Littoral Combat Ships

[Dreadnought]

At $130 million per, Osprey can never be considered a success, by any standard.

The USN will never get even half the LCS hulls it has stated it "needs", and i doubt that even 10 of them will be built before the entire program is cancelled.

The US is on a crash course with insolvency, this is not the days of the Cold War. When the SSI crunch finally hits, we'll be lucky if we can field a navy of rowboats.

Go back and read my predictions before i left this forum, and you will see almost everything i predicted has come to pass.

JSF has more than doubled in cost (and it will continue to spiral in cost), The B model is never going to work, at any cost. FCS is gone, as i said it would be (and should be), PAM/LAM is cancelled, the stupid 6.8mm rifle and the ACR and all those other M-16 replacements are gone, DD-X/DD-21 is gone, years have passed, and there is still no credible NGFS replacement for the BB's in the fleet, ERGM is history, and there isn't anything even on the horizon...and i can go on and on and on.

It was my utter frustration at watching the US military utterly piss away my tax dollars that caused me to stop visiting all manner of defense forums for the last 4 years to begin with.

LCS is just more of the same- a total waste of money that doesn't deliver anything that the USN actually needs.

It is a perversion.

Bill, Umm no offense but I dont see how anyones predictions are going to be a tell all of the future. Sorry, Im not sold.

And umm consequently, I'd rather have the military piss away my tax dollars and have atleast something to show for it while keeping my family safe which cannot be said for the Congress thats pisses away my tax dollars with nothing to show for it at all.

And Bill, I'm pretty sure that SSI wont exist for my generation. So please do wear your best jewelry and load your pockets with untaxable cash when your time comes because Im going digging for my SSI when that time comes.;)

[USSWisconsin]

I could see a light weight upgrade to the Cyclones, a stabilized 30mm and a small RAM launcher, it would have to be special light weight stuff, and the ships would probably still need some stiffening for the weight, those are little ships. It probably wouldn't cost all that much to do some minor SLEP type stuff. I don't think they should have significant hull mods - like lengthening, and large ship systems like Phalanyx and VLS are probably out of reach for these little ships. They could be much better equipped and deadlier if they were needed.

[HKDan]

LCS should be a 3000t, 35 knot, steel hulled, SPY-1K equipped conventional hulled frigate with an 8 cell with TACTOM/ESSM suite(32 missile quad pack), 76mm gun, a SeaRAM mount, and a flight deck/hanger for 2 SMALL ASW/ASuW helicopters.

Nothing fancy, but still credibly multimission mission capable.

As currently configured/envisioned, LCS is a totally retarded waste of money. The USN would have been better off just up-gunning the Cyclone patrol boats, to be honest.

If the USN was going for a frigate here, I think that it ought to more or less fit the parameters that you have set above. But I don't think a frigate is what they are going for. LCS appears to be a move in another direction, one where its eventual strength is to be in the parts of the ship which are currently empty. I know that is a hard sell. I think that the USN looks into the future and what they see are two challenges which happen to be at complete opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one end is China, and to a much lesser extent, North Korea and Iran. The current USN fleet is optimized for these threats, but has weaknesses in mineclearing and ASW in the littorals. On the other end of the spectrum are a large number of challenges that the current USN fleet isn't very well prepared to deal with. These include the situation with Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, drug smuggling in the Carribean and on the west coast, expeditionary mine warfare, possible swarming attacks by Iranian small craft, AIP or advanced diesel electric submarine warfare in littorals, disaster relief in areas with limited port facilities. The list goes on and on. A frigate in the traditional sense is probably the best ship for the higer end conflict against an opponent with traditional conventional military forces. So when looking at the LCS through the prism of a traditional force on force warship, Holy Crap! Its not got any major weapons systems! But when we look at it as a ship which is designed to be flexible against the range of threats at the lower end of the spectrum, but still have the ability to address a couple of USN weaknesses at the high end of the spectrum(mine sweeping, ASW in the littorals), then its construction makes a little more sense. It has to be long ranged in order to fit the nature of USN operations. It needs to have a lot of empty space so that it can be reconfigured to fit a very wide range of tasks. For most of the roles that it will be expected to undertake, a heavy armament is unnecessary. Its tough to accept the LCS design when comparing it to other contemporary warships, but I don't think an equivalent ship exists at this time. It is a controversial ship, and I think that the criticism it faces is legitimate, but I am willing to at least wait and see how they operate in service before I completely make up my mind. I think there is still the distinct possibility that the USN will be able to get a lot of mileage out of this concept.

[kato]

LCS appears to be a move in another direction, one where its eventual strength is to be in the parts of the ship which are currently empty.

