Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
I admit it was embarrassing, and should never have happened.
On the other hand, these things do happen. You have a bunch of young people, usually 19-23 operating all of this very expensive and in many cases, very complex equipment,
Now they do have NVOs and Officers over them with more experience...but still, the ones actually doing a lot of the work are youngsters...and so mistakes are going to happen.
Seriously, as sad, and maybe even embarrassing as it is...it comes with the territory from time to time.
Jura The idiot
General
my thoughts:
- Commissioned: 8 November 2008 so I would've hoped the error hadn't resulted because of "3:2:1 manning concept" I mean if there was a single crew, it could become more familiar with its ship (but I don't know when the current crew was swapped, so maybe I'm off)
- to me, this is suspicious:
(it's from USNI News quoted above) I would've hoped they hadn't rushed just to show off at RIMPAC!
Jura The idiot
General
Jan 20, 2016
but recently I gave LCSs the benefit of the doubt, and when FORBIN most recently made a joke about their propulsion, I had engaged him (previous page), which in a hindsight was a mistake:well, I've been following the LCS Project for something like one year and a half now, so I think
and as a big fan of the USN, I'm saddened by this, because in the next forty or so years, at any moment, about one fourth of the USN surface combatants will be LCS/FFs (assuming roughly 300-ships USN, about 100 of which deployed, and "3-2-1" manning concept of LCS/FFs), which are obviously under-armed, and I'm not that sure if it's going to change (I've been following the pace at which the Mission Modules are being developed); in the meantime, Navies like ... so that I stay on topic since it's
- it was actually the US Navy which had to be "pushed" to prepare alternatives to LCS in 2014 (so called Hagel's memo):
but- I think the USN then actually tried to change LCSs as LITTLE as possible, under the circumstances:
- and I think this "backfired" on the USN in the end of 2015:
Plan Type 056 Class Opv/corvette
Thread: Malayan with the Gowinds and Indonesian with SIGMAs, will become better armed!
as Jeff knowsI blamed the concepts of "concurrency" and "modularity":
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/littoral-combat-ships-lcs.t3993/page-83#post-353949
for what the LCS become, and suggested "an evolution of the OHP-class":
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/littoral-combat-ships-lcs.t3993/page-104#post-368035
instead; Jeff called me "repetitive" in the LCS Thread and oops, I did it again
UPDATED: USS Coronado Suffers Engineering Casualty, Returning to Pearl Harbor
now I have enough: for the record, if something looks like a tin can, is unarmed as a tin can, floats as a tin can, then it is a half of a billion tin can
Time will tell.
Both of these vessels, particularly the trimaren, are trying to do things with module and with speed, and with various weapons systems (initially thinking they could swap major systems out with modules) that have not really been pushed like this before.
So they are learning a lot of things...particularly the mistakes that wee made.
ie. Too small a crew for rotation, too weak a basic armament, modules far too immature for the ships themselves to be trialed, and particularly to be commissioned without those modules ready.
That's why they went to the FF, and up arming the LCS themselves.
But, the US Navy has a knack of ultimately getting it together and I predict that they will with these vessels too.
By the time it is over, you are going to have something close to 30 of each type, and they will morph into the frigates they should have been all along, suitable for ASW, ASuW, and perhaps even (if they will simply get ESSMNs on the vessels), for small convoy area AAW defense.
I suspect that the Independence will also be used for Mine operations and SpecOPs.
But you watch...and you may have to reflect kindly back on the Headman at that point and say, "By golly, Jeff was right."
It is just too bad it is taking so long and so much money to see and correct things that the naval community has been crying about from the beginning.
Jura The idiot
General
half of a billion tin cans 1, 2, 3 and 4 "will be assigned as training ships":
Results of New LCS Review is Departure from Original Vision
"To simplify and stabilize the ongoing testing and evaluation program, the first four ships in the in class will be shifted to dedicated, single-crewed testing ships whose main mission will be test and evaluation of the modular systems being installed on our LCS." says Commander, Naval Surface Forces in the document available inside
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This is a more detailed explanation of what the Navy Plans.Naval Today said:
For the first 28 vessels (of a planned 52) they will create six, four ship flotillas of vessels. Each flotilla will have four of the same type/class LCS. Freedom class on the East coast, Independence class on the West Coast.
This makes up 24 of the 28 vessels. They will then take the first four LCS (LCS-1 through LCS-4), two from each type, and form a testing flotilla that can be available at anytime for exercises or combat, but who will be focused on long term integration, policy, procedure, etc. as they continue to build out these vessels.
Going to a Gold Blue crewing configuration makes a lot more sense to me.
Also, dedicating each flotilla to either ASW, ASuW, or MCM as their primary mission will also make a lot of sense, even though the crews will be trained to be able to operate in other areas if needed.
All of this final starts to make sense of how they will man, train, operate, and deploy these ships.
It has just been a tortured and laborious path getting here.
Jura The idiot
General
I've watched it all only because the music reminded me parts of the theme song from The Rock
Awesome to see it pass the full shock test.I've watched it all only because the music reminded me parts of the theme song from The Rock
A diver in the water that close to such an explosion woul like have been killed by the hydro shock such an explosion would produce.