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  • Originally posted by Stitch View Post
    Well, being partial to the Independence class (even though it IS an Aussie design!), I'm hoping that the "one shipbuilder" will be Austal; I do believe the trimaran design is the way to go, although her center of gravity is higher than a standard hullform. The trimaran hullform is more stable than a conventional hull, and it accommodates a much larger-than-normal flightdeck.
    Form stability is higher in a multihull, but that starts to fall greatly as significant wave action impacts the shape. What this means is that while it may be able to conduct rotary wing operations in higher seastates than a monohull, at a certain point it becomes less survivable vice a monohull. While a well-built monohull can essentially be rolled completely over in extreme seas and survive/continue, a multihull will overturn and likely stay that way.

    If you don't intend to operate in the North Atlantic (or any other high latitudes) in the winter, and weigh air operations heavily (as you kind of must, as most of the LCS capability resides in the ability to use rotary wing assets), then the multihull is likely a better choice.

    Tankersteve

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    • I like the trimaran hull of the Independence class better for the reason of the flight deck and the ability to launch small craft and limited ro/ro. In combination with other ships like the Spearhead class T-EPF it would be suitable for the insertion of troops onto small islands or reefs like the ones being built by China in the South China Sea or converted oil platforms like the Iranians use in the Gulf. As long as they weren't heavily defended with ASM sytems or fixed wing aircraft. But now with the idea that they will be taking the role of frigates they will have to consider it's ability to operate in high sea states. That would bring you back to the conventional monohull again, maybe lengthened a bit.

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      • It is predicted that Milwaukee will be repaired, in the second week of February.

        http://news.usni.org/2015/12/23/litt...-into-february

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        • USS Jackson (LCS-6), today at Mayport Naval Station. (photos by a friend of mine)

          According to the Navy, "Jackson arrived at Mayport, Florida, Dec. 11 for an extended stay for shipyard maintenance and at-sea testing off the Florida coast and will remain in Mayport throughout spring and summer of 2016, and will be ultimately homeported in San Diego."

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          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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          • I'm I correct that currently the Navy is planning on ordering 40 LCS in total, but will down select to a single hull design by 2019? Which will result in a fleet of 12 vs 28 in terms of hull type. Is there no concern that the fleet of 12 will be difficult to sustain with such few numbers?

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            • Originally posted by JA Boomer View Post
              Is there no concern that the fleet of 12 will be difficult to sustain with such few numbers?
              Difficult, perhaps. Though hardly unprecedented. Plenty of separate classes built postwar with only a handful of ships.
              Most glaringly, every nuclear-powered surface ship class. Also several SSN's.
              “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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              • Notice Jackson is missing her Sea Giraffe radar.

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                • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                  Difficult, perhaps. Though hardly unprecedented. Plenty of separate classes built postwar with only a handful of ships.
                  Most glaringly, every nuclear-powered surface ship class. Also several SSN's.
                  Fair enough. It just seems unnecessary. Unless they feel that the two designs complement each other in some way, they should have down-selected long ago.

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                  • Originally posted by JA Boomer View Post
                    Fair enough. It just seems unnecessary. Unless they feel that the two designs complement each other in some way, they should have down-selected long ago.
                    No argument here. The entire LCS program was, has been, and probably always will be, a gigantic clusterf--k.

                    And now Fort Worth has suffered a massive engineering casualty, although shockingly it doesn't appear to be a design or manufacturing fault.

                    http://news.usni.org/2016/01/21/litt...-system-damage
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                      No argument here. The entire LCS program was, has been, and probably always will be, a gigantic clusterf--k.

                      And now Fort Worth has suffered a massive engineering casualty, although shockingly it doesn't appear to be a design or manufacturing fault.

                      http://news.usni.org/2016/01/21/litt...-system-damage
                      Another failure of the combining gears, though.

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                      • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                        No argument here. The entire LCS program was, has been, and probably always will be, a gigantic clusterf--k.

                        And now Fort Worth has suffered a massive engineering casualty, although shockingly it doesn't appear to be a design or manufacturing fault.

                        http://news.usni.org/2016/01/21/litt...-system-damage
                        “During startup of the main propulsion diesel engines, lube oil was not supplied to the ship’s combining gears,” according to the memo. Running the dry gears “resulted in high temperature alarms on the port and starboard combining gears"

                        if one of the key selling points of these ships are their reduced man power and automation.... how is it possible that this system isn't automated?

                        without being at all familiar with how the lube oil is supplied to the combining gears (I have to assume some pumps are involved) how hard is it to automate the system? "when combining gears are in use, lube oil pump is on".

                        or hell, even a warning. if the combining gears are in use, and the lube oil pump isn't on.... how about a few little flashing red lights and a horn....?

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                        • Some sort of system integration is obviously required as 2/3's of the class have been damaged by running the gears dry.

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                          • Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                            Notice Jackson is missing her Sea Giraffe radar.
                            Look below.


                            Susie Buffett christens USS Omaha (LCS 12), the newest member of Navy's fleet

                            By Steve Liewer - World-Herald staff writer
                            Omaha.com
                            Tuesday, December 22, 2015

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                            Omaha philanthropist Susie Buffett smashes a bottle of Champagne against the breaker bar of the USS Omaha on Saturday in Mobile, Alabama, christening the Navy’s newest littoral combat ship. “May God bless this ship and all who sail on her,” said Buffett, sponsor of the ship with a futuristic trimaran design.

