Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)

Does the LCS-1 have a steel hull, and aluminum superstructure?
Didn't the Navy had decided to do away with Aluminum superstructures on ships. After the Falklands war when one of the British ships sank because of a fire feed by the Aluminum in the superstructure gutted the ship.

bd popeye posted; Fu..I made a mistake. I should have posted Ouch..that would hurt. Because it would.

I honestly understand how you feel and in no way am making light of the situation.

If such cutbacks did occur in the US the clamour for the defense industry would be so loud you would here it in London.

I for one would think that the politicians were giving up before any battle was fought. All just to save a few $$$$$...

Hey Fu, no hard feelings at all. I really do understand how you feel

Here is a recent GAO report on the many shortcomings in the defense acquisitions process. Rather than blame politicians for "giving up before an battle was fought", read at least the first thirty five pages to get a feel for the process failures within the DoD.
Examples I have seen. Money is scarce, and every penny assigned to a program. A new program is initiated to meet an urgent need, in the case I am thinking of it is a tiny little five pound guided missile with two "customers", warfighters, who needed this thing yesterday. It has passed all of it's R&D testing, exceeding initial expectations, and was all done by in house scientists and engineers. It has been given a program status and has high level "sponsors", meaning men and women with stars on their shoulder boards fighting for it to be made. Unfortunately it is not funded because other program managers are fighting to prevent it from being made, fearing the money needed to bring this little missile to fruition will be money taken from their programs, which is likely the case. This little missile did have a seven figure budget last week until that money mysteriously disappeared. We are guessing the money was taken for another program. None of this has anything to do with Washington but is due to various program offices fighting to protect their "rice bowls".
E-2D, a well managed program that is on schedule and on budget just lost a quarter of a billion in funding to the F-35 program, which is hideously behind schedule and over budget. It's failures mean the fleet has to soldier on with early model F/A-18's that are quickly running out of airframe life. The US Navy has even resorted to retiring C model F/A-18's and pulling early A models out of the bone yard to replace them with, since the A model airframes were retired with lots of airframe life left. They don't have the air to ground capabilities of the C, but that is the best they can do for now. The lighter A's will turn a lot better however, making them better dogfighters in some ways.
Program managers always understate their cost estimates. No program manager want's to tell DoD leadership his program is expensive as that makes it ripe for cutting. Now, as a cost estimator, you have to make an honest cost estimate for this program, and you WILL encounter the wrath of this program manager, who will question everything including the legitimacy of your birth. A few of us have experienced in flight emergencies that could have killed us, so hot words across an oak conference table are nothing, but most of these cost estimators are college kids who do an internship with senior cost estimators and can be cowed by some grizzled old program manager who's been there done that sonny and don't tell me my business cuz I was building real airplanes when you were building plastic models of them. It's an interesting dynamic.

IMHO the Newer Independence class from GD is the better option but both programs have a long way too go, and a lot of potential for the missions.

Originally Posted by cmb=1968

Does the LCS-1 have a steel hull, and aluminum superstructure?
Didn't the Navy had decided to do away with Aluminum superstructures on ships. After the Falklands war when one of the British ships sank because of a fire feed by the Aluminum in the superstructure gutted the ship.

That is an old fairy tail. HMS Sheffield was all steel, including the superstructure. I have personally stuck a magnet to the superstructure or her sister HMS Southampton to prove this to my satisfaction after mentioning the aluminum angle to one of her officers during a visit to a base we share.
The Exocet that struck Sheffield did not explode, but residual fuel in the rocket motor started a fire. It was Sheffield's bad luck that this missile severed the ship's fire main, so there was basically no pressure at the fire hoses, but lots of water was being pumped into the hull. There were deficiencies in her design that prevented her DC crews from setting fire boundries in the superstructure. The holes where wire bundles and and pipes pass through superstructure bulkheads were not sealed, an amazing blunder.
To compound the problem, a highly touted portable fire pump the RN used at the time was a dud. The one carried on Sheffield would not work, and four more brought from other ships also would not work. The crew therefore had no means to fight the fire or dewater the ship. They also lost internal communication, not having a sound powered phone system as the US Navy uses.
Sheffield sank four days later while being towed back to the UK. The weather grew bad and Sheffield shipped too much water to stay afloat. The RN had no way to dewater her and she sank. Her loss was a damage control fiasco.
Consider later on in 1987 USS Stark ate two Exocets, one of which did indeed explode next to the Standard missile magazine. The other was yet another dud, as was the last Exocet of the Falklands Island War shot from shore, which tore right through a RN destroyer without exploding. The FFG-7's had aluminum superstructures but the crew of Stark controlled the fires and sailed her home under her own power.

