Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Littoral Combat Ship USS Fort Worth Sidelined in Singapore with Propulsion System Damage
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In Singapore, Another US Navy LCS Is Sidelined With Machinery Problems
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Navy Littoral Ship Sidelined in Singapore After Gear Damage
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If a crew does not lube the gears...there are going to be problems.

A Navy memo said the cause was likely the lack of lube oil in the combining gears.

“During startup of the main propulsion diesel engines, lube oil was not supplied to the ship’s combining gears,” according to the memo. Running the dry gears “resulted in high temperature alarms on the port and starboard combining gears.”

This does not mean that the class has any inherent issue. It just means the crew has to perform better and follow procedure. it is likely to lead to some reprimands and perhaps a loss in command.

No need to jump on the anti-LCS band wagon over something like this.

The same type of thing would happen on any vessels if such basic maintenance was not performed.
 
If a crew does not lube the gears...there are going to be problems.

A Navy memo said the cause was likely the lack of lube oil in the combining gears.

“During startup of the main propulsion diesel engines, lube oil was not supplied to the ship’s combining gears,” according to the memo. Running the dry gears “resulted in high temperature alarms on the port and starboard combining gears.”

This does not mean that the class has any inherent issue. ...

... I would've thought there should've been some check against "running the dry gears" when "lube oil was not supplied", and I leave it at that
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
... I would've thought there should've been some check against "running the dry gears" when "lube oil was not supplied", and I leave it at that
You may leave it at that...but I shall not.

People make mistakes, Jura. This happened at dock side...and when the system noticed it, it did give an indictor warning and the things were shut down.

I am sure the Navy will look into exactly what happened and why...and will figure out who did not do what, and who did not check it..., and, as I said, there will be consequences to those persons involved and their command chain.

But all of this indicates procedural and personnel error issues with maintenance...not at all anything inherently wrong with the ship or its design. In fact, the ship itself told the operators that there was a problem when human error created it.
 

Brumby

Major
You may leave it at that...but I shall not.

People make mistakes, Jura. This happened at dock side...and when the system noticed it, it did give an indictor warning and the things were shut down.

I am sure the Navy will look into exactly what happened and why...and will figure out who did not do what, and who did not check it..., and, as I said, there will be consequences to those persons involved and their command chain.

But all of this indicates procedural and personnel error issues with maintenance...not at all anything inherently wrong with the ship or its design. In fact, the ship itself told the operators that there was a problem when human error created it.
If this issue was a stand alone event it is probably reasonable to conclude that it is merely procedural. Unfortunately, what is happening with LCS-3 has similarly features as happened to LCS-5 with gear and lubricant issue. It also had been reported from LCS-1's deployment of significant maintenance issues due partly to tight crew sizing. The combination of similar problems across the same class would raise probable cause that the problem may not simply be procedural but possibly systemic.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
If this issue was a stand alone event it is probably reasonable to conclude that it is merely procedural. Unfortunately, what is happening with LCS-3 has similarly features as happened to LCS-5 with gear and lubricant issue.

The combination of similar problems across the same class would raise probable cause that the problem may not simply be procedural but possibly systemic.
I do not agree at all.

These are two separate issues, on separate vessels, during separate operational characteristics. That certainly does not imply or point to anything systemic, particularly when you analyze the two incidents.

When you do, you find that they were actually quite different.

It is true they both involve the combing gear...but the Ft. Worth casualty occurred during a test at dock when the personnel did not ensure that the oil was full.

The Milwaukee occurred at sea when foreign objects...shavings...got into the gear.

One was purely procedural while the ship was at rest, the other occurred in operation, and has been stated to be most probably due to some outside physical cause introducing the shavings. A cause that they are still investigating.

As stated, neither of them at this point appear to have been inherently associated with either the design, though the first one is still being investigated as to how the foreign objects got there.

To take those two data points and draw out a systemic issue with design is far too preliminary. There is not enough data, or similarity, to point to that.

There could well be training and/or matinenance issues associated with work load. However, I would submit that the most recent issue is far too routine topoint to workload...more likely training or simply negligence on the part of one or more personnel.
 
interestingly
Lockheed Martin Not Planning For Truncated Littoral Combat Ship Program Yet Despite SECDEF Memo
Lockheed Martin is continuing with its Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship program as planned despite notice from the secretary of defense that the ship program will be truncated, the vice president for littoral ships and systems told reporters Thursday evening.

Joe North said in a media teleconference that the company’s customer – the Navy – has not yet informed Lockheed Martin of any programmatic changes and therefore any effort to understand how truncating the program would impact the workforce or the ships’ cost would be speculative.

