil, if you like.
But it's more than that. American military strategy in the 20th Century was, at its core, pretty basic. The US would let the Europeans kill each other while American companies would make weapons that the US would sell (or lend) to the favored side. Remember that the premier American pursuit aircraft of World War Two was initially designed and built to meet a British RFP. The rifle that the vast majority of Doughboys carried in World War One was first built for the British Army and then rechambered for the American cartridge.
The strategy of allowing the Europeans to bleed each other out before the Americans would intervene in force also allowed to the mobilization and equipping of a large American army consisting mostly of draftees. This avoided the cost of having to maintain a significant standing army, but enabled the fielding of millions of soldiers. But it required an industrial base capable of rapidly equipping such an army.
That industrial base has been hollowed out, both by Pentagon/Government/Administration mismanagement over decades.
A case in point: CDR Salamander has noted that the Navy has commissioned four littoral combat ships in just under six years. The LCS is a small, lightly armed ship.[1] In that span of time, as the good Commander has noted, the Navy commissioned 32 Perry-class FFGs. If you go back another decade or so, within that 5.75 year time window, the Navy commissioned all forty of the Knox-class frigates (1969-1974) and initial series production of 30 of the Spruance class (1975-1980).
This country has apparently lost the ability to simply design, procure and build complex weapon systems.[2]
But it goes deeper than that. Being able to rapidly equip an army required an industrial base that could shift to making military materiel. Any cursory perusal of the industrial history of the Second World War will show that companies that made consumer goods and industrial equipment transitioned to making military goods. Whether car plants or washing machine factories, they made stuff for the armed forces.
Over the last few decades, the bright boys of American industry, the capitalists and the banksters, have been actively engaged in closing American industrial plants and relocating production to nations as close as Mexico and as far as China. Go into any sporting goods shop and you will likely find that for anything other than firearms, everything that you may want to buy was made in a foreign nation.
How secure does this make us? In the First World War, Mexico was wooed by the Germans. In the Second, while the Mexicans declared war on Germany in 1942 after U-boats sank Mexican ships. Their combat contribution was one squadron of US-built P-47s that saw service beginning two months before Japan was nuked.[3]
As for China, well, they have either at times been an active enemy or a serious hindrance. The Chinese have been more-or-less complicit in the nuclearization of North Korea. It is not too big of a stretch to see China as the principal strategic adversary of the West in this Century. And yet, we keep selling them our industrial base.
Which makes one wonder about the patriotism of the capitalists and the banksters who are complicit in this. Oh, they probably salute the Flag and wear flag pins and other symbolic nonsense, but when it comes down to money, those fuckers would sell their daughters into whorehouses and sell their grandparents' carcasses to rendering plants if they could make a buck on the deal.
Lenin probably really didn't say that "capitalists will sell us the rope that we use to hang them all." But it is nonetheless true.
_____________________________________
[1] I kind of hesitate to refer to it as a "warship", as it's pretty much a fast-moving target.
[2] Other than maybe submarines.
[3] Contrast that to the efforts of Brazil, if you like.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Send in the Littoral Combat Ships!
Whenever there is a crisis in the world, the carriers get sent:
The problem, of course, is that the carrier force is slowly diminishing over time. They are hellaciously expensive to build and operate, especially when one factors in the costs of the aircraft. The first models of F-4s probably cost less than two million dollars a copy in 1960. That would be roughly $15 million today. In comparison, a F/A-18F Super Hornet costs $60 million and a F-35C will cost somewhere between $100 million and $200 million a copy, depending on which source you believe.*
Then again, the Navy had well over 20 carriers in 1960, most of which were left over from the Second World War. Now, the Navy has 11 with at least one in a multi-year refueling and overhaul at any one time. 10 available carriers means that there is, at most, five deployed at any one time, as the others are just returning from deployment, getting ready to deploy or undergoing intermediate maintenance. A "port and starboard" operating schedule is incredibly hard on the crews. 10 carriers properly means only three or four are deployed, so there is at least a smidgen of reserve capability.
The big ship-small ship debate has been going on since the dawn of our Republic. Small ships have their uses. But there are times when sending a flotilla of small ships is like bringing a BB gun to a real gunfight. Small ships don't send much of a message, which is why when there is trouble in the world, one of the first question that gets asked in Fort Fumble and in the West Wing is: "Where are the carriers now?"
______________________________
* It is worth remembering that the F-22, at $200 million a copy (or less) was canceled in favor of the "cheaper" F-35.
