Tuesday, January 15, 2013

LCS...looks like garbage (literally)!

SAN DIEGO (Nov. 26, 2012) The littoral combat ship USS Freedom (LCS 1) departs San Diego harbor to conduct operations off the coast of Southern California. The littoral combat ship is a fast, agile, networked surface combatant designed to operate in the near-shore environment, while capable of open-ocean tasking, and win against 21st-century coastal threats such as submarines, mines and swarming small craft. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class John Grandin/Released)
Information Dissemination has news up on the LCS.

I couldn't even make it to the article when I saw the picture.

The LCS looks like trash.

Pure garbage.

I don't know if looks indicate performance (and the LCS has enough critics to at least make the effort to look good) but if it does then the US Navy is in trouble.

Big trouble.

12 comments :

  1. Read an article yesterday on Defensenews that they didn't bother to paint any of the Aluminium on either class of LCS, in order to save money.

    Apparently the crew of Freedom have taken it on themselves to design a camo paint scheme for the entire ship though, that is going to be applied at the next drydocking, when some final upgrades are happening (such as installing a boat ramp you can actually keep a RHIB on).

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  2. Navy ships on deployment or patrol away from the home base normally look like this.
    A fresh coat of haze grey and repairs out of port always looks like a rust bucket upon return from months at sea.
    It's how one can spot the ships being used as they were meant to be used and the ones underway on missions.
    They clean up quite well after some time in their home port.

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    Replies
    1. this thing hasn't been to sea for months at a time. its just leaving port while still in its development phase! remember the FSF=1. they rode that ship hard and it never looked like the steaming pile this is.

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    2. Must be the effects of a smaller crew, Chiefs don't have as many sailors around to spruce up the boat all Bristol fashion!
      Heaven forbid a Chief having to bend his coffee arm to do any kind of work.
      ;^ )

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    3. I beg to differ (please do not take this as support for the Freedom class LCS).

      FSF-1 has not been put to sea like the LCS has, it does not have a side mounted diesel exhaust like Freedom, and FSF-1 has definitely seen better days in many photos.

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  3. Replies
    1. i thought that at first but on second glance it looks like...primer...

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    2. As noted above and on Information Dissemination, the ship will get a four color camo pattern that covers the entire ship in its next drydock. I'll bet the extra cash (paint) goes a long way to making this a good looking ship. Pretty important as we send it over to neat-freak Singapore.

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  4. Hi Solomon,

    The Information Dissemination story mentions that the LCS crew will have to be increased to about 100 sailors.

    That's more or less the same complement of the heavier/better armed FREMM frigates.

    Here is a report I just published yesterday covering this aspect (in the Q&A part towards the bottom of the story):

    NR: Is the current crew of 108 sailors a temporary “minimum” crew?
    VML: This is an important issue for the French Navy and the “optimized crew” of 108 is its own requirement. Following the first trials and anti-submarine exercises, this crew number has been validated by the French Navy. The maintenance tasks load onboard FREMM are significantly reduced. The other focus was the automatization of various systems such as the CMS (combat management system), surveillance systems or command systems.

    http://www.navyrecognition.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=832

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  5. If you actually read the fucking article instead of being a reactionary twat, you would have found out that it is going to be painted.

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  6. This needs to be the first victim of sequestration cuts, no matter how big or small they turn out to be. Expensive, lightly armed, poorly defended, difficult to maintain, still without useful mission packages, unable to keep up with battle group on diesel power while having no useful range when operating on Gas Turbines. The only thing these ship/boats will be good for is theater engagement and counter narcotics. With such limited ship building funds, to be screwing around with LCS and not just admitting defeat is lunacy. Scrap the whole program, buy some Burke hulls without SPY/Aegis and reduced manning (starting a new program or licencing a foreign frigate requires cash the USN does not have) you can get 1 for 3 or maybe 1 for 2.5 LCS and have a useful ship.

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  7. It's kind of funny in a sad way that the Navy decided to look at reduced manning as a means to preserve platforms and expected some sort of presto-chango technology that would allow to under-man ships and still expect to get away with it. That technology never materialized, but the Navy didn't wait to start under-man their ships.

    And as the Balisle report indicated, it is has led to not just a severe impact on readiness and core competencies such as ASW and AEGIS (which ironically the Navy is primed to make a major feature of its missile defense strategy in Europe), it has prompted questions as to our ability to even maintain readiness.

    and now the Vice Adm. Copeman says we may need to reduce the number of ships in order to maintain readiness of the fleet in the face of lean budgets.

    http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130116/DEFREG02/301160019/Surface-Navy-Boss-Sounds-Readiness-Alarm?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|World%20News|s

    With the lean budgets and our seeming incompetence when it comes to fielding a ship like the LCS, are we seeing things spiraling downwards? And by things, I mean the Navy and our nation's its ability to carry out our defensive and economic policies?

    we have sacrificed sailors to preserve platforms and the result is that we have damaged our competency AND the platforms because we cannot care for them properly

    This is not good.

    Like Boyd used to shout "People, ideas, hardware...IN THAT ORDER!"

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