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The Navy basically admitted that the littoral combat ship is a failure

19 points by georgecmu 9y ago

Gravityloss 9y ago
These business articles are always so vague. I learned very little. Why is it bad? It has bad radar? Why is a new ship going to be better? Can't you just install a better radar on these ships?
DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
I got a tour on one of the first two LCS ships a while back. It was pretty apparent that it wasn't fit for purpose. One glaring example was that its hull could be Swiss-cheesed by a mere 50 caliber machine gun. Another bad sign was that their proposed solution for dealing with small incoming boats was to drive the ship in a manner that swamped the enemy with wakes. I understand the need to let R&D take risks, but I think LCS made it too far off the drawing board.
- jellicle 9y ago
  When was the last time a hostile .50 cal round struck a US Navy ship (any)? Vietnam? shrug
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    The Narco Cartels will surely be terrified of any ship they can sink with an M2.
    - 18pfsmt 9y ago
      Narcos will not attack the US Navy because it is not about a single battle. They would not risk retaliation from the US military.
  - DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
    Given the places where they (edit: were) thinking to deploy it, I suspect that awareness of the LCS's crazy-thin armour would result in a proliferation of local .50 cal imports.
jellicle 9y ago
These are supposed to be small, cheap ships. Now they're being criticized for not doing everything. That's... odd. US military in general goes through cycles where one vehicle is supposed to do everything (that way we can save money, just build one type of vehicle that can go anywhere, survive anything, do anything!) and then when that results in an ungainly, extremely expensive vehicle, they switch to multiple specialized vehicles (that way we can save money, just make each vehicle only do what is needed for a specific role and cut out the unnecessary bits!). Then when that results in vehicles specialized for role A that fail in role B, they switch back to the one-vehicle-does-everything plan. Apparently we're on a "one vehicle do everything" upswing right now. The parallels to software development are left as an exercise to the reader.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  It wouldn't be all that surprising if they managed to make them just the wrong size. (too big to really be cheap and too small to really do anything)
mikhailfranco 9y ago
Compare with this new Russian patrol vessel: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19796/russias-new-little-missile-packing-patrol-ship-is-a-pretty-genius-design http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19796/russias-new-littl... ...packed into a vessel displacing roughly 1,700 tons. In comparison, the Freedom class of Littoral Combat Ships, although faster, don't pack anywhere near this must punch and they have over double the displacement. They likely cost far more per hull too—basically half a billion dollars each.

19 points by georgecmu 9y ago

These business articles are always so vague. I learned very little. Why is it bad? It has bad radar? Why is a new ship going to be better? Can't you just install a better radar on these ships?

DoofusOfDeath 9y ago

I got a tour on one of the first two LCS ships a while back. It was pretty apparent that it wasn't fit for purpose. One glaring example was that its hull could be Swiss-cheesed by a mere 50 caliber machine gun. Another bad sign was that their proposed solution for dealing with small incoming boats was to drive the ship in a manner that swamped the enemy with wakes. I understand the need to let R&D take risks, but I think LCS made it too far off the drawing board.

jellicle 9y ago
When was the last time a hostile .50 cal round struck a US Navy ship (any)? Vietnam? shrug
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  The Narco Cartels will surely be terrified of any ship they can sink with an M2.
  - 18pfsmt 9y ago
    Narcos will not attack the US Navy because it is not about a single battle. They would not risk retaliation from the US military.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  Given the places where they (edit: were) thinking to deploy it, I suspect that awareness of the LCS's crazy-thin armour would result in a proliferation of local .50 cal imports.

jellicle 9y ago

These are supposed to be small, cheap ships. Now they're being criticized for not doing everything. That's... odd. US military in general goes through cycles where one vehicle is supposed to do everything (that way we can save money, just build one type of vehicle that can go anywhere, survive anything, do anything!) and then when that results in an ungainly, extremely expensive vehicle, they switch to multiple specialized vehicles (that way we can save money, just make each vehicle only do what is needed for a specific role and cut out the unnecessary bits!). Then when that results in vehicles specialized for role A that fail in role B, they switch back to the one-vehicle-does-everything plan. Apparently we're on a "one vehicle do everything" upswing right now. The parallels to software development are left as an exercise to the reader.

maxerickson 9y ago
It wouldn't be all that surprising if they managed to make them just the wrong size. (too big to really be cheap and too small to really do anything)

mikhailfranco 9y ago

Compare with this new Russian patrol vessel: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19796/russias-new-little-missile-packing-patrol-ship-is-a-pretty-genius-design http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/19796/russias-new-littl... ...packed into a vessel displacing roughly 1,700 tons. In comparison, the Freedom class of Littoral Combat Ships, although faster, don't pack anywhere near this must punch and they have over double the displacement. They likely cost far more per hull too—basically half a billion dollars each.