President Obama and South Korea’s president agreed Tuesday night to hold joint military exercises as a first response to North Korea’s deadly shelling of a South Korean military installation, as both countries struggled for the second time this year to keep a North Korean provocation from escalating into war.A carrier is the "big stick". A LCS is comparatively a small twig, somewhere between a FFG and a PG, especially since the FFG-7s were pretty much neutered to being even less capable than the 1052s that were retired 15 years ago.
The exercise will include sending the aircraft carrier George Washington and a number of accompanying ships into the region, both to deter further attacks by the North and to signal to China that unless it reins in its unruly ally it will see an even larger American presence in the vicinity.
The problem, of course, is that the carrier force is slowly diminishing over time. They are hellaciously expensive to build and operate, especially when one factors in the costs of the aircraft. The first models of F-4s probably cost less than two million dollars a copy in 1960. That would be roughly $15 million today. In comparison, a F/A-18F Super Hornet costs $60 million and a F-35C will cost somewhere between $100 million and $200 million a copy, depending on which source you believe.*
Then again, the Navy had well over 20 carriers in 1960, most of which were left over from the Second World War. Now, the Navy has 11 with at least one in a multi-year refueling and overhaul at any one time. 10 available carriers means that there is, at most, five deployed at any one time, as the others are just returning from deployment, getting ready to deploy or undergoing intermediate maintenance. A "port and starboard" operating schedule is incredibly hard on the crews. 10 carriers properly means only three or four are deployed, so there is at least a smidgen of reserve capability.
The big ship-small ship debate has been going on since the dawn of our Republic. Small ships have their uses. But there are times when sending a flotilla of small ships is like bringing a BB gun to a real gunfight. Small ships don't send much of a message, which is why when there is trouble in the world, one of the first question that gets asked in Fort Fumble and in the West Wing is: "Where are the carriers now?"
______________________________
* It is worth remembering that the F-22, at $200 million a copy (or less) was canceled in favor of the "cheaper" F-35.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Why Not Abolish the Draft?
If you are male and you were born after 1953, you have never been at risk for being drafted. The last no-shit draft lottery was held in 1972 for men born in 1953. Of those born that year, only 646 were drafted. My recollection is that all of them were offered discharges around mid-1973.
The draft is a relic of a time when wars were fought by masses of soldiers who had received a few months of training (if that) and then were sent into combat. That was a time when wars were fought (or planned to be) between nations that had roughly equal military abilities. Wars of those types were known for chewing up men and materiel on a very large scale.[1]
As a nation, we aren't very damn likely to get into that type of war. The navy sure doesn't think so, or they wouldn't be buying those littoral combat ships and calling them "frigates". There isn't the industrial base to turn out masses of tanks, fighters or bombers that would be lost in combat. Hell, during Vietnam, the usage of bombs was so high that the ones being shipped from the States late n the war were still warm from the pouring of their explosive cores.[2]
Even when we had a functioning industrial base and we could make damn near anything, the first two years after we entered the Second World War were more of "hold and annoy" strategy until sufficient forces were built up to do something.
It would also take a span of time to build training facilities for a large influx of draftees. The Navy and the Air Force each only have one boot camp. The Marines have two. The Army has four. During the last mass-mobilization war, the Army alone had over 110 boot camps, though to be fair, the Air Force was part of the Army then. It's a fair bet that the training done was as minimal as it could be, given the need to increase throughput.
The point is that even having every man (and maybe woman) registered is almost useless. After registration, there is no requirement to keep the Selective Service people updated on one's whereabouts. Further, everyone has a social security number and if they have a job, the IRS knows where they are (or recently have been).
The shell of the draft system could still be there, with a requirement that, upon activation of the draft, that everybody register for it-- just as was done during both world wars.
For now, registering for the draft is a useless paper drill. It should be abolished most ricky tick.
_________________________________
[1] One brief example: During the Second World War, the U.S. built about 10,000 B-25s. Maybe 2,000 were ever operational at one time. Most were lost from being shot up, shot down or crashes.
[2] This is not a new problem, see "The 1915 Shell Crisis", when the Royal Artillery Corps was so short of heavy shells that they could fire their guns four times a day.
The draft is a relic of a time when wars were fought by masses of soldiers who had received a few months of training (if that) and then were sent into combat. That was a time when wars were fought (or planned to be) between nations that had roughly equal military abilities. Wars of those types were known for chewing up men and materiel on a very large scale.[1]
As a nation, we aren't very damn likely to get into that type of war. The navy sure doesn't think so, or they wouldn't be buying those littoral combat ships and calling them "frigates". There isn't the industrial base to turn out masses of tanks, fighters or bombers that would be lost in combat. Hell, during Vietnam, the usage of bombs was so high that the ones being shipped from the States late n the war were still warm from the pouring of their explosive cores.[2]
Even when we had a functioning industrial base and we could make damn near anything, the first two years after we entered the Second World War were more of "hold and annoy" strategy until sufficient forces were built up to do something.
