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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 secti

by jjk166 4y 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 4y 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.
- jjk166 4y ago
  > 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. It very much is obvious to anyone with any familiarity. You're taking a system, adding a lot of cost and complexity to it, and not eliminating any substantial cost or complexity from the original system. > it is also not clear if US can maintain such capability plus logistics and training without actual fleet in place. You'd still have a fleet in place. But rather than building 10 expensive ships designed to last for 40 years, you'd build 40 cheap ships designed to last for 10 years. At any given time you have a fleet of 10 ships, but they are newer, and better optimized ships. You don't need to worry about maintaining decades old ships with a mix of out of date systems, unavailable components and haphazardly integrated upgrades that could never fully take advantage of lessons learned. You can afford to take risks because you don't need to live with mistakes for long, you make fewer mistakes because the people involved have personally done this before, if something does go awry you can nip it in the bud because you don't have large sunk costs, and since you're sending out a steady stream of work, your suppliers and partners are more concerned with maintaining a long term relationship than securing a single massive contract.

by jjk166 4y ago

riku_iki 4y 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.

jjk166 4y ago
> 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. It very much is obvious to anyone with any familiarity. You're taking a system, adding a lot of cost and complexity to it, and not eliminating any substantial cost or complexity from the original system. > it is also not clear if US can maintain such capability plus logistics and training without actual fleet in place. You'd still have a fleet in place. But rather than building 10 expensive ships designed to last for 40 years, you'd build 40 cheap ships designed to last for 10 years. At any given time you have a fleet of 10 ships, but they are newer, and better optimized ships. You don't need to worry about maintaining decades old ships with a mix of out of date systems, unavailable components and haphazardly integrated upgrades that could never fully take advantage of lessons learned. You can afford to take risks because you don't need to live with mistakes for long, you make fewer mistakes because the people involved have personally done this before, if something does go awry you can nip it in the bud because you don't have large sunk costs, and since you're sending out a steady stream of work, your suppliers and partners are more concerned with maintaining a long term relationship than securing a single massive contract.