baes_034872
The LCS deserves alot of the criticism that's being hurled its way.
I contend that alot of that stems from the ships name. Littoral Combat Ship. If it was renamed Multi-Mission Vessel then the heat would be off, mission modules that would be of value NOW could be pushed to the fore and you would see deman skyrocket, as units like SOCOM, Marine Corps, and various Army detachments would all be clamoring to get aboard these ships.
Additionally you'd see many of the do nothing civilian agencies climbing aboard too. State Dept, USAID, probably DEA and a bunch of others would be trying to get their sea legs instead of doing real work ashore. But I digress.
One of the real problems with the name Littoral Combat Ship is that the name is driving weapons fit. Everyone is looking at the small boat issue and seem to believe that the LCS as currently designed will be overwhelmed.
Totally false.
You can see the spec sheet on the 57mm cannon above. It can reach out to 17,000m and is capable of rapid fire. It is useful against both high speed surface and air targets...fast boats, helicopters, cruise missiles etc...
Add the 30mm twin mounts that both classes of LCS can carry to the mix and small boats are dog meat. If we slam the LCS (and I do) then lets be sure we do it for the right reasons.
Its utility and effectiveness against small boats isn't one of those reasons.
The LCS has that threat covered.
The LCS deserves alot of the criticism that's being hurled its way.
I contend that alot of that stems from the ships name. Littoral Combat Ship. If it was renamed Multi-Mission Vessel then the heat would be off, mission modules that would be of value NOW could be pushed to the fore and you would see deman skyrocket, as units like SOCOM, Marine Corps, and various Army detachments would all be clamoring to get aboard these ships.
Additionally you'd see many of the do nothing civilian agencies climbing aboard too. State Dept, USAID, probably DEA and a bunch of others would be trying to get their sea legs instead of doing real work ashore. But I digress.
One of the real problems with the name Littoral Combat Ship is that the name is driving weapons fit. Everyone is looking at the small boat issue and seem to believe that the LCS as currently designed will be overwhelmed.
Totally false.
You can see the spec sheet on the 57mm cannon above. It can reach out to 17,000m and is capable of rapid fire. It is useful against both high speed surface and air targets...fast boats, helicopters, cruise missiles etc...
Add the 30mm twin mounts that both classes of LCS can carry to the mix and small boats are dog meat. If we slam the LCS (and I do) then lets be sure we do it for the right reasons.
Its utility and effectiveness against small boats isn't one of those reasons.
The LCS has that threat covered.
The 57mm cannon has been featured on Military channel's Future weapons, and Weaponology. If the cannon does all the BAE engineers say it does, Lord help those that engage the ship that it's mounted on. Also it's really good to see new systems that work are making it's way to our forces.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of the Bofors cannon's 4 rounds a second is for swarming tactics. It is not the cannon the initiates the fight, rather the Sailors manning the ship, and cannon, that have to be prepared to repel boarders at all costs. Huron_Serenity, have you seen the 57 in action? Do you understand the concept of an air burst round? And the effect of using air burst rounds has on the boat's and personal? No one weapons system is capable of withstanding all attacks, however if I were manning a rail on a US naval ship, I'd like to have one or two of these covering my ass.
ReplyDeletehey Phil you're spitting in the wind with this one. Huron doesn't understand a thing about a layered defense...he doesn't understand that the 57mm cannon can reach farther than even the Griffon missile system they're talking about putting on these ships...he doesn't understand the weight of fire that addsup when you have a high rate of fire. he doesn't realize that IF those small boats get closer they're going to be engaged by not only the 57mm cannon but also the 30mm cannons and IF by chance they survive all that then they'll be facing deck mounted 50 cal and maybe 25mm cannons.
ReplyDeleteall Huron can do is cheerlead for others. APA, Sweetman, USNI, Information Dissemination....all those sorry bastards. but hey he's good for comedy relief.
I don't mind spitting in the wind online,it don't spray back in my face :-). I went to the Canadian Naval Review site and read up on just what Huron might be talking about. I choose that, because 1; he's Canadian, and 2; the Cromwell was the ship that the Iranians captured in a swarm attack. It's an interesting read, here is a quote from the page, "Moreover, they lack the all-round defensive weaponry that is essential to counter a swarming attack".
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf all it takes is a Mk3 57mm and a couple of Mk44 30mm guns to defeat the Quds Force Boghammers, you might think we could've found a way to employ those weapons on a vessel that didnt cost half again as much as most countries pay for actual warships
ReplyDeletewell to be quite honest thats all it takes.
ReplyDeletethink about it like this. whats the real cost driver of the LCS? automation and high speed. aluminum ships and the jigs required to build them...the automation required to make minimum manning possible and those big tail engines to push them through the water at over 40 knots are whats driving costs.
an ordinary ship built to these standards with a speed requirement of say 20 knots would be so cheap it wouldnt' be funny. but we want a ship that can zoom in and out of the straits of hormuz and duke it out with the iranian guards navy.
so to answer your question. yeah, these ships can do that.