It would also take a span of time to build training facilities for a large influx of draftees. The Navy and the Air Force each only have one boot camp. The Marines have two. The Army has four. During the last mass-mobilization war, the Army alone had over 110 boot camps, though to be fair, the Air Force was part of the Army then. It's a fair bet that the training done was as minimal as it could be, given the need to increase throughput.
The point is that even having every man (and maybe woman) registered is almost useless. After registration, there is no requirement to keep the Selective Service people updated on one's whereabouts. Further, everyone has a social security number and if they have a job, the IRS knows where they are (or recently have been).
The shell of the draft system could still be there, with a requirement that, upon activation of the draft, that everybody register for it-- just as was done during both world wars.
For now, registering for the draft is a useless paper drill. It should be abolished most ricky tick.
_________________________________
[1] One brief example: During the Second World War, the U.S. built about 10,000 B-25s. Maybe 2,000 were ever operational at one time. Most were lost from being shot up, shot down or crashes.
[2] This is not a new problem, see "The 1915 Shell Crisis", when the Royal Artillery Corps was so short of heavy shells that they could fire their guns four times a day.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Can't We Make Anything Anymore In This Country?
Not only are the Navy's new landings ships sidelined for a myriad of problems, every ship made by Northrop Grumman at its Avondale and Pascagoula shipyard for the past several years will have to be re-inspected and possibly undergo very costly repairs. Every pipe welder and quality control inspector at those yards was de-certified. Those who were unable to pass a new certification exam were fired.
NorGum's spokesweasel said: “Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding is committed to building quality ships for our customers..." I'd be more impressed if they just did it rather than talk about it. When a company bleats about how they are "committed to quality", it's a safe bet that their main product line consists of various iterations of pieces-of-shit. [1]
Meanwhile, over at LockMart, the new littoral combat ship that they built has such stability problems that the ship has to have the equivalent of a live preserver welded on before it can deploy. The radar system sucks and if the ship takes a punch, it is expected to sink.
Oy. Maybe we can get EB to make surface ships. They'd cost a lot more, though. This is embarrassing. Avondale made the last 20 Knox-class ships, which were decent warships. Pascagoula cranked out the Spruance, Tyco and Kidd class ships, as well as a number of different amphibs. There were individual problems, of course, but I'm not aware of any serious class-wide problems.
This latest crap, though, is pretty damn bad. Both LockMart and NorGum need to think about spending a little less on lobbying and a lot more on building their fucking products.
[1]Ford was renown for cranking out piece of shit cars at a time when their advertising proclaimed that quality was "job 1".
NorGum's spokesweasel said: “Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding is committed to building quality ships for our customers..." I'd be more impressed if they just did it rather than talk about it. When a company bleats about how they are "committed to quality", it's a safe bet that their main product line consists of various iterations of pieces-of-shit. [1]
Meanwhile, over at LockMart, the new littoral combat ship that they built has such stability problems that the ship has to have the equivalent of a live preserver welded on before it can deploy. The radar system sucks and if the ship takes a punch, it is expected to sink.
Oy. Maybe we can get EB to make surface ships. They'd cost a lot more, though. This is embarrassing. Avondale made the last 20 Knox-class ships, which were decent warships. Pascagoula cranked out the Spruance, Tyco and Kidd class ships, as well as a number of different amphibs. There were individual problems, of course, but I'm not aware of any serious class-wide problems.
This latest crap, though, is pretty damn bad. Both LockMart and NorGum need to think about spending a little less on lobbying and a lot more on building their fucking products.
[1]Ford was renown for cranking out piece of shit cars at a time when their advertising proclaimed that quality was "job 1".
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Haze Gray and Welded to the Pier; LCS Edition
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.
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.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Burn, Baby, Burn
I have written a number of posts on the subject of naval damage control over at one of my other blogs. With that in mind, when I read about the size of the crew on the Navy's new "littoral combat ship", I was a bit dismayed.
Let me explain why.
Fires at sea are fought from General Quarters, which is "all hands man your battle stations." The teams assigned to damage control are in the Repair Lockers, of which there are three on ships the size of frigates and more on large ships. The Repair Locker team has a minimum of six hose men on two hose teams who actually go in and fight the fire. Investigators check the surrounding spaces. There are one or two sailors with advanced first aid training. There are sailors to relieve the hose teams when their air tanks (SCBAs) or oxygen canisters (OBA) run out, for fire-fighting in a shipboard compartment is very hard and hot work. (Even in a fire simulator, walking with a hose into a steel compartment with a fire burning is like charging into Hell. A major fire in a ship is orders of magnitude worse.)
