carr wrote:
It's been a while. I assume you're still sticking with what was outlined on page one of this thread?
I am following the following findings of the study:
The reference is a Proceedings article from September 2012 written by CAPT Robert Powers called "Birth of the Littoral Combat Ship".
What the article boiled down to was:
- CIC should be incorporated for quick communication and rapid decision making
- The ship should not be built out of aluminum.
- Manning should be low, but not so low it inhibits combat capability or maintenance. Maintenance must not suffer from low manning.
- New hull designs such as tri-hull should be explored
- Flight deck is important. UAVs and helos should be a large part of the ship's armament
- Perform counter battery fire against sites firing artillery or ASCMs
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If so, you might consider adding SEWIP (Block III? It's a whatif, after all).
Indeed. That will be in the later fitting of the model.
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I took a glance but couldn't see (might have missed it) whether you're sticking with the water jets or going conventional propulsion.
I will go with conventional propulsion of two Burke-style swept screws.
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If you go conventional, presumably you can have a hull mounted sonar, as you indicated. You might consider Prairie/Masker, as well.
I am not sure yet about the sonar system. I imagine it would be a side scan type to detect mines. To your knowledge are there models that are both side scan and ASW sonars?
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Dedicated UAV control "tower"?
Tower? I'm not quite sure, however, dedicated antennas, yes. I plan on two types of UAVs. One is the Shadow and the other is Scan Eagle.
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Hedgehog/RBU -ish close in anti-sub, quick reaction weapon? Torpedo tubes?
I imagine the standard Mk32 SVTT.
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If you move the RHIB ops to a more conventional amidships location that would free up the extreme aft end for a gun mount?
The stern will be covered by two 76mm SR guns positioned in hip mounts on the extreme forward part of the helicopter deck. They will be set in dishes to catch the spent casings so they don't FOD the deck.
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I am still in favor of making the Independence-class ships the MCM vessels if not making a version of the PC replacement the MCM vessels. With the exception of helicopter support, a PC sized ship with appropriate equipment would be able to do that job very well.
We will see!