carr wrote:The Navy touts the flexibility of the LCS as its greatest strength. However, my preceeding post leads to the question, is the LCS actually flexible at the tactical level? If module swapping requires several days even with a base fairly nearby, that would, in my mind, invalidate the claim of tactical flexibility. For example, an LCS(ASuW) receives a report of a sub heading for its area of operation and due to arrive within 24 hours. If the LCS can't swap its ASuW module for an ASW module in 24 hours, then it's not tactically flexible. The point being that tactical requirments change in a shorter cycle than the module swapping.
Strategic flexibility remains a potentially valid claim. Swapping an LCS to ASuW for the next several months because you're going to escort ships through waters threatened by small craft is not a problem. The several days it will take to make the swap are not critical compared to the several month time frame of the operation.
So, I can see that the LCS offers a potential strategic flexibility but not a tactical flexibility.
Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?
Regards,
Bob
Sounds to me like the Navy actually needs a class of DDHs (no Aegis) instead of LCSs. That would provide all the flexibility LCS advertizes all in one package that can remain on station instead of coming and going from an area of operation. Such a ship would likely provide a superior ship by utilizing a proven platform and proven equipment. I think I saw a thread about that on here somewhere
As I recently read, today actually, "Though the shore-duty theorists with their transformationalist fetish continue to ignore facts that interfere with their religion - history & reality - their worst enemy - continue to tell us what you need to get right in your warships.
This time it is Libya - and again - it is the Royal Navy (what is left of her) that tells us what we need to know.
Other things to go with our chant:
1. As Seaman Murphy gundecks PMS and his brother at the factory has quality control issues - it is best a-la SPRUANCE & TICO to have two main batteries.
2. Larger isn't better, it is essential. Beancounters, men insecure with their manhood, and the non-battleminded like small caliber weapons. Those who need to kill or be killed know that if a 3" will do - a 5" is needed. If a 5" will fit, an 8" should be there instead. If you think I am nuts, just ask a Marine. If you think he is nuts - tell him to his face, please.
You will close the shore - you will be shot at - you will need to shoot back. Make sure those who have a comfortable commute and a comfortable home build you the ships you need - not the ones they think are neat."
Thanks for sending that, Russ. It's an interesting article. Of course I am a believer that the advantages of 155mm or 8" naval gunnery (effectiveness, range, and existance of precision munitions) outweigh the disadvantages (heavier rounds and moderately lower rate of fire).
All of my research into the Mk71 Mod0 8"/55caliber and Mk71 ModX 8"/60caliber Major Caliber Light Weight Gun, including indepth correspondences with a project manager on the Mk71 program and Gibbs&Cox for adaptation into the DDG-51 class hull make it clear the Mk71 is what the Navy needs for its DDG-51s. Ships with limited internal hull volume such as the DDG-51s cannot effectively support AGS, and when fired by a single gun mount 5" is ineffective. New ship construction would be able to accommodate a Mk71 with 500 8" rounds, and we would have been able to effectively addressed a far larger range of targets and situations than the Brits did.
At least the British have the balls it takes to get into a fight with a shore battery. Good for them.
navydavesof wrote:Sounds to me like the Navy actually needs a class of DDHs (no Aegis) instead of LCSs. That would provide all the flexibility LCS advertizes all in one package that can remain on station instead of coming and going from an area of operation. Such a ship would likely provide a superior ship by utilizing a proven platform and proven equipment.
Well sure, but such a vessel, even without Aegis, would cost $700M or more whereas the LCS only costs, uh ... well ... Nevermind.
Here's a modelling tidbit for LCS-1. As built, the ship had a flat, featureless stern, however, due to buoyancy concerns, buoyancy tanks were welded to the stern. Compare the first photo below which is "as built" to the second photo which shows the added tanks or "waterwings" as they've been referred to. The stern ramp doors used to open all the way to flat against the stern. Now, they're clearly restricted to a partial opening though that should be adequate.
I don't know how the buoyancy issue has been addressed in LCS-3.
It looks like the LCS-1 class has been built exactly on its design weight parameters. I do know, however that the LCS-3 has its "sponsons" or "water wings" built out on the sides as integrated into the design.
It does make one wonder how much boyancy the "water wings" add to the ship. Who knows...
"...the Navy did not conduct a study to examine if the LCS is the best way to confront littoral threats before they proceeded with the plan." - CRS study examining the Navy's plan for LCS.
...but we must keep in mind that the LCS-1 design were designed to accommodate the SPY-3, Harpoon, VLS, etc. The ships can take a lot in design. The question is: how much will the USN actually ask the design to take?
navydavesof wrote:I do know, however that the LCS-3 has its "sponsons" or "water wings" built out on the sides as integrated into the design.
I've only seen a couple of launch photos of LCS-3 but I didn't notice any obvious water wings. Maybe fitted later? Do you mean that they're built similar to an armor belt, along the length of the hull? I had also heard that the Navy hoped to make sufficient weight saving changes to the internals that water wings would not be needed in LCS-3 but that seemed like wishful thinking more than a solid design change. Do you have a photo showing the LCS-3 buoyancy tanks?
navydavesof wrote:It looks like the LCS-1 class has been built exactly on its design weight parameters. ...but we must keep in mind that the LCS-1 design were designed to accommodate the SPY-3, Harpoon, VLS, etc.
If the LCS was designed to accomodate all those items it had to have been before the Navy made all the design changes which resulted in the LCS having no reserve buoyancy. As you said, the actual build was right at the weight limit. It makes one wonder how the proposed export versions with all those items and more could be built. A lot of existing equipment would have to be removed to free up the weight margins for the added stuff. It may well be that simply removing half the engine-related equipment necessary for the high speed would provide the additional weight margins.
June 21, 2011: Just as the U.S. Navy decides to put its new "Littoral Combat Ship" (LCS) into mass production, serious structural flaws have been discovered in both ships. The most serious problem is in the USS Independence, a radical trimaran design. It seems that a "dissimilar metals" situation arose when salt water, the aluminum hull and some other metals got into close proximity with each other, and extensive corrosion resulted. Aluminum hulls tend to corrode more than steel, but the problem became so bad with the USS Independence that, 18 months after entering service, it is headed for dry dock, corrosion repairs and design changes to eliminate the problem. The more conventional design, the monohull USS Freedom has developed cracks, as long as 15 cm (six inches).
Lee sent this video along this week for a different reason, but I made me think of the Little Crappy Ship after reading another Potemkin article about LCS's Mission Modules and unmanned-offboard systems. You know the ones I am talking about, like this. Along with even goofier friends here. Deploy and operate this for sustained operations? Really?
Notice they all seem to be tested in bathtub water? That isn't the sea we know, is it? This is.
It seem little ol Freedom is back in a drydock again and Navy Newsstand posted some nice close up shots. Another $1.8 million poured into the LCS pit. I wonder what broke this time?
Dad was aboard her earlier this year to run some training scenarios and he learned from her crew that she is already suffering bi-metallic corrosion where the aluminum superstructure meets the steel hull. There is supposed to be a gasket of sort installed between the two differing types of metal when the ship is being built to prevent all of this and it was never even on the plans. I honestly can't believe we are still building these worthless craft.
Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984
Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984
I guess all those steel ships the Navy had with sacrificial cathodes way back in the 50's and 60's were ahead of their time. Builders of commercial shipping, such as Austal, don't deal with electrical induction from slews of cable running on virtually every overhead on a naval vessal so they are laying on the Navy's maintenance. However, the Navy was remiss in assuming that a commercial ship builder would have enough sense to build cathodic protection into the design of a naval vessal carrying a few tons of electronics that passenger ferries don't have.
