One sixth the weight, but with three times the firepower and less than one half the price. If I was in the surface Navy I'd be sick to my stomach. The LCS is going to be outclassed by all opponents and allies.
The LCS. The Navy's version of the Stryker...better in theory than reality.
How do you figure three times the power?
ReplyDeleteSame gun as LCS (57mm), no CIWS, no hanger. I'll give it a thumbs up for the anti-ship missiles.
The #1 lesson learned from every conflict since WW2 is that air-power is the most effective force multiplier. The Visby does not have a hanger so no-go on that front.
You are also forgetting about the LCS's modularity when it comes to it's weapons.
anti ship missiles, torpedoes and guns. additionally it has space for but it wasn't funded mines and stuff.
ReplyDeletecheck out the wiki page. also you can talk air power but lets be real about that airpower...against barely armed savages in the hills of Afghanistan they've been able to shoot down some of our helicopters. airpower in the form of fast jets is real. additonally its not going to have hangar space as its several thousand tons lighter in weight.
modularity is a bullshit theme until they get those modules going and they still haven't ... show me the proof before you make promises. and thats what the Navy is giving. a promise of capability and they haven't shown it yet.
i can pick a ship that comes in at 1700 or so tons (still lighter than the LCS) and it'll make the LCS look like road kill.
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ReplyDeleteFirescouts & Seahawks are flying today and they would provide a HUGE power projection multiplier to the LCS.
ReplyDeleteIt's more important to the the hulls in the water now and wait for the modules as the economy improves. The helos can always get loaded up with DAGR, Hellfire, Penguins, RAMICS, torpedos, etc as needed (no module needed to develop for that)
btw, the GD (with it's monstrous hanger and module bay) is my preferred LCS version.
While I tend to agree that embarked helicopters are a huge addition to the capabilities of a surface combatant it's ridiculous to design an under armed and under equipped ship whose only virtue is that it carries it's helicopters around at 45 knots.
ReplyDeleteFrankly the modular weapons might possibly be the worst thing about LCS. As of right now none of them work or add any capability. What they do add is another hidden cost to the ship. The USN has given up buying many so they're not going have a lot spare modules and thus the ships are essentially single purpose.
The surface warfare module with missiles with a range of 3.5 miles is a total joke, period. The primary mission of LCS, fighting small boats, is a ridiculous concept for a 3,000 ton frigate. Everything else on, above, or below the water is a far more significant threat none of which LCS can adequately defend itself against, much less defend another vessel.
The ASW module doesn't add any capability according to the last USN report. Assuming they improve on this non performance it's ridiculous having a 45 knot ship doing asw in the first place. Moreover, in order to deploy the systems currently being tested the ship has to actually stop. The USN finds this unacceptable.
The mine warfare module doesn't work. Assuming they get it to work it's irrational creating a $500+ million dollar mine hunter that goes 45 knots when mine hunting is a slow deliberate process.
For less money you can buy a frigate that carries 2 helicopters, a gun up to 127mm, a point or area air defense missile system, anti ship missiles, sonars, better radars, asw torpedoes, etc. With the savings you could buy a patrol/missile boat of around 500 tons which was actually what LCS was before the USN decided it had to have a ship not a boat.
The entire LCS concept grew out of the Streetfighter concept. When that was a 500 ton vessel it was called LCS.
The notion of actually having lots of extra modules with extra module crews training ashore while "their" ship was off with another module and module crew trying to integrate into the rest of the crew was always an unneeded expense and training challenge.
Frankly the USN is out of it's mind with LCS conceptually, the ships themselves have issues, and splitting the buy is simply burning large piles of money every single year the ships are in service. The modules are an extra added hidden cost, none of them work today, and instead of building a complete combat system that works, they have to integrate separate modules into 2 different ships now. It's absurd.
The Visby is far closer to Streetfighter than LCS and so are a dozen other small combatants. The USN has a dozen 300 ton patrol boats, the Cyclone class, and they are not going to be replaced. The patrol mission is essential and of course since the USN can't be bothered to do it they will hand off to the USCG.
Almost every nation in the world builds general purpose frigates that can walk and chew gum at the same time and deal with surface, subsurface, and aerial threats. LCS can do none of these very well or at all. It can not do shore bombardment, escort, radar picket, etc. The cost and lack of capability in myriad areas is not worth the high cost to go 45 knots. Ships carrying 140 knot helicopters don't have to go 45 knots.
The primary purpose of LCS is to engage small boats. If you want a 45 knot ship to engage small boats you end up with a 200 to 500 ton patrol/missile boat with systems that actually out range the small boats and oh by the way are also a threat to larger vessels. This concept hit modern warfare about 130 years ago and has been around since the dawn of naval warfare.
extremely well said Lane. i couldn't come up with the words but your expertise shines through. thanks.
