Littoral Combat Ships

[tbm3fan]

I wonder if current PLAN ships operate under the same "doctrine?"

I wonder the same thing although I don't think any will be paying a visit during Fleet Week and be open to the public. If they did I would be looking them over.

[Officer of Engineers]

My "appreciation" of both was simple . . . they'd better get in the first lick,

Sir,

Follow up question, how capable were they of getting in the first lick, I mean, how capable were their officers? Follow up question, did they know they were a kamakazi force?

[desertswo]

This raises a point I've been curious about for a while i.e damage control in a modern naval engagement. The only experience I can think of that even loosely equates is the Falklands War where the chief (public) lesson - apart from never build warship hulls or superstructures using aluminum alloy was that against frigate size hulls 'one shot' kills were to be expected i.e. the damage caused by modern anti-ship combined with modern ship designs meant 'damage control' was limited to fighting the fires long enough for the crew to abandon ship.

So take say an AB class destroyer which gets hit by 2 harpoons in a narrow space of time (minutes), damage control is fully manned and operational at the time and both hits are roughly mid-ship, one near the waterline and one in the superstructure. So for we laymen exactly how the hell do you 'damage control 440 kilos of HE going off inside a modern warship?

Watch and learn.

[desertswo]

Sir,

Follow up question, how capable were they of getting in the first lick, I mean, how capable were their officers? Follow up question, did they know they were a kamakazi force?

Officers were fine. Enlisted men not so much.


















o

[DonBelt]

The Sprucans did take a beating in the various Sinkex evolutions. Keeping in mind that they were stripped, doors and hatches opened, not maneuvering or fighting back or doing any kind of damage control. Torpedoes always seemed to do the most damage though because they actually broke the ship.

[desertswo]

The Sprucans did take a beating in the various Sinkex evolutions. Keeping in mind that they were stripped, doors and hatches opened, not maneuvering or fighting back or doing any kind of damage control. Torpedoes always seemed to do the most damage though because they actually broke the ship.

Yes; so imagine full propulsion and electrical power, SRBOC, guns, missiles, SLQ-32, the ability to maneuver, set material condition Zebra, put out fires, plug holes, etc., etc., etc. My money's on the ship with a well trained DC party (like the kind that saved Stark, Samuel B. Roberts and Cole). Unless it's a torpedo strike, the ship will live more often than not. However, Cole received damage on par with two MK-48 hits (as a CAT watch supervisor in the NMCC during that incident I was privy to a whole lot of photography and video that the rest of the world has never seen. Believe me when I tell you that if ever one of our ships was going to sink, that was the one that should have). They broke her back and exceeded the floodable length of the ship AND SAVED HER WITH A FREAKING BUCKET BRIGADE!!! I've never been so proud to be a member of the DC world as I was then, because they validated everything I ever learned and/or passed on. DC is a lot like surfing. It's not just something you do; you have to live it and breathe it and eat it to really understand its nature.

And Monash, the RN ships in the Falklands Campaign are not a good example of what can be done DC-wise. Bad design, and even worse execution of the design, and let's just say DC teams that were not as well versed in the concepts as an American crew of the same period. I know, because I trained a bunch of RN personnel as an instructor at SWOSCOLCOM Det Coronado in the aftermath of that war. We were "training the trainers" in how we do business . . . they have since come to Jesus on the issue and can take multiple hits and live.

[Tankersteve]

However, Cole received damage on par with two MK-48 hits (as a CAT watch supervisor in the NMCC during that incident I was privy to a whole lot of photography and video that the rest of the world has never seen. Believe me when I tell you that if ever one of our ships was going to sink, that was the one that should have). They broke her back and exceeded the floodable length of the ship AND SAVED HER WITH A FREAKING BUCKET BRIGADE!!! I've never been so proud to be a member of the DC world as I was then, because they validated everything I ever learned and/or passed on.

DesertSWO, anything unclassified that you can expand on there? Compare to your understanding of manning requirements and the basic capabilities needed to conduct certain tasks? I don't believe the Perry's were considered a robust design when they first appeared, but I think they were at least built to the same standards of survivability as the rest of the fleet of comparable size. I'm sure there is much you can't or don't want to speak of, to say nothing of commenting specifically on an LCS's DC capability, but for those of us not familiar with these operations, a bit more would be enlightening.

Or maybe just point me to some open sources on some of what DC ops/training entails.


Tankersteve

[surfgun]

It just puzzles me how the destructive power of two Mk-48's could be packaged upon a zodiac? Was it some ultra upscale large zodiac? I take it that must have used some sort of shaped charge, but still that was a very impressive result.

[TopHatter]

It just puzzles me how the destructive power of two Mk-48's could be packaged upon a zodiac? Was it some ultra upscale large zodiac? I take it that must have used some sort of shaped charge, but still that was a very impressive result.

Well a Mk-48 warhead is 650 lbs by way of comparison, and if you're not careful you could overload your small boat and wind up sinking yourself (like the terrorists that tried to bomb USS The Sullivans found out. And apparently it was a sort of shaped charge style explosive.

What do we know about the "small boat" used in the Cole attack...was it a Zodiac or something larger?

