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Reading this “We weren’t sure LCS was executing the missions it was designed for,” Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said in January 20

Reading this “We weren’t sure LCS was executing the missions it was designed for,” Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener said in January 2022. “And so we … went out to the number of fleet commanders and said, ‘Alright, what do you want it to do? And what missions do you want it to execute based on the environment we’re in now?’” reminds me of this excerpt from a movie: Pentagon Wars - Bradley Fighting Vehicle Evolution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA From the movie "Pentagon Wars". Bradley Fighting Vehicle design and development. Any design engineer will love this scene.

riku_iki 3y ago
what would be better approach?
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Find out what the commanders actually need it to do before you spend years and billions of dollars building it.
  - riku_iki 3y ago
    Warfare changes very fast lately, and it was one of the main pitches of those littoral ships: make them modular, so they can be easily modified for current and future missions.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      not sure that precludes figuring out what customers want before building the whole thing TFA says the motivator is lack of capabilities against China. If the LCSs can be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, why not do so?
      - riku_iki 3y ago
        > TFA says the motivator is lack of capabilities against China. If the LCSs can be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, why not do so? I don't think that's the issue. LCSs are small ships which goal to do small missions which would be much more expensive to do on large ships, cruisers for example. I don't think confronting China was their goal ever.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Conceptual design started around 2001. Well, in 2001, China didn't have the navy it did today. If they didn't "skate to where the puck is going", they could easily have built a ship for countering what China was in 1995.
        riku_iki 3y ago
        US navy has other ships with missions to counter China.
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        you don't think what is the issue? TFA does indeed say that the motivator is lack of capabilities against China if I understand correctly, the LCSs were built to be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, as long as none of those capabilities are any we actually need
        riku_iki 3y ago
        what is tfa? > if I understand correctly, the LCSs were built to be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, as long as none of those capabilities are any we actually need yes, but they were not intended to have strike capabilities, nor operate in deep sea as required to confront China in that region, that's why they called littoral.
      - nradov 3y ago
        The LCS can't be easily retrofitted to add the necessary capabilities. There is simply not enough hull space to fit a Mk 41 VLS and AN/SPY-6 radar, plus the various other sensors and defensive systems needed to have any chance of survival against a near-peer adversary. The LCS will be gradually replaced in service by FFG-62 Constellation class frigates. During an early phase of the FFG(X) program the Navy considered using a lengthened "up gunned" variant of the LCS to meet the program requirements but quickly rejected that option as unworkable. The LCS is just a dead end.
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      Note that modularity is one of the things they abandoned to try and get something working.
      - riku_iki 3y ago
        where did you get this?
        iudqnolq 3y ago
        When I went looking for my source I realized it was older than I remembered. It's certainly possible things have gotten better since 2021. > Despite that positive spin, the utility of the LCS remains hampered by its controversial mission modules, which were originally designed to be switched in and out of the hulls rapidly while in port, before the idea was abandoned, leaving each ship with a single module to be installed. As it stands, only the anti-surface warfare version of these modules is fitted on some of the hulls, with the anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures modules not yet available. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42582/the-first-littoral-combat-ship-has-been-decommissioned-after-just-13-years-of-service https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42582/the-first-littor...
        greedo 3y ago
        Modularity really doesn't work with ships. For the LCS, the idea was to have mission modules that can be swapped out depending on the ship's role. However, the entire idea is flawed. First, you need crew trained on these different modules, so not only would you be swapping out modules, but swapping out a large portion of the crew. Second, swapping modules sounds easy, but is a tough thing to do on a ship without affecting other design constraints. The LCS also suffered from the concept of minimal manning (which meant reliance upon contractors for a lot of support), and also lacked a decent set of weaponry.
        toast0 3y ago
        > First, you need crew trained on these different modules, so not only would you be swapping out modules, but swapping out a large portion of the crew. Swapping out a large portion of the crew doesn't seem that uncommon? My friends in the navy get assigned deployments in a group, stay with the boat for several months and then come home and work on base for several months, etc. Often there's a significant time for the ship in port while the crew is swapped out. But, I don't get a lot of details.
    - jjk166 3y ago
      A pitch that underwent very little scrutiny. The module sizes they were planning were massive, basically major sections of the ship's hull. Swapping those sections out would have required a lengthy process at a specialized facility where the module was either pre-positioned or shipped to. It would always be more practical to just sail a ship of the appropriate type to the location it's needed than to change over a ship in the location to the appropriate type. Modularity is expensive - you can't optimize for a particular role, you make design changes dramatically more difficult, and you need to pay for the entire modular ecosystem. Modularity really only makes sense when you are constrained to small numbers; for example if you have limited space in your garage it might be nice to have a single machine that can serve as both a lawnmower and a snow blower - yeah it may not be the best at either and it's going to be more expensive, but it's better than having to live with just one. If there were some sort of naval treaty limiting the number of ships the US could have in its fleet, then modularity might make some sense, but for the foreseeable future no such limitation is likely to exist. The LCS was actually initiated as part of a program specifically to boost fleet size with a large number of cheap ships. It makes much more sense to use a multitude of purpose built ships. Sure there's a chance that some of the ships you build aren't going to be needed; but then all peacetime military procurement is done in the hopes it will not wind up being needed. The LCS program took only 5 years from initial funding to the commissioning of its first ship. If they focused on maintaining the industrial capability to rapidly develop and build ships when needed, so in 35 years they can build the appropriate ship for the naval battles taking place 40 years from now, instead of trying to anticipate their needs for 40 years into the future, that would be tremendously more useful.
      - riku_iki 3y ago