Don't think I'd want to "duke it out" with anyone in a ship that's not even rated to Level I survivability standards.
ReplyDeleteyeah and on the surface that sounds like a statement that holds weight.
ReplyDeleteuntil you realize that we're talking about a ship thats taking on small boats that it has a range advantage on, can match their speed and has more sophisticated targeting systems.
in the small boat scenario the LCS is overkill. against other corvettes it MIGHT come up short until you add in the capabilities found with its helos and against enemy destroyers with different modules added it should be formidable....
but back to the issue at hand. at against swarming small boats the LCS has the proper weapons fit.
I haven't seen criticism of the LCS because it can't sink speedboats. Even a small patrol boat with a 25mm weapons station is going to tear up speedboats because just having a stabilized weapon and a fire control system is such a huge advantage. In the stand up fight you are envisioning, the 57mm will shred speedboats just as you say.
ReplyDeleteThe speedboat threat is primarily an LCS marketing tool: the Navy inflated a very low level threat to justify the absurd design specifications of the LCS and used it to distract attention from real littoral threats, which the LCS is poorly prepared for.
To the extent that speedboats pose a threat to any modern cannon armed warship it would be from getting very close without being engaged and then attacking from multiple directions at the same time. This could be because peacetime ROE allow a close approach, could be from masking behind terrain / fishing boats / one super tanker or whatever. Then the issue comes down to things like arcs of fire and the knife fighting capabilities of the fire control systems and so on.
Still, I can't take speedboats very seriously for anything other than Somali pirate scenarios. The real littoral threat is very different: Hezbollah didn't spank an Israeli corvette with speedboats, they used antiship missiles and most accounts are that they did this with the help of Iranian advisers.
the C-802 that hit the Israeli ship is just the kind of threat that the fast firing 57mm cannon is suppose to take out.
ReplyDeleteas a matter of fact its going to be used as the close in weapons defense on the DDG-1000. on a sidenote the reason why the swarm tactic caught the navy's attention is because general Van Riper (i believe that was his name) decimated a fictional task force using the tactic. the navy was unable to deal with it properly and they designed a ship to fight that battle. in the same fictional combat the navy was able to handle any threat in blue water but became bogged down teh closer they got to shore.
which brings me back to your best point. the issue isn't hardware its software. the grey matter between commanders ears. its one thing to have the tools to defeat a threat, its another to deploy it in time to stop it. i truly believe that helos are the best littoral warfare platform but just like in the exercise with general van riper, it has to be employed and they couldn't think of doing it.
I disagree Sol.
ReplyDeleteIPS-18 class - 2 x "modern", North Korean-derived 21" torpedoes
Thondar class - 4 x C-802 missiles
"China Cat" class - 4 x TL-10 or C-701 missiles
IPS-16 - 2 x C-701 missiles
And they have numerous other types. Some can carry torpedoes, some missiles, some only MRLs and cannons/HMGs.
Even the humble Ashura with its 23mm and/or MRLs could be a major threat if the LCS was busy picking off cruise missiles, or if they attack on multiple axes, or if there was little warning.
We have to expect these ships will take hits.
now you're talking about the LCS taking on proper warships. in this role i expect the on board MH-60R to take them out with hellfires long before they get into range. additionally i expect a properly fielded missile (not the griffin) to kill the threat before it gets into range. also if you're talking about proper warships then you're not talking about the threat of swarms because teh LCS will be operating as part of the fleet. naval aviation will be having a turkey shoot against these high speed boats. the f-18's will have to put markers on them from nose to tail to properly illustrate how many of these boats they'll kill
DeleteIPS-16 is only 16m long. ;)
Delete"Proper warship" indeed. ;)
Solomon, if the LCS had this notional "properly-fielded missile (not the griffin)" that you specualtively ascribe to it, I expect that the vessel would be in line for significantly less criticism as a toothless, overpriced, missionless floating flagpole. Furthermore, the idea that the answer to LCS inability to duke it out with "proper warships" can be found in a rotorcraft armed with a 5-mile range missile system is laughable. Romeo is a great bird, but it is not designed to be survivable within a 5-mile radius of a warship with any type of air defense capability. Any SAM system other than MANPADS will outrange it, and furthermore, if the BAE specs are to be bought, the Romeo wouldnt even be survivable in a Hellfire attack on its own toothless ship as the 57mm supergun outranges it as well.
Deletethe proper missile that i have in mind is the HARPOON. the other missile types are geared toward being able to also provide a land attack function. the missile i want will only kill warships.
Deletethe HARPOON is in service, can easily be mounted on the LCS and would incur no development costs.
Does either LCS even have the ability to use its 57mm in the anti-missile role? Did we buy the fire control radar and integration with the combat system needed to do that?
ReplyDeletethat i don't know. what i do know is that the gun can be used in that capability and i think they're using the sea giraffe radar set on the LCS so if thats the case then yes it can be used in that role.
DeleteSea giraffe is a search radar, not a gunfire control radar. The LCSes use either DORNA or Sea SAFIRE III EO/IR sensors to direct the gun, neither of which is up to handling cruise missiles. Ships like Visby carry a CEROS 200 radar/EO/IR fire control system to direct their 57mm.