I've forgotten how many sailors it took to properly man a repair locker, but 25-30 may be a good estimate for one fully-manned repair locker. A warship the size of a LCS would have three repair lockers. The repair lockers' actions are coordinated by the Damage Control Assistant's team in Damage Control Central, which is another five or six people. if you have been doing the math, that is close to a hundred sailors.
Fires are among the worst threats a warship commonly faces. There will be a fire, maybe minor, maybe not, on every warship during her lifetime. It is a rare sailor who will go through his or her career without hearing the words "Fire! Fire! Fire in Compartment ..." broadcast over the 1MC (ship's PA system) at least once. Forty people on a LCS means that if there is a major fire on board, the word may be passed to "abandon ship", for there will not be enough people on board to fight a large fire.
The article said: "there are still questions about whether the smaller crew, and all the "smartship" tech can really handle the kind of damage control emergencies that crop up on military ships." I don't think there is any question about it. Hoping that a fire won't break out or, that when one does, that it is small enough to be contained by miniscule damage control party, is not a plan. It is wishful thinking that, in my opinion, may well result in the loss of a ship.
Monday, January 23, 2012
LCS: "Teething Problems" or Piece of Shit?
The Navy's line on the littoral combat ships is that they have "teething problems". LCS-1 was so poorly built that the hull began cracking. LCS-2 had bad corrosion problems.
There is a fine line between teething problems and garbage. When they try to push the state of the art, it's pretty easy to slide into piece of shit. Sometimes what is tried is too much of a leap and, when the technology matures a little, it could have worked. For every P-51, they often build a XP-55. Or, if you like the Garand and the Pedersen.
The difference is often whether a program's problems are addressed directly or papered-over in the hopes of being able to fix the issues after the gizmo is in service. My suspicion is that papering-over is what is going on, as the fear may be if the Navy openly addresses the problems with the LCS program, it will go the way of the Zumwalt class DDGs. It still might.
There is a fine line between teething problems and garbage. When they try to push the state of the art, it's pretty easy to slide into piece of shit. Sometimes what is tried is too much of a leap and, when the technology matures a little, it could have worked. For every P-51, they often build a XP-55. Or, if you like the Garand and the Pedersen.
The difference is often whether a program's problems are addressed directly or papered-over in the hopes of being able to fix the issues after the gizmo is in service. My suspicion is that papering-over is what is going on, as the fear may be if the Navy openly addresses the problems with the LCS program, it will go the way of the Zumwalt class DDGs. It still might.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Feeding at the Trough
The GAO has found that 95 major weapons acquisition programs run by the Pentagon are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
One of the major pigs is the Navy's "littoral combat ship," which is 100% over budget. Boeing can't build an aircraft radio without going 300% over budget.
I guess this is what having a MBA as a president gets you.
One of the major pigs is the Navy's "littoral combat ship," which is 100% over budget. Boeing can't build an aircraft radio without going 300% over budget.
I guess this is what having a MBA as a president gets you.
Friday, September 2, 2016
The Little Crappy Ships Have Earned Their Name.
Less than two days after the US Navy revealed a third mechanical breakdown in a year of one of its $360 million littoral combat ships, the service has announced a fourth.The reason behind the LCS class of ships was that they were supposed to be commercially-available ships that would be cheaper to build than milspec warships and they could build them faster than warships.
Hasn't worked out. It's been eight years since LCS-1 (USS Pierside) was commissioned and in that time, a dozen LCSs have been commissioned. It took eight years to commission all 46 ships of the Knox class. Eight years after the commissioning of the USS Oliver Hazard Perry, 48 ships had been commissioned. It took eight years to build the 35 ships of the Spruance and Kidd classes. And all of those warships were built as warships, to milspec/BuShips standards. The only possible "COTS" tech on them was the installation of LN-66 radar units (and maybe the typewriters and copiers).
Why these floating abortions continue to be produced is probably a matter of greasing the right congressmen, if not project offices. They can't sail, they can't fight and they can't take a punch. CDR Salamander has had a lot to say about them, as far as I can tell, none of it is good.
And SecNav Ray Mabus should have been flogged for ordering that the LCS be rebranded as frigates. I can't think of a single DE/FF, other than maybe the Evarts class, that would not have been able to reduce a LCS to a burning and sinking hulk in a fight.
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