        > It would always be more practical to just sail a ship of the appropriate type to the location it's needed than to change over a ship in the location to the appropriate type. it is absolutely not obvious that building and then maintaining fleet of 12 different role ships is easier/cheaper than having LCS reconfigured on some bases, even if it is relatively large procedure. > If they focused on maintaining the industrial capability to rapidly develop and build ships when needed, so in 35 years they can build the appropriate ship for the naval battles taking place 40 years from now it is also not clear if US can maintain such capability plus logistics and training without actual fleet in place.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    They did; the anticipated needs in the environment when it was designed were not the actual needs when it waa delivered. This is a perennial big-project problem (one of the core things addressed, originally, by Agile in software), but you can’t easily quickly turn out an MVP of a warship and rapidly iterate on it. A lot of time it doesn’t get noticed because needs move further toward the strengths of the project, or because there is a good opportunity for adaptation. But sometimes, you just get burned.
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      Funnily enough they did try to do agile design with these warships. They started building the first one before they figured out the whole design, with the idea they could update as they went. It was an absolute disaster. They had to redo a bunch of work to fit in changes they didn't anticipate. Now all the early ships are unique, making maintenance worse. Turns out Agile depends on a low cost to refactor. It's easy to make a function body bigger. It's very painful to make an engine room bigger.
- somethoughts 3y ago
  The jaded cynic in me says - you have achieved true enlightenment when you realize that what the clip is describing just is - it can not be changed or improved upon. There is no better approach when it comes to large human organization behavior that can be implemented. You just come to peace with that is how the world works when the population reaches a certain size. Some over-expensive, over-engineered, over-xyz projects/trials are needed for humans to progress. Even if the specific project is eventually deemed a colossal failure, it can be pointed to as a future reference point of what not to do/waste time on.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    The Manhattan project was completed in a bit over 3 years. The big barriers are getting a truly blank cheque and sufficient authority to bypass, or bulldoze, through all possible obstacles. Which is more a question of priorities.
    - dmreedy 3y ago
      I'm not sure I understand the comparison. The Manhattan project was an exploration into a fundamental (and, without trying to sound ungenerous, a relatively simple) property of physics, put towards a relatively simple task. The laws of nature defined the constraints, and requirement was singular. It was not an attempt to solve the constraint satisfaction problem of X stakeholders and Y requirements and Z logistical boundaries, where X, Y and Z are all in constant flux thanks to being attached to human beings who bullshit, lie, and change their minds frequently.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        > The Manhattan project was an exploration into a fundamental (and, without trying to sound ungenerous, a relatively simple) property of physics, put towards a relatively simple task. The laws of nature defined the constraints, and requirement was singular. Your points here don't square with what I know. Have you read the Wiki page on it and found something incorrect?
- jjk166 3y ago
  Instead of investing in large projects meant to satisfy large numbers of stakeholders for all their needs anticipated out decades into the future, instead focus on maintaining a development pipeline with steady stream of smaller, narrowly focused projects where the design requirements are locked down early. If you plan from the get go on developing something new every 5 years, it's not a big deal to say "let's save that for the next iteration" and you can incorporate both new developments and lessons learned. You also naturally get people working on these projects who have worked on other similar projects before, so you don't need to reinvent the wheel like you do when there's a 40 year gap between iterations. We see excellent examples of this kind of project management in the automotive, semiconductor, and consumer electronics industries.
  - nradov 3y ago
    That is a terrible idea. The military doesn't want small numbers of completely different vehicles introduced every five years. They need large numbers of identical items with consistency over decades so that they can train the troops and maintain a supply chain. Their needs have almost nothing in common with the automotive, semiconductor, and consumer electronics industries.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      that's just 2 more requirements: must be cross trainable, supply chain compatible with previous generation there, problem solved
    - jjk166 3y ago
      In WW2 they were introducing brand new designs months after their predecessors. Warfare is a dynamic environment where those who do not adapt fast enough literally perish. Keeping the same system for decades does reduce the cost of retraining and logistics, but is the point of your military to save money or win wars? The military needs projects to be completed in a timely manner, producing systems that can keep up with or preferably beat their competitors. The automotive, semiconductor, and consumer electronics industries all have exactly the same need, and this is how it's achieved.
Armisael16 3y ago
For what it’s worth the Bradley has performed quite well, and the flaws that have shown up weren’t noted in the movie (some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_just_watched_the_pentagon_wars_how_has_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_j...) The scene is very funny, and it’s an excellent story - it just happens to not be particularly accurate.
- mustacheemperor 3y ago
  The movie is really just plainly inaccurate - its origins include some relation to reality, but it should not be viewed as any kind of retelling of a real story. The top comment in that post puts it well: >It was never meant to be an accurate portrayal of the Bradley program and it shows. You're getting Hollywood taking an an axe-grinding, half-true memoir as fact and then playing it for laughs. The Bradley is an interesting vehicle, and its real origin story is worth reading, just lacking in comedic value.
  - robocat 3y ago
    I like this guys take (showing some of the historical vehicles) that the narrative is pure Hollywood, but that many of the facts were correct: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jjVhGxr4CNs https://youtube.com/watch?v=jjVhGxr4CNs
aidenn0 3y ago
That gets some key details wrong; even though designed to supersede the M113, the MICV was always about a combat vehicle, not a personnel carrier. The original concept was that fighting in a post-NBC world meant infantry would have to fight from inside a sealed area. This means the firing ports were part of the earliest designs, not added as a suggestion during the Nixon administration. I should also note that several the very early prototypes were amphibious; I think this was mostly scratched (timeline wise) by the point where it is joked about being added in the film. The added scout role is true, and coincides with cancellation of the ARSV, and did follow somewhat along the logic of the movie (roughly we need a fast, armored vehicle, this is a fast, armored vehicle). Though it predates the unveiling of it, the MICV only got serious funding because of the Soviet BMP-1. The BMP-1 was used in combat before the Bradley was out of prototype stage, and had enough deficiencies that the BMP-2 was made, and the designers of the Bradley prototypes also reacted to it. A lot of the changes were made because the development of it was slow enough (partly due to it often not being a priority) that the vision of what battlefield it would appear on changed.