DeleteUnfortunately for the LCS, the ship-to-ship missiles that many of the Iranian "small boats" are armed with far outrange the LCS's 57mm gun. That thing would be great against swarms of fiberglass boghammers armed with RPG's, machine guns, and maybe 107mm rockets, but against true missile boats the LCS is in for a lot of trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe old Pegasus class would probably eat LCS's lunch in a straight up fight. 8 Harpoons and a 76mm OTO. And faster than LCS to boot.
ReplyDeleteThe old Fletcher class would probably eat LCS's lunch
DeleteThe 57mm is an excellent choice as a "jack of all trades, master of none" weapon. It was designed to have more range and surface to surface firepower than the 40mm Bofors without the bulk of the 76mm OTO gun. It achieved these objectives but is hardly an anti-missile gun.
ReplyDeleteThe only people who pushed the fast firing proximity fuze solution for antiship missiles, the Italians with the Breda "Fast Forty", have given it up for the guided 76mm solution and everyone else stayed with smaller, higher rate of fire 'hit to kill' weapons or missiles.
Arguably the entire "middle weapon" concept has been bypassed by small caliber gun and missile systems on the low caliber end and the far more capable and versatile 76mm Strales concept in the medium calibers.
Speaking of missiles, Van Riper's wargame victory started with a salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed defenses, "overwhelm" being a problem for any gun based system, especially against modern supersonic, maneuvering missiles. Small boats and planes were employed in suicide attacks after the defenses were disrupted by a successful missile attack, a far different threat scenario than any envisioned for the LCS.
The 57mm is a great choice as long as the enemy fights exactly along the lines that the USN wants them to. In Millenium Challenge, Van Riper fought the way a smart enemy would and killed 16 major warships on the first day. The USN had two choices: learn from this or fix the war game to validate their pre-conceived ideas. They chose the later and Van Riper resigned because of it. It is the same admirals who pulled that crap who came up with the LCS, a ship that will kick ass as long as the enemy fights from the USN's script.
Actually the 57mm is out ranged by many systems that can be carried by a speed boat, as can the 3.5 mile range Griffin and the 30mm guns only part of the mine warfare module. They go where the Griffin missiles mount on the surface warfare module.
ReplyDeleteWhile speed boats are not a major threat compared to actual warships it's really not clear that LCS can deal with either. Helicopters don't fly 24/7. The irony is that LCS is in fact a giant speed boat. When operating at top speed it has enough fuel to operate for one day.
As of 2010, this report places the number of Iran's small missile- or torpedo-armed combatants at over 100.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/57412768/20/Torpedoes-Mines
Lane,
The effective range of the 57mm should give it an edge over most non-PGM speed boat armament.
The larger AShM- and torpedo-armed boats are obviously more troublesome. As are attacks involving sheer numbers. The 57mm, 30mms and Grffin launcher can only service one target each at a time. RAM with the anti-surface upgrades could handle more than one at a time, but then you're wasting shots you might need for AShMs on speed boats.
If the USN is satisfied with the 57mm against close threats exactly why does the surface warfare module include a small missile with a range of 3.5 miles?
ReplyDeleteMoreover, the speed boat threat absent PGM's isn't much of a threat to a warship to begin with. Is an ATGW a PGM here? Iran does produce the AT-5. Israel is marketing Spike NLOS for patrol/speed boats. The concern should in fact be smaller boats gaining PGM or navies waking back up to 70 to 120 ton small missile boats. One can fit a 57mm on a 70 ton vessel and I'm personally less than impressed with a single small gun as the primary weapon system on a 3,000 ton frigate absent the helicopters.
The problem isn't Iran nor a swarm of small boats. The problem is that LCS is out ranged by pretty much every naval system operated by almost every navy on every single one of it's warships. If the answer is use the helicopters fine then what's the entire rationale for the 45 knot speed requirement that can't be used for more than a day? The concept of operations for LCS is irrational. It won't be swapping modules as they're too expensive to buy many of, and this is what the USN has clearly stated, and in fact none of the modules currently work nor will they anytime soon.
The Griffin addition may just have been a face-saving addition after NLOS-LS was canned. It makes more sense to arm Fire Scout with them than mount them on the ship, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, against a swarm you need to service multiple targets simultaneously, so every additional mount counts.
I'm not too worried about ATGWs fired from pitching speedboats. SACLOS guidance requires a steady hand, and you won't get that anywhere other than a glassy smooth lake.
If you go by the LCS conops, it shouldn't have to deal with "real" warships. That's the job of airpower, subs and other warships.
However, the enemy does get a vote. USS Simpson, USS Wainright and USS Bagley fires surface-mode Standards and Harpoons at The Iranian FAC Joshan during Op Praying Mantis.
In the congested and confusing littorals, a littoral warship may have to fend for itself.
I agree that the LCS conops looks a lot better on a PPT than in real life.
We should be buying something like the Norwegian Nansen class, IMHO (i.e. a real warship)