To some extent the LCS is exactly the direction navies worldwide have wanted and predicted a development into in the past 15-20 years - a multipurpose medium-sized ocean-going vessel for expeditionary purposes. In particular the expeditionary ocean-going mine warfare capability is something a lot of navies are pushing, as that's pretty much non-existant*.
The mine warfare and to some extent the "ASW support" roles of the LCS fit into such a vessel quite well, as do possible roles in the direction of local logistics support (mobile helo basing), special warfare support and even low-intensity armed escort.

The problem is the "fast surface combatant" component in the USN taskset, as its constraints are actually defining for the ship as a whole. For the other roles, the ship would have been just fine with half the speed, a boxier shape giving more space, less pre-defined "component slots", an even more modular crew concept.

Ditch the missiles for ASuW and use a helo and RAM HAS for it instead. And give the next couple units smaller engines, possibly clearing some room down there too. Other than that it's a workable concept.

---
* France is the only one who has taken active steps in the direction yet with a conventional design - with the commissioning of A645 Alizee in 2005, a 200-ft expeditionary mine diver vessel with helo support and some modular space.

[Bill]

IMO It would be, they were already worn out hull wise from stress fatigue.

You just said they have 15 years of hull life left in a previous post. They can't be worn out and have 15 years left.

Your post makes no sense.

And let's face it, building a new Cyclone replacement- or just enlarged Cyclones themselves, would cost but a tiny fraction what the LCS costs.

And umm consequently, I'd rather have the military piss away my tax dollars and have atleast something to show for it while keeping my family safe which cannot be said for the Congress thats pisses away my tax dollars with nothing to show for it at all.

There is nothing to show for those hundreds of billions of wasted dollars but a failed and cancelled string of alphabet systems.

What's more, at it's most fundamental levels, i dismiss the very validity of the LCS concept to begin with. All it is, is one of the very few surviving Rumsfeld DoD "transformational" brainchild's that no one has managed to axe yet. But that day is probably still coming. There is no way in hell that the USN will ever see the number of hulls it wants, and as i said already, probably won't ever see even half of them, even if it's not cancelled. And it should be, no matter how good it is, $1bn multimission corvettes with no real offensive or defensive capability are not affordable for this or any other nation. Not even close.

A 45-50kt minesweeper? Wha.....?
A ship that will operate in the most dangerous littoral regions with no kind of a decent self defense capability and a skeletal crew that will be unable to conduct any kind of meaningful damage control? Wha....?

I can see these things ending up like the failed Pegasus PHM's....spending most of their careers in the Caribbean chasing down drug boats in the perversely ineffective and failed "War on drugs."

It is just one bad joke that keeps playing over, and over, and over again.

A fleet of 3000t SPY-1K/ESSM/Helo equipped 35kt conventional frigates covering up-gunned Cyclone's with AAW and helo support makes about, oh, 1000x more sense to me.

That way you can have 3 layers of coverage along an enemy coast. Up-gunned Cyclones in close, the Frigates farther out in the green water providing ESSM air and surface defense for the Cyclones, and the Burkes in the blue water, providing true layered 3D coverage and defense in depth for any Carrier operating off an enemy coast.

Of course this makes perfect sense, so it has zero chance of implementation.

[HKDan]

The problem is the "fast surface combatant" component in the USN taskset, as its constraints are actually defining for the ship as a whole. For the other roles, the ship would have been just fine with half the speed, a boxier shape giving more space, less pre-defined "component slots", an even more modular crew concept.

Ditch the missiles for ASuW and use a helo and RAM HAS for it instead. And give the next couple units smaller engines, possibly clearing some room down there too. Other than that it's a workable concept.

The criticism that I am most willing to accept of LCS is the, "Why does it need to be so fast?" argument. That bit I really don't understand. I also agree with you that perhaps a better design might have included even more empty space to work with. The concept is one that I am willing to wait and see about, I still have hopes that this ship will prove very useful. It appears that the Navy is committed to it and its certainly the best option on the table to increase the size of the fleet.

[astralis]

a slightly off-topic question for m21-- how'd a groundpounder like you get into ships'n'boats??? it's unnatural

[USSWisconsin]

Well discussion involves argument, and we are certainly having a lively one here. I have the feeling about LCS that this is what we've got, we've worked hard for it, it can be made to work well... The USN has historically done well in the big picture, with an occasional head scratcher, we'll see how the LCS pans out over the next decade. If it doesn't - the frigate and patrol boat building approach is still available. Ships could even be bought if that were the only way, but with the NSC cutter building, we have a frigate hull ready and currently building as a cutter, just not fully fitted out as a USN frigate. The Cyclones could be shined up with a little attention, if that was the decision. I think it is too early to give up on the LCS, it may turn out to be a great ship, IMO. If it doesn't; we don't have to build so many - then money not spent there, could be spent elsewhere.