riku_iki 3y ago

what would be better approach?

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Find out what the commanders actually need it to do before you spend years and billions of dollars building it.
- riku_iki 3y ago
  Warfare changes very fast lately, and it was one of the main pitches of those littoral ships: make them modular, so they can be easily modified for current and future missions.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    not sure that precludes figuring out what customers want before building the whole thing TFA says the motivator is lack of capabilities against China. If the LCSs can be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, why not do so?
    - riku_iki 3y ago
      > TFA says the motivator is lack of capabilities against China. If the LCSs can be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, why not do so? I don't think that's the issue. LCSs are small ships which goal to do small missions which would be much more expensive to do on large ships, cruisers for example. I don't think confronting China was their goal ever.
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Conceptual design started around 2001. Well, in 2001, China didn't have the navy it did today. If they didn't "skate to where the puck is going", they could easily have built a ship for countering what China was in 1995.
        riku_iki 3y ago
        US navy has other ships with missions to counter China.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        you don't think what is the issue? TFA does indeed say that the motivator is lack of capabilities against China if I understand correctly, the LCSs were built to be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, as long as none of those capabilities are any we actually need
        riku_iki 3y ago
        what is tfa? > if I understand correctly, the LCSs were built to be easily retrofitted to add capabilities, as long as none of those capabilities are any we actually need yes, but they were not intended to have strike capabilities, nor operate in deep sea as required to confront China in that region, that's why they called littoral.
    - nradov 3y ago
      The LCS can't be easily retrofitted to add the necessary capabilities. There is simply not enough hull space to fit a Mk 41 VLS and AN/SPY-6 radar, plus the various other sensors and defensive systems needed to have any chance of survival against a near-peer adversary. The LCS will be gradually replaced in service by FFG-62 Constellation class frigates. During an early phase of the FFG(X) program the Navy considered using a lengthened "up gunned" variant of the LCS to meet the program requirements but quickly rejected that option as unworkable. The LCS is just a dead end.
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    Note that modularity is one of the things they abandoned to try and get something working.
    - riku_iki 3y ago
      where did you get this?
      - iudqnolq 3y ago
        When I went looking for my source I realized it was older than I remembered. It's certainly possible things have gotten better since 2021. > Despite that positive spin, the utility of the LCS remains hampered by its controversial mission modules, which were originally designed to be switched in and out of the hulls rapidly while in port, before the idea was abandoned, leaving each ship with a single module to be installed. As it stands, only the anti-surface warfare version of these modules is fitted on some of the hulls, with the anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasures modules not yet available. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42582/the-first-littoral-combat-ship-has-been-decommissioned-after-just-13-years-of-service https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42582/the-first-littor...
      - greedo 3y ago
        Modularity really doesn't work with ships. For the LCS, the idea was to have mission modules that can be swapped out depending on the ship's role. However, the entire idea is flawed. First, you need crew trained on these different modules, so not only would you be swapping out modules, but swapping out a large portion of the crew. Second, swapping modules sounds easy, but is a tough thing to do on a ship without affecting other design constraints. The LCS also suffered from the concept of minimal manning (which meant reliance upon contractors for a lot of support), and also lacked a decent set of weaponry.
        toast0 3y ago
        > First, you need crew trained on these different modules, so not only would you be swapping out modules, but swapping out a large portion of the crew. Swapping out a large portion of the crew doesn't seem that uncommon? My friends in the navy get assigned deployments in a group, stay with the boat for several months and then come home and work on base for several months, etc. Often there's a significant time for the ship in port while the crew is swapped out. But, I don't get a lot of details.
  - jjk166 3y ago
    A pitch that underwent very little scrutiny. The module sizes they were planning were massive, basically major sections of the ship's hull. Swapping those sections out would have required a lengthy process at a specialized facility where the module was either pre-positioned or shipped to. It would always be more practical to just sail a ship of the appropriate type to the location it's needed than to change over a ship in the location to the appropriate type. Modularity is expensive - you can't optimize for a particular role, you make design changes dramatically more difficult, and you need to pay for the entire modular ecosystem. Modularity really only makes sense when you are constrained to small numbers; for example if you have limited space in your garage it might be nice to have a single machine that can serve as both a lawnmower and a snow blower - yeah it may not be the best at either and it's going to be more expensive, but it's better than having to live with just one. If there were some sort of naval treaty limiting the number of ships the US could have in its fleet, then modularity might make some sense, but for the foreseeable future no such limitation is likely to exist. The LCS was actually initiated as part of a program specifically to boost fleet size with a large number of cheap ships. It makes much more sense to use a multitude of purpose built ships. Sure there's a chance that some of the ships you build aren't going to be needed; but then all peacetime military procurement is done in the hopes it will not wind up being needed. The LCS program took only 5 years from initial funding to the commissioning of its first ship. If they focused on maintaining the industrial capability to rapidly develop and build ships when needed, so in 35 years they can build the appropriate ship for the naval battles taking place 40 years from now, instead of trying to anticipate their needs for 40 years into the future, that would be tremendously more useful.