[Officer of Engineers]

It just puzzles me how the destructive power of two Mk-48's could be packaged upon a zodiac? Was it some ultra upscale large zodiac? I take it that must have used some sort of shaped charge, but still that was a very impressive result.

The one thing I learned about Naval Warfare. It is NOT the weapon itself that is dangerous but it is the sea. The weapon merely tips the balance in the ocean's favour.

I don't care how thick your ship hull is, there is several billion pounds of seawater. A weapon that can cause a single crack, even half an inch is going to sink it ... if your DC can't get to it in time.

[surfgun]

From what I can gleam the attack boat was 35' in length. In theory a boat of that size would be able to carry a sizable destructive device.

[desertswo]

DesertSWO, anything unclassified that you can expand on there? Compare to your understanding of manning requirements and the basic capabilities needed to conduct certain tasks? I don't believe the Perry's were considered a robust design when they first appeared, but I think they were at least built to the same standards of survivability as the rest of the fleet of comparable size. I'm sure there is much you can't or don't want to speak of, to say nothing of commenting specifically on an LCS's DC capability, but for those of us not familiar with these operations, a bit more would be enlightening.

Or maybe just point me to some open sources on some of what DC ops/training entails.


Tankersteve

Without getting into too many weeds, what everyone needs to realize is that these really aren't "small" ships. For example, the Freedom-class is 378 feet and 3500 tons. By comparison, the USN workhorse destroyer of WWII, the Fletcher-class, was 376 feet and 2500 tons (and five 5"/38 cal guns, so why can't these cancerous one lungers otherwise known as the LCS be loaded for bear?). The glaring difference? Fletcher had a complement of 329, and Freedom 65.

DC is, by its very nature labor intensive. As a young Ensign I owned Repair Locker Number Two in Constellation. That covered the forward third of the ship, main deck and below (including the magazines containing those weapons, the existence we could neither confirm nor deny). I had 150 MEN assigned to me. There were eight repair lockers in all, each with the same or higher manning. So roughly 25% or more of a compliment of 5000 was dedicated to DC. For the gentlemen here who spent their service lives humping 90 pound rucks 20 miles in a day, I have the greatest respect; so let me put main engineering space fire fighting into a context that will make some sense to you. Fire and flushing main pressure is maintained anywhere between 90 and 160 PSI; so take that 90 pound ruck, and the M-4 you've been humping off of your backs and hold it at waist level and then swing it back and forth for five minutes (understanding that according to Mr. Newton, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, that 90 PSI is pushing you backwards, never mind the weight of the water in that 2 and 1/2 inch hose), keeping in mind that you are wearing a Nomex flame resistant suit, Scott Air Pack, and the ambient temperature in the space may be approaching 300 degrees and you aren't anywhere near the fire . . . yet. Leave the danger aspect out of it, it's just plain exhausting work, and it requires multiple teams in order to do it, because you probably won't get anywhere near five minutes out of that Number One nozzle man.

Now, someone will try to tell you that there is an automatic this or that to handle all of that, to which I would reply that there is a pony somewhere in this room, so you'd better keep shoveling. And 25% of 65? 16; let me know how that works out for you.

[blidgepump]

Newton was a reactionist .......

.......... For the gentlemen here who spent their service lives humping 90 pound rucks 20 miles in a day, I have the greatest respect; so let me put main engineering space fire fighting into a context that will make some sense to you. Fire and flushing main pressure is maintained anywhere between 90 and 160 PSI; so take that 90 pound ruck, and the M-4 you've been humping off of your backs and hold it at waist level and then swing it back and forth for five minutes (understanding that according to Mr. Newton, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, that 90 PSI is pushing you backwards, never mind the weight of the water in that 2 and 1/2 inch hose), ...........

Appreciation for the illustration about the 2 1/2 -inch line with a few pounds of pressure is well known and not practiced more than necessary by a water guy flushing transmission mains here on the Great Plains. One does not swing the hose back and forth. One hangs on for dear life and prays that it does not get away from a death grip hold. The whipping action of a fire hose unsecured will hurt badly, if one can still walk. Should you have enough energy to call for help, one should feel thankful .... just say'in !

[desertswo]

From what I can gleam the attack boat was 35' in length. In theory a boat of that size would be able to carry a sizable destructive device.

Yes, it was thought it was a boat to remove garbage, which is why it got so close. It contained an estimated one ton of Semtex. One of the things that left me numb for days was the knowledge that the mess decks vertical space went from eight feet to 18 inches in a nanosecond. We knew 17 were KIA but we couldn't report that number officially because four were unaccounted for. They were found after four days . . . a pink smear in that 18 inches. It's a bit of knowledge that I will take to my grave. You really cannot comprehend the amount of damage that hull sustained; it was, to my experienced mind, simply astounding.

[Monash]

Watch and learn.

Interesting to watch Sir, do you happen to know the time frame - first strike to last? It certainly proves that hulls built to military grade specifications are strong but at the same time she had been stripped down i.e. no fuel, av-gas, munitions or other flammable stores on-board and no machinery running (gas turbines, prop shafts, generators etc) or live cables. I can't imagine how 80,000 HP of gas turbines or for that matter the gears and shafts they are driving are going to react in confined spaces to to the concussive shock and blast wave generated by a large, modern anti-ship missile impact.