We really got two ships with the LCS program, it may turn out that the two will have very different roles. Their size is probably an asset, their speed could easily be turned down - smaller engines are relatively easy. Weapons systems have changed during the lives of many ships, this shouldn't be a big worry - if the ships are good, putting better weapons on them isn't that hard. The USN has had a policy of building their own hulls, and has for quite a while - it makes sense with the USN's unique requirements, being a global power. Using a hull that everyone else knows all about, including its vulnerabilities is a disadvantage the USN doesn't want. I don't see us buying any larger hulls, but little patrol boats may be another thing - maybe the Skjold type would be considered if we felt we needed patrol boats fast. I am pretty sure a frigate is to much to let a foreign builder do it.

[gf0012-aust]

The criticism that I am most willing to accept of LCS is the, "Why does it need to be so fast?" argument. That bit I really don't understand.

one of the consistent observations made by USN observers attached to HMAS Jervis Bay during the East Timor action was the speed at which the ships was able to meet the surge requirement as well as its sheer speed advantages in getting to the AO.

Army have indicated the same with the TSV,

One of the vulnerabilities of HSV and TSV was their lack of autonomous defensive systems (outside of Phalanx), so the design intent when looking at OPV's was to gun them up.

Granted HSV and TSV are not LCS, but in the context of what future concept opportunities were, as presented to the USN, then speed to station was an important element.

at a basic level, one would assume that the issue of sheer speed for LCS is buried in the initial CONOPS documents....

[Bill]

a slightly off-topic question for m21-- how'd a groundpounder like you get into ships'n'boats??? it's unnatural

Warships are just tanks with pointy hulls instead of tracks and carriers are just mobile airfields. 'Phibs are just bigassed IFVs. You can look at subs as sappers or commandos. All the same principles of warfare apply.

As fast as LCS is, even at flank speed it is not even 1/3 as fast as the helos it carries, it makes the speed argument specious at best IMO. That argument only holds any weight at all if LCS has no helo contingent. Then it's own speed actually does mean a lot.

Let's make some time to intercept comparisons:

LCS isn't even 1/10th as fast as any kind of a subsonic cruise missile on a more powerfully armed frigate, be it a Harpoon, or a TACTOM, or whatever else.
LCS is about 25x slower than an ESSM in surface attack mode, as the ship I described would have quad packed in an 8 cell VLS.

As far as swarm boat attacks and needing the speed for that, i don't buy it. A Phalanx Block 1B (or equivalent) would gobble those sorts of attacks up for breakfast.

And really, a 50kt minesweeper without dedicated personnel? Really?

And a 57mm gun..ensuring the ship is utterly worthless in an NGFS role? What the...?

And any way you slice it, for the very limited offensive and defensive abilities the ship possesses, it is vastly over priced.

The entire concept is stupid. But i have come to expect stupid from the USN. It's been par for the course for them for decades.

[Dreadnought]

*Bill, What was meant by my post is this,

The Cyclones when built only had a 15-year life expectancy on the hulls. They are not a major surface combatant therefore a 15 year life on the hull unlike your Frigates, DDG's, CVN's etc. These have a 30-50 year life expectancy. The US right now will have several ships ready for retirement spanning from the FFG's,CG's, DDG's and CVN's starting in the next few years. I haven’t seen nor heard that there is a replacement for the FFG's. The DDG's since many still have life and are still building will be around for a while. Your Nimitz class CVN's for many (up to CVN76) will come of age in 2025 and from there almost every two years following they will have hit their 50 year mark and slated for retirement. The US presently operates 11 CVN's, so that’s 11 replacements on the board for the future that will be required. Three of these have been named (CVN-76, 77 & 78), Two have been constructed (CVN-76, 77) which means they have a lot scheduled for the next decade as far as the CVN's are concerned.

The OHP class of Frigates (even the newest one FFG-61 is 22 years old already) if they go by the norm they are too have approx 30 years on the hulls (Personally I would believe 30 max). Many will start retiring very soon but they will at least have to decide whether to refit them again if possible. This may be why they haven’t put anything new on the board as of yet. Perhaps the worthy ones will receive a late life refit to keep them around awhile. If not, then it clearly shows the USN wishes to move away from the class all together. As we agreed above budgets are getting tighter, newer more expensive projects on the board.

The Burke IIa DDG's are still in building, They still have 4 more to build including DDG 112 so they will be around for quite some time to come along with many other DDGs that are fairly young. IMO, The Zumwalt Ia will be next with the first to be delivered in 2013 (don’t know if they will make that date)
With the second Zumwalt to be delivered probably 4 years later. These will carry the Fire Scouts among other new features in the armament. So there are plans to go beyond in the Destroyer Class in the new few years.