                            MOBILE, Ala. — In a burst of bubbly, the U.S. Navy on Saturday sealed a bond with the city of Omaha that is expected to last for decades.

                            Philanthropist Susie Buffett smashed a bottle of Champagne against the bow of the Navy’s newest littoral combat ship and named it the USS Omaha, following a centuries-old tradition.

                            “I christen thee USS Omaha!” said Buffett, the ship’s sponsor, just before striking the blow. “May God bless this ship and all who sail on her.”

                            About 20 Nebraskans were among the 500 people attending the pier-side ceremony at the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, where the ship had been under construction since the keel was laid down last February.

                            “It was a very impressive sight,” said Rick Holdcroft, a retired Navy captain from Bellevue, who is vice president of Nebraska’s chapter of the Navy League support group.

                            The ship is the fourth naval vessel to bear the city’s name, a chain dating back to the commissioning of a sloop-of-war in 1869. The last USS Omaha was a nuclear attack submarine that served in the Navy from 1978 to 1995.

                            It’s the sixth in a line of Independence-class littoral combat ships with a futuristic trimaran design that sits high above the water. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work once compared it to a Klingon Bird of Prey ship in “Star Trek.”

                            “We built you a great ship, the coolest ship on the planet,” said Craig Perciavalle, Austal USA’s president. “Fair winds and following seas.”

                            The ship incorporates many labor-saving devices, allowing it to run with a crew of just 50 sailors. It also has replaced the customary twin-screw, twin-propeller propulsion system with a group of water jets. They can propel the Omaha and its sister ships sideways or around sharp turns.

                            “She can sit in the water and spin like a top,” said Command Senior Chief Christopher Farrar, the Omaha’s senior enlisted sailor.

                            Saturday’s christening was a joyous day for a ship program that’s been beset with controversy throughout its 15-year history. In its early days, LCS was plagued with cost overruns, and some of the first models of the ship suffered engine and corrosion problems. Last weekend the USS Milwaukee — a littoral ship of a different design, produced in Wisconsin — broke down en route to its first home port. And on Thursday, news broke that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter had directed Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to cut the planned number of LCS vessels from 52 to 40, and to choose one of the two manufacturers to produce it.

                            Mabus took a wait-and-see approach. But Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., who represents Mobile and serves on the House Armed Services Committee, offered a full-throated defense of the LCS program.

                            “There’s going to be a broad-based coalition in Congress to push back against what the Secretary of Defense has proposed,” Byrne said. “This will not stand.”

                            The Omaha has been in the water only a few weeks, but its crew — which doesn’t include any Nebraskans — already is working together in the ship’s future home port of San Diego, said Cmdr. Matt Scarlett, who will be the ship’s commanding officer.

                            They are honing their skills aboard the USS Coronado, another ship in the Independence class, as part of a new manning concept the Navy has developed for LCS that rotates three crews between two ships. That allows the ship to stay at sea longer.

                            Three members of Scarlett’s crew, called the Vikings, joined him in Mobile for the christening.

                            “We’ll always be tied to Omaha because we’re plankowners,” said Scarlett, 43, using the Navy term for sailors on a ship’s first crew.

                            Landlocked Omaha may seem an odd choice for the name of a Navy ship. Mabus has named many LCS ships after cities in the U.S. interior. An LCS under construction in Wisconsin is scheduled to be named the USS Sioux City next month.

                            “One of the ways we connect our nation to the ships of the Navy is through their names,” Mabus said. “The name ‘Omaha’ will be carried throughout the world for decades.”

                            It was Mabus who selected Buffett as the ship’s sponsor. Buffett is well-known in Omaha for her philanthropic efforts involving children, education and families.

                            On Friday, Buffett’s party toured Austal, the fifth-largest shipbuilder in the nation, and the largest builder of aluminum ships in the world, Perciavalle said.

                            The Omaha group viewed the Module Manufacturing Facility — larger than a dozen football fields — where the blue-green glow from torches illuminated the masks of welders working on pieces of future ships. They also saw the building where the modules are assembled into a complete ship a few blocks away.

                            They also got a rare tour of the ship’s interior, which is still largely unfinished. Foil-backed fiberglass insulation lines most of the walls. Pink sheets of canvas cover equipment in the engine room and on the bridge. Interior work will be completed before the ship is delivered to the Navy — probably in about a year, Perciavalle said.

                            “It’s almost impossible to describe how amazing this is,” Buffett said. “It’s even cooler than I thought it would be.”

                            She has warmed to the job of ship’s sponsor, a role in which she will serve as a permanent link between the city and the ship. The city is expected to organize a sizable celebration for the commissioning ceremony in 2017. She is looking forward to spreading the word back home about the new ship.

                            “Omaha is full of people who would be really excited about this sort of thing,” Buffett said. “I hope everybody is really proud of it.”
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                            Last edited by JRT; 23 Jan 16,, 19:59.
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                            • Originally posted by JRT View Post
                              Look below.
                              What I had meant was to suggest looking at the photo in the news story that was quoted below my comment.
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                              • Live fire exercise:

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