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  • Originally posted by ghost792 View Post
    Seems like the perfect mission for LCS.
    Those Zumwalts would make some really cool looking targets too.

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    • Here’s how much the US Navy saves by cutting the first 4 LCS more than a decade early

      by David B. Larter
      05 March 2020
      Defense News

      WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy’s top requirements officer said in testimony Wednesday that other budget priorities have crowded out the first four littoral combat ships, leaving them on the cutting-room floor in 2021.

      In total, the service saved about $1.8 billion over five years with the move, said Vice Adm. James Kilby, the deputy chief of naval operations for war-fighting requirements and capabilities.

      “As we looked at our budget for [fiscal 2021], we looked at how much it would cost in the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program] collectively — $1.2 billion — and how much it would cost collectively to upgrade those first models — $600 million total — and we determined that money could be applied in other areas,” Kilby told the House Armed Service’s Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee. “We didn’t want to do it.”

      Kilby said the service prioritized the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and readiness above maintaining older force structure.

      During the Navy’s budget rollout in February, the service’s budget director, Rear Adm. Randy Crites, told reporters that the ships were unique and not like the other LCS in the fleet, making them special cases in the LCS class. They had previously been designated test ships for crewing models and the long-delayed mission packages.

      The hulls — Freedom, Independence, Fort Worth and Coronado — have accrued between six and 12 years of service, but their usefulness as test vessels is waning and they’re no longer worth a deeper financial investment, according to Crites.

      “Those four test ships were instrumental to wringing out the crewing, the maintenance and all the other things we needed to learn from them,” Crites told reporters during the Feb. 10 budget rollout. “But they’re not configured like the other LCS in the fleet, and they need significant upgrades. Everything from combat [systems] to structural, you name it. They’re expensive to upgrade.”

      Still, Kilby said, the Navy is committed to the class, adding that they were necessary to ease the burden on the fleet’s beleaguered destroyers.

      “I think there is great capability in the LCS class,” Kilby said. “And we need those ships in the future to have a mix to allow those ships to do what they are designed to do.

      “When I deployed in 2017 as a strike group commander, I used a destroyer to do maritime fisheries enforcement. That’s not a great use for a DDG [destroyer]. That’s a good use for an LCS.”

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      • CNO gets focused on the LCS.
        Two issues noted are the "complicated drive chain" and "long delayed mission packages." Neither a surprise. With 35 hulls some useful function must be found.

        “There are things in the near term that I have to deliver, that I’m putting heat on now, and one of them is LCS,” Gilday said. “One part is sustainability and reliability. We know enough about that platform and the problems that we have that plague us with regard to reliability and sustainability, and I need them resolved. That requires a campaign plan to get after it and have it reviewed by me frequently enough so that I can be sighted on it. Those platforms have been around since 2008 — we need to get on with it."

        Link:
        https://www.defensenews.com/naval/20...x-the-program/

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        • I'd say turn them over to the Coast Guard and smaller allies and get on with the new frigates.
          “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
          Mark Twain

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          • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
            I'd say turn them over to the Coast Guard and smaller allies and get on with the new frigates.
            Who would want nearly unarmed hulls with tiny crews? Specially with their history of reliability issues...

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            • Originally posted by jlvfr View Post
              Who would want nearly unarmed hulls with tiny crews?
              For most Western coastguards by modern standards LCS would be considerably overmanned, including for its carried equipment and weapons. You can easily get ships with that size and capability set (maybe not the unnecessary oversized propulsion) with between half and one-third the crew.

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              • Originally posted by kato View Post
                For most Western coastguards by modern standards LCS would be considerably overmanned, including for its carried equipment and weapons. You can easily get ships with that size and capability set (maybe not the unnecessary oversized propulsion) with between half and one-third the crew.
                But what are the maintenance costs of that hull, not to mention it's grossly oversized "must do 40knots!!!" machinery?

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                • Admittedly, I haven't really been keeping track of this so much, but I thought the reliability issues had finally been mostly resolved. I Also thought the 'mission module' concept had been largely abandoned, with various ships semi-permanently equipped for a particular mission. Yes/no?