ReplyDeletejust remember the the Visby class was built SPECIFICALLY for Norway's littoral waters. From that viewpoint this is a magnificant warship. Also for the cost and capability and yes indeed flexibility too. Comparisons of total ship with LCS will suffer some.
ReplyDeleteBUT lets agree that the LCS-2 has much more flexibility in a much larger hull and more room to add major systems too at a cost of over $500 mil for the "platform". Given the miserable development of LCS mission modules (see Cdr Salamanders latest on that topic) our LCS program is a moving train wreck.
Lane what I would say is the USN version of modules is a bad version of what other navies have succeeded at. Which leads to your well made point, the LCS concept was botched at the top levels and start of acquisiton. Actually what make the above worse is LCS were designed for MULITPLE missions none of which they have performed well to date.
Norway? It should be Sweden's littoral waters. Like the CB90 this is a Swedish product.
DeleteBest regards
/Sebastian
Dealing with the small boat threat is just one of the LCS missions. Others include ASW and MIW.
ReplyDeleteVisby has very short legs and isn't designed for long deployments.
I do agree that LCS should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Also too much has been sacrificed at the altar of speed.
its range can't be any worse than the LCS! besides how can you say it was designed for short deployments?
ReplyDeleteWe had this discussion a few years back over at Mike B's.
Deletehttp://newwars.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/lcs-alternative-weekly-9/#comments
Economical cruise range is supposed to be 4300nm @ 20kts for the LCSs. The only figure I could find for Visby is 2000nm @ 12kts.
Thanks Sol.
ReplyDeleteAccording to this official PDF, the Visby has a range of 2500nm at 15 knots.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kockums.se/ImageVault/Images/id_506/conversionFormat_0/download_1/ImageVaultHandler.aspx
The GD LCS has a range of 4500nm at 18 knots and the LM LCS is 3500nm at the same 18 knots.
That's a big difference in range.
dude...the LCS is 3000 tons...the Visby is 650 tons. for the range to be only 1000 nm greater for the LCS tells you how pathetic the LCS is! the Visby is amazingly long legged for its weight class.
ReplyDeleteOops. didn't see SpudmanWP's reply.
ReplyDeleteyes indeed with size comes capacity for larger fuel tankage, and other things usually ammunition and provisions storage. It remains to be seen IF those capacities are adequate for a deployed LCS? Or from the MSC perspective: how many times will the LCS be alongside for drink and food? How long will those UNREPs & VERTREPs take? Note also the NEED for a helo to move dry cargo and a small very basic RAS rig for fueling. I do not know how those metrics worked on the Perrys but suspect they were much better?
ReplyDeleteApperently there is a concept with an extended Visby with a hangar for one ASW chopper.
ReplyDeleteBest regards
/Sebastian
yeah i saw that....couldn't find any info on it and it looks like the production run of the Visby is gonna be extremely small. i can't explain why others haven't latched on to it.
ReplyDeleteSix were orderd but only five were delivered to the swedish navy due to cost, same price less ships. There has been alot of visitors (incl americans) and alot off foreign activity when the ships were tested. I belive some testruns were delayed due to this.
ReplyDeleteBest regards
/Sebastian
While there are a number of useful features on Visby I'm not sure the class is a successful design as is. The helo hanger was seen as too small so it's been deleted, a slightly larger ship with a useful hanger would seem more effective. The ship seems fairly well equipped for asw but without a helo it has limited ability to engage.
ReplyDeleteThat SAM system got dropped. One assumes they might add one eventually but then this will drive the cost up over the current $184 million.
In my view it's actually a large FAC or missile boat with limited self defense ability other than asw. Given they dropped the hanger and SAM's the ship could have been smaller and cheaper with it's current systems. Conversely making the ship larger could have allowed for the hanger and perhaps an alternate larger SAM system.
Consider that without the ASW systems the 275 ton Norwegian Skjold is perhaps the better value in being cheaper and travels at 40 to 60 knots.
It's really not clear what a corvette is anymore when some nations are building them at 500 tons or less and others over 2,000 tons. At around 1,100 to 1,200 tons the Saar V seems very capable and the Turkish Milgem at 2,300 tons carrying ESSM in MK41's, RAM, and a hanger seem to be better general purpose frigates.
Skjold has even shorter legs than Visby.
DeleteSaar V is interesting, but way too small for what they tried to put on it.
I'd rather see the Navy build a good sized frigate like FREMM or Nansen but one with the ability to use LCS mission modules.
then what you really want is the Absalon
ReplyDeleteMaybe. But Absalon was designed to be a support ship with some frigate features.
DeleteI want a ship that can make 30kts to keep up with a CVBG but has a quiet propulsion mode like FREMM and a good AAW suite like SPY-1F/AEGIS on Nansen.
wait. i thought we were talking about an LCS replacement...you're inching close to Burke terrritory.
ReplyDelete