    - riku_iki 3y ago
      > It would always be more practical to just sail a ship of the appropriate type to the location it's needed than to change over a ship in the location to the appropriate type. it is absolutely not obvious that building and then maintaining fleet of 12 different role ships is easier/cheaper than having LCS reconfigured on some bases, even if it is relatively large procedure. > If they focused on maintaining the industrial capability to rapidly develop and build ships when needed, so in 35 years they can build the appropriate ship for the naval battles taking place 40 years from now it is also not clear if US can maintain such capability plus logistics and training without actual fleet in place.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  They did; the anticipated needs in the environment when it was designed were not the actual needs when it waa delivered. This is a perennial big-project problem (one of the core things addressed, originally, by Agile in software), but you can’t easily quickly turn out an MVP of a warship and rapidly iterate on it. A lot of time it doesn’t get noticed because needs move further toward the strengths of the project, or because there is a good opportunity for adaptation. But sometimes, you just get burned.
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    Funnily enough they did try to do agile design with these warships. They started building the first one before they figured out the whole design, with the idea they could update as they went. It was an absolute disaster. They had to redo a bunch of work to fit in changes they didn't anticipate. Now all the early ships are unique, making maintenance worse. Turns out Agile depends on a low cost to refactor. It's easy to make a function body bigger. It's very painful to make an engine room bigger.
somethoughts 3y ago
The jaded cynic in me says - you have achieved true enlightenment when you realize that what the clip is describing just is - it can not be changed or improved upon. There is no better approach when it comes to large human organization behavior that can be implemented. You just come to peace with that is how the world works when the population reaches a certain size. Some over-expensive, over-engineered, over-xyz projects/trials are needed for humans to progress. Even if the specific project is eventually deemed a colossal failure, it can be pointed to as a future reference point of what not to do/waste time on.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  The Manhattan project was completed in a bit over 3 years. The big barriers are getting a truly blank cheque and sufficient authority to bypass, or bulldoze, through all possible obstacles. Which is more a question of priorities.
  - dmreedy 3y ago
    I'm not sure I understand the comparison. The Manhattan project was an exploration into a fundamental (and, without trying to sound ungenerous, a relatively simple) property of physics, put towards a relatively simple task. The laws of nature defined the constraints, and requirement was singular. It was not an attempt to solve the constraint satisfaction problem of X stakeholders and Y requirements and Z logistical boundaries, where X, Y and Z are all in constant flux thanks to being attached to human beings who bullshit, lie, and change their minds frequently.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      > The Manhattan project was an exploration into a fundamental (and, without trying to sound ungenerous, a relatively simple) property of physics, put towards a relatively simple task. The laws of nature defined the constraints, and requirement was singular. Your points here don't square with what I know. Have you read the Wiki page on it and found something incorrect?
jjk166 3y ago
Instead of investing in large projects meant to satisfy large numbers of stakeholders for all their needs anticipated out decades into the future, instead focus on maintaining a development pipeline with steady stream of smaller, narrowly focused projects where the design requirements are locked down early. If you plan from the get go on developing something new every 5 years, it's not a big deal to say "let's save that for the next iteration" and you can incorporate both new developments and lessons learned. You also naturally get people working on these projects who have worked on other similar projects before, so you don't need to reinvent the wheel like you do when there's a 40 year gap between iterations. We see excellent examples of this kind of project management in the automotive, semiconductor, and consumer electronics industries.
- nradov 3y ago
  That is a terrible idea. The military doesn't want small numbers of completely different vehicles introduced every five years. They need large numbers of identical items with consistency over decades so that they can train the troops and maintain a supply chain. Their needs have almost nothing in common with the automotive, semiconductor, and consumer electronics industries.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    that's just 2 more requirements: must be cross trainable, supply chain compatible with previous generation there, problem solved
  - jjk166 3y ago
    In WW2 they were introducing brand new designs months after their predecessors. Warfare is a dynamic environment where those who do not adapt fast enough literally perish. Keeping the same system for decades does reduce the cost of retraining and logistics, but is the point of your military to save money or win wars? The military needs projects to be completed in a timely manner, producing systems that can keep up with or preferably beat their competitors. The automotive, semiconductor, and consumer electronics industries all have exactly the same need, and this is how it's achieved.

