A tidbit, read it all at Cdr Salamander's house...
It still cannot conduct any warfighting primary mission areas. It is actually less combat effective than our USCG cutters at exceptionally higher costs, but that won't start the defense of the program.So the US Navy is dealing with an F-35 it can't afford and an LCS that it can't get right.
Want to know how bad and undefendable the program is? Simple, they start making stuff up.
I let it pass last month - but no longer.— Yesterday, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the task force review had been “thorough and exhaustive,” but declined to say anything more about the findings, according to POLITICO’s Philip Ewing. He also praised the overall situation with the LCS, noting recent accomplishments including the USS Coronado successful test firing of the Norwegian-built Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile.Here is the ground truth, and in some ways is a mash-up of a few conversations I've been part of the last few weeks SEPCOR: this was nothing but a PR stunt.
All that happened was they loaded a missile on a truck. They drove it to the pier. They put it on the flightdeck of the LCS and utilizing a laptop disconnected from the ship's combat systems and launched it. All the guidance and tracking was done off-board.
Look at the pic. That setup is not ready for shipboard use, isn't designed for it, and this really has nowhere else to go.
I once thought they were the most squared away service during this time of confusion in the Pentagon.
Not anymore.
We're seeing the worst leadership of our military, both civilian and uniformed, in over 100 years ... at least. These people will go down in history as breaking a fine institution.
Forget salvaging the program.
ReplyDeleteSend these underarmed , undermanne sea-going compromises to the Coast Guard to chase down drug boats because they are too expensive to fix.
Sigh... This is what happens to a military that hasn't seen real knock-down, drag out combat with a competent foe in 40+ years. It rots the command hierarchy, and the vultures of industry swoop in to profit off of their stupidity. Dangling the new shiny in their faces instead of concentrating on practical long-term solutions.
ReplyDeleteIt depends on which area your talking about for the Navy in terms of being squared away. NAVAIR is the most squared away air arm we have. They've been fighting to leave the F-35 program for a long time now, but it's being forced on them and the situation is no longer in their hands. They were, however, able to cut their F-35C procurement in half for the next two years, buy more Growlers, and are making a gamble to buy the Advanced Super Hornet. I think NAVAIR has made all the right moves they could and did everything right in terms of trying to break away from and kill the F-35C and keep a formidable cost effective force of Super Hornets and Growlers.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the Surface warfare community has been making really dumb mistakes in terms of making new ships for the surface fleet. The LCS is a disaster and the Zumwalt-class is an unaffordable nightmare. The new Ford-class carrier is also spiraling WAY out of budget, but has shown a few signs of improvement.
The trouble with the Ford class is that it is unaffordable for what it delivers. The Navy would be wise to start considering conventional drive carriers for the fleet for a fraction of the cost and manpower. Call them, a modern version of escort carrier, that still have Catobar, but with less complexity and smaller crew complement.
DeleteWhy the navy can't build a hard hitting frigate or corvette is beyond me. It's not that hard and many are doing it. In fact the Ingalls Shipbuilding Sa'ar 5 build for the Israeli Navy is one good example of what an LCS should be.
ReplyDeleteCoastal navies can do that, the US Navy operating half way around the globe must have crew living conditions in mind when designing warships.
DeleteUS companies are building solid coastal frigates – for other countries.
DeleteSandWyrn
DeleteWhich ship for which country? I am not aware of any new build US warships for other countries, the last time the US did that was for Iran, and those warships eventually ended up in Taiwan after a brief service with the US Navy.
Warship building industry is rather competitive, and there is no need(place) for US warships in today's international warship market.
The bad news is that the Russians have a fearsome family of Corvettes that would utterly de-pants and sodomize the LCS.
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyan-class_corvette
@Slowman - Sol posted a story a few months back on a US built frigate that was being delivered abroad, and how it basically kicked the LCS's ass in terms of capabilities and cost.
DeleteThe damn Freedom-class is bigger than a WWII Fletcher-class destroyer, less range, less armor, and a hell of a lot less ordnance. Even if you took out four of the five 5" guns on a Fletcher to make space for modern electronics and fire control, you still have twice the ship of an LCS. Box launchers for Harpoons or a Kongsberg NSM...bolt them to a Fletcher. Rolling airframe missiles and CIWS? Bolt them on where the Fletcher had 40mm mounts in WWII. About the only thing an LCS can do that a Fletcher can't is carry helicopters. Hell, a Hamilton-class Coast Guard cutter is more of a warship than the LCS is turning out to be.
ReplyDeleteGood to bring up the Fletcher class. 175 built ... in 4 years.
ReplyDeleteGAO came out with a report on the LCS saying the contract did not require it to pass specific performance requirements so the ships were delivered untested and full of major defects which the fleet is now having to fix.
ReplyDeleteSee http://spendergast.blogspot.com/2014/09/gao-says-lcs-1-and-lcs-2-were-defective.html