We haven’t even mentioned the USN Sub Programs, other craft or even aviation here as far as budget.

If you get what I’m saying here basically, there are no present plans heard or seen to replace the OHP class Frigates. More then likely, the ones that are worth it will be refitted and kept around while the others disappear.

The problem with the Cyclones is that not only is they worn but also as compared to other patrol boats (minus the guns) they really have nothing to offer as far as the future goes. You would have to stretch the hull in order to alter the superstructure, new mast for those radars and more needed room for updated propulsion now withstanding the armament and fuel range for the boats. All that work is just not worth the cost when you look at how much hull life they have left. They wont be around for even the next 5-10 years of constant use even if upgraded.

The LCS is not a cure all. It is new tech being applied and multipurpose. And you could possibly be right that they never reach their full building schedule. Many projects haven’t and many won’t either. That’s the way it goes. All branches of the service spend oodles of money on projects and R & D. It’s the nature of the game and the only way to stay ahead tech wise. You wont know until you test and try and in this day and age it cost money irregardless of whether you agree or not it is a project they want to pursue and have now ordered 10 hulls I believe and have already tested two successfully.

Bill, It doesn’t matter if you dismiss it or not, Your not the one making those decisions and nobody here on this board or any other board know what they intend for the project nor knows how successful it may be in the future. Its all speculations and accusations coupled around a budget that has already been approved for their building.

A new President and Congress could change this in the blink of an eye but it would seem not likely but who knows.

Bill, Donald Rumsfeld would not have made the decision to build LCS. If he did it would have been built or at least a prototype chances are during his tenure. Perhaps research was done during this time but he would have had absolutely no say in the final build decision to build or not to build so that argument is a moot point.

If Gates deemed it a worthy program to keep in the budget then The Joint Chiefs must have concurred as far as Naval matters go. Any Secretary of Defense listens to the Joint Chiefs and their recommendations. Its not as if it comes to them in a dream. There is a process and if it’s one you don’t agree with then I suggest contacting a Congressman. They approve the budgets for the Armed Forces and spend yours/mine/everyone’s tax money in the end. Congress tells the Navy how much they can have like they do every service. Its up to the Navy in this case to spend it where they believe the future of the Navy is going and who it might encounter along the way.

Bill, maybe in your mind it makes perfect sense, but to their minds it obviously don’t. I’m pretty sure holding those ranks and doing those jobs they have a better idea then anyone. And yes Bill that includes you too.

Your DC concerns are of no consequence. When sailors go to school they are taught basic DC and then more real life training aboard on a regular basis. There are only so many crew members aboard them, chances are they all recieve basic training in DC and fire fighting like they do aboard all other ships. If they loose it, they loose their home so im pretty sure they are well trained, otherwise they wouldnt be there among such small crew numbers.

We will have to wait and see what turns out for the LCS program.

[Dreadnought]

The entire concept is stupid. But i have come to expect stupid from the USN. It's been par for the course for them for decades.

*And yet they remain the top Navy on the globe with no one else really even close. Go figure.;)

Im guessing here but you never belonged to the USN judging by a few of those statements made above in Post 445. It shows.

Ah, I see now, when did you change your screen name. If you are who I think you are then you didnt even say hi or nothing...WTF?

[Bill]

That's a matter solely created by the USN's massive budget.

No one can begin to challenge the USN because no one can afford to.

It's really that simple, and it's a damn good thing.

Spare me on the Zumwalts, btw. That is an answer to nothing that has been god knows how many years, several cancelled or restructured major projects, and countless billions in the making. They're so expensive no more than a handful will be made anyway, even if they do ever enter service, and I wouldn't even count on that at all.

[Dreadnought]

That's a matter solely created by the USN's massive budget.

No one can begin to challenge the USN because no one can afford to.

It's really that simple, and it's a damn good thing.

Spare me on the Zumwalts, btw. That is an answer to nothing that has been god knows how many years, several cancelled or restructured major projects, and countless billions in the making. They're so expensive no more than a handful will be made anyway, even if they do ever enter service, and I wouldn't even count on that at all.

*Rule #1 Never let a groundpounder be in charge of any Navy. As far as the Zumwalts go One is already layed down. The other has yet to begin.

Um Bill or Snipe whichever you prefer, the LCS hulls were built and both entered service. I would not be surprised to see atleast the first two planned Zumwalts. By the way, Steal any cars in the middle of the night lately?;)

[surfgun]

From what I understand both Zumwalt (by Bath Iron Works) and Michael Monsoor (by Northrop Grumman) are under construction now. The 155's for Zumwalt are about finished, while the guns for Monsoor are contracted out if they have not yet started them. DDG 1002 is authorized but remains unnamed.