Armisael16 3y ago

For what it’s worth the Bradley has performed quite well, and the flaws that have shown up weren’t noted in the movie (some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_just_watched_the_pentagon_wars_how_has_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/erpmjm/having_j...) The scene is very funny, and it’s an excellent story - it just happens to not be particularly accurate.

mustacheemperor 3y ago
The movie is really just plainly inaccurate - its origins include some relation to reality, but it should not be viewed as any kind of retelling of a real story. The top comment in that post puts it well: >It was never meant to be an accurate portrayal of the Bradley program and it shows. You're getting Hollywood taking an an axe-grinding, half-true memoir as fact and then playing it for laughs. The Bradley is an interesting vehicle, and its real origin story is worth reading, just lacking in comedic value.
- robocat 3y ago
  I like this guys take (showing some of the historical vehicles) that the narrative is pure Hollywood, but that many of the facts were correct: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jjVhGxr4CNs https://youtube.com/watch?v=jjVhGxr4CNs

aidenn0 3y ago

That gets some key details wrong; even though designed to supersede the M113, the MICV was always about a combat vehicle, not a personnel carrier. The original concept was that fighting in a post-NBC world meant infantry would have to fight from inside a sealed area. This means the firing ports were part of the earliest designs, not added as a suggestion during the Nixon administration. I should also note that several the very early prototypes were amphibious; I think this was mostly scratched (timeline wise) by the point where it is joked about being added in the film. The added scout role is true, and coincides with cancellation of the ARSV, and did follow somewhat along the logic of the movie (roughly we need a fast, armored vehicle, this is a fast, armored vehicle). Though it predates the unveiling of it, the MICV only got serious funding because of the Soviet BMP-1. The BMP-1 was used in combat before the Bradley was out of prototype stage, and had enough deficiencies that the BMP-2 was made, and the designers of the Bradley prototypes also reacted to it. A lot of the changes were made because the development of it was slow enough (partly due to it often not being a priority) that the vision of what battlefield it would appear on changed.