Some updates on the LCS. Independence started sea trails. Finally, both hulls are in the water.
The israelis seem to move away again from te potential LCS based corvette/frigate option, and are now lookin into the MEKO 100.

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http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/0...rials_070209w/

LCS 2 begins sea trials after 3-day delay

By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jul 3, 2009 9:34:28 EDT

The Navy’s second littoral combat ship, Independence, put to sea for the first time Thursday for builder’s trials, three days later than scheduled after its shipyard crew dealt with early engineering problems.

The aluminum trimaran was scheduled to spend four days at sea testing its engines and equipment, including a full-power run that will demonstrate whether the ship can get up to the same high speeds as its steel-and-aluminum counterpart, Freedom.

Jim DeMartini, a spokesman for shipbuilder General Dynamics, would not give any information about what technical problems held up Independence’s builder’s trials, which were originally slated to begin Monday.

[...]

Independence and Freedom are both more than a year late and at least 100 percent over budget. The ships were pitched to Congress at a price of about $220 million each, but Navy budget documents for fiscal 2010 put the cost for Independence at about $704 million and for Freedom at about $637 million.

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http://www.janes.com/news/defence/jn...0706_1_n.shtml

Israel abandons LCS plan and eyes MEKO A-100 design

06 July 2009 By Alon Ben-David

The Israel Navy (IN) has abandoned its plan to procure the US Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as the baseline for a future surface combatant.

Instead the service is exploring the suitability of Germany's Blohm+Voss (B+V) MEKO A-100 corvette family with a high degree of Israeli content.

The IN is also hoping to move construction of the new 2,200-tonne corvettes in-country, with Israel Shipyards identified as the likely builder. The shipyard has primarily delivered fast attack craft to the IN, but was also responsible for local integration of the 1,295-tonne Eilat-class (Sa'ar 5) corvettes during the 1990s.

The decision follows two feasibility studies conducted by the IN in partnership with Lockheed Martin on the suitability of the LCS for Israeli requirements. It also marks another reversal of course, since the LCS had replaced earlier plans for corvettes or patrol ships.

"Rising costs of the LCS have forced us to look at other options," a senior IN source told Jane's on 1 July. The IN assessed that the procurement of the LCS platform combined with Israeli combat systems could cost more than USD600 million per vessel.

A proposal by Northrop Grumman to build an expanded version of the IN's Sa'ar 5 corvette was also rejected due to an estimated cost of USD450 million per vessel.

Originally Posted by Scratch

Some updates on the LCS. Independence started sea trails. Finally, both hulls are in the water.
The israelis seem to move away again from te potential LCS based corvette/frigate option, and are now lookin into the MEKO 100.

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LCS 2 begins sea trials after 3-day delay - Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

LCS 2 begins sea trials after 3-day delay

By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jul 3, 2009 9:34:28 EDT
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Here she is, LCS-2, Independence. Good to see her put to sea.

"she may not be a supermodel But I wouldn't go kicking her out of bed"

Larger Flight deck when compared too the the freedom and larger storage. hopefully LCS 3 and 4 will come on line smoother

USS Independence looks so good, I like it.

But since it is a bit too different, it may not be the one chosen by USN

Originally Posted by williamhou

USS Independence looks so good, I like it.

But since it is a bit too different, it may not be the one chosen by USN

If both companies can control costs, I believe both will end up getting good production runs. I'd like to see 20-25 of each.

I know certain members will truly enjoy these photos!


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GULF OF MEXICO (July 12, 2009) The littoral combat ship Independence (LCS 2) underway during builder's trials. Builder's trials are the first opportunity for the shipbuilder and the U.S. Navy to operate the ship underway, and provide an opportunity to test and correct issues before acceptance trials. (All Photos courtesy Dennis Griggs General Dynamics/Released)

Originally Posted by bd popeye

I know certain members will truly enjoy these photos!

Oh yes...most assuredly. Glad to see them both at sea and hope to see the necessary cost reductions (and commitments from the US Navy that would lead to them) to allow good production runs on one or both vessels.

Apparently the Freedom's flight deck is not currently able to be certified for any helicopter. I haven't been able to find out the details. Neither ship will meet the original speed and range KPP's (Key Performance Parameters ) in the original CDD (Capability Development Document), so that parameter was relaxed to what the ships will actually do. I don't yet know the new speed and range parameters. The Navy is wondering how well a ship with water jet propulsion will behave during unrep. During unrep there is strong suction between the two ships, and no one has ever tried unrep with a water jet propelled ship to know if there are going to be any problems with this. The suction could conceivably affect both the water jet inlets and steering control. This is why you build prototypes and test them.

I have major problems with this program and think it has been severely mismanaged, but that doesn't mean I won't say that isn't one fine lookin' ship.

I wished it carried a larger gun.