                  A side note, USS St. Louis commissioned Saturday-
                  https://news.usni.org/2020/08/11/vid...oning-ceremony

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                  • Originally posted by jlvfr View Post
                    Who would want nearly unarmed hulls with tiny crews? Specially with their history of reliability issues...
                    The Philippines for one....but it was kind of a smartass comment on my part.
                    “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                    Mark Twain

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by kato View Post
                      For most Western coastguards by modern standards LCS would be considerably overmanned, including for its carried equipment and weapons. You can easily get ships with that size and capability set (maybe not the unnecessary oversized propulsion) with between half and one-third the crew.
                      Both LCS classes have half the crew of a USCG Legend class Cutter.

                      And the armament suites are almost identical.
                      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                      Mark Twain

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                        Both LCS classes have half the crew of a USCG Legend class Cutter. And the armament suites are almost identical.
                        The Legend-class Cutters were designed a generation ago ship-wise, carry a variety of systems not even remotely relevant to their role (but relevant in their role as "auxiliary frigates"), and have been pretty much as much an engineering disaster as LCS itself.

                        German Potsdam class OPVs, 25% smaller than a LCS, have the same primary 57mm gun armament and both boat and helicopter facilities. With a crew of 14. The low-automation variant of the same hull that we've sold to various South American countries over the last ten years are run with crews of 30. French POM or Australian Arafura OCV for current models in procurement also run crews of 30 or less.
                        For concurrent OPVs by generation with LCS, Spanish Meteoro OPV run crews of 46 incl. helo detachment, Dutch Hollands 50, British Rivers 60 max with aviation (34 ship only).
                        Last edited by kato; 11 Aug 20,, 17:16.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by kato View Post
                          The Legend-class Cutters were designed a generation ago ship-wise, carry a variety of systems not even remotely relevant to their role (but relevant in their role as "auxiliary frigates"), and have been pretty much as much an engineering disaster as LCS itself.

                          German Potsdam class OPVs, 25% smaller than a LCS, have the same primary 57mm gun armament and both boat and helicopter facilities. With a crew of 14. The low-automation variant of the same hull that we've sold to various South American countries over the last ten years are run with crews of 30. French POM or Australian Arafura OCV for current models in procurement also run crews of 30 or less.
                          For concurrent OPVs by generation with LCS, Spanish Meteoro OPV run crews of 46 incl. helo detachment, Dutch Hollands 50, British Rivers 60 max with aviation (34 ship only).
                          Kato, you are missing my point.

                          I was making a not so subtle allusion that the Navy should just dump the vessels.

                          Five them to the Coast Guard for repurposing, give them to the Taiwanese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, use them for a SINKEX.

                          It is a poor idea badly executed.

                          The USN should have just stuck with frigates....didn't have to be a straight OHP deep water replacement but we don't need a Burke DD Mini-Me either.

                          The F-35 program finally seemed to get its act together.

                          LCS not so much.
                          “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                          Mark Twain

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                          • 40knots would make for a nice high speed target...

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                              The USN should have just stuck with frigates....didn't have to be a straight OHP deep water replacement but we don't need a Burke DD Mini-Me either.
                              The real question is what the USN would do with the ships. Realistically, the carrier escort role is fulfilled entirely with Burkes (incl. Flight III replacing Ticos). The USN - offhand from memory - has a grand total of three squadrons that operate for other purposes: One for the Mediterranean at Rota, one rotationally forward-deployed for the South China Sea at Singapore and one for the Carribean at Mayport. And realistically those squadrons and theaters are basically where LCS were planned for.

                              The problem for LCS design in my opinion was the capability creep that resulted from the USN having about zero idea about modern warfare in confined and shallow waters and throwing their sole (mid-80s) experience at the problem. And a whole lot of NIH syndrome preventing early cancellation or non-inclusion of technological cul-de-sacs long aborted in other places.

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                              • KAto,

                                You nailed it. My thought's exactly. Tried to get too fancy and not do what American shipyards have done...designed and built multimission platforms which were good at a lot of things and very good in one thing. I agree the NIH syndrome hit hard...a lot of our NATO Allies have a ton of shallow water experience and hulls we should have plugged into.

                                As to what to do with them....I was only partially kidding about the give to the Coast Guard idea. The LCS are pretty stable platforms and could host aircraft and boarding parties for drug interdiction, etc. High speed pays off there.
                                “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                                Mark Twain

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