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. Right now we’re maintaining a 52-ship LCS program, and until we get different direction from the Navy as the customer we’re not assessing anything because we won’t speculate on where that goes or doesn’t go,” he said.

Later in the teleconference he added that “the Navy’s still working things internally. As far as we are being told, we’re a 52-ship program and we’re proceeding on that path. We haven’t started to look at any impacts of any kind because we’d be speculating at this point.”

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memo that the program would be limited to 40 ships, but the Navy has pushed back, saying it needs to increase the number of ships in the fleet. The service’s distributed lethality concept revolves around scattering more ships across the globe and more heavily arming them with existing weapons systems – essentially the opposite of what the Carter memo endorses, which is investing heavily in future game-changing technologies.

The Navy decided two years ago to move from its original LCS design to an up-armored and up-gunned Flight 1, which will be called a frigate, beginning with the 33rd ship in the LCS class.

North said Lockheed Martin is “busy doing what-if studies and some engineering studies for different systems the Navy wants to put on the [frigate] and looking at options that we have to rearrange what is today a lot of area set aside for the modularity on the current [LCS] variant.” Whereas the LCS has three mission packages for separate warfare types, the frigate will have surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare capabilities permanently affixed to the ship. North said the open space on the LCS meant for the mission packages will be filled in with these systems, and engineering is being done to understand how to do that.

North added that the engineering effort would last through the end of the year if funding is available to continue the work.

Lockheed Martin is also busy assisting the Navy is a root cause analysis effort to understand a combining gear failure in USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) in December. North said the company is providing the Navy with information about the ship and its systems, and “the Navy is going to get probably a report out [with its findings] somewhere in the next few weeks.”

North explained that the first two Lockheed Martin-built LCSs, USS Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) were built with gears made by MAAG, which went out of business. Beginning with Milwaukee, the rest of the Freedom-variant LCSs will use gears made by RENK, which North said is one of the world’s top gear producers. He would not comment on whether the problems Milwaukee experienced may be class-wide, saying the Navy would be responsible for releasing the findings of the root cause analysis.

He added that he did not foresee any future problems in the LCS supplier base, saying Lockheed Martin has “a core base of subcontractors and suppliers that are sill out there delivering what they promised.”
source:
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Brumby

Major
LCS Test Vs. Fast Attack Boats ‘Unfair': Missile Missing, Navy Says

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PENTAGON: “Unfair!” That, in a word, is the Navy’s response to a
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p
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saying the
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had trouble
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against
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.

Yes, a Navy official told me, in the test some “enemy” boats got dangerously close to the USS Coronado and inflicted simulated “damage.” But the LCS still repelled the attack — and without its full complement of weapons: The long-range Hellfire missile has yet to be installed.

That Navy hasn’t managed to equip the LCS with all its small-boat-killing weapons doesn’t exactly speak well of the program. The mine-clearing and anti-submarine packages are even further behind. (The Navy also wants to equip the ship with an “over the horizon” missile to
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). But without the Hellfire’s 20-pound warhead and its its five mile range, the LCS would have to rely entirely on its 57 millimeter and 30 mm cannon to defeat incoming threats, radically reducing its reach and punch. Since the missile will go on LCS, leaving it out of the test is a big deal.

First and foremost, “the LCS defeated the adversary, right?” the Navy official said. “How nitpicking is that to criticize, ‘oh, some of them got too close.’ Oh, c’mon. I would call baloney on that.”

“Here’s the other thing: in the scenario, it didn’t have the missile package,” the official continued. “We did testing with the Longbow Hellfire” — a Navy test, not one run by DOT&E — and “in the same scenario, high speed maneuverable targets…it defeated seven of eight.”

“The one out of eight that it missed…. it wasn’t a missile failure,” the official said, without providing additional detail.

That one boat the missiles missed would presumably have been targeted by all the Littoral Combat Ship’s 57 and 30 mm quick-firing cannon. “In the existing scenario they all got shot to death just with the guns,” the official said, without the missiles as a first line of defense.

“It just seems to me it was an unfair treatment,” the Navy official concluded.
It would remind me of a conversation between a University student and the administration. The University student would insist that he or she passed the internal exams that they themselves constructed and it was not fair that the University had theirs. LOL.
 
But Lockheed Martin ready




The more interesting hangar for seems only one helo with VLS on each side ...
from 2011 brochure:
JQTvC.jpg
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navyreco

Senior Member
Lockheed Martin-Led Team Launches U.S. Navy's LCS 11 Future USS Sioux City
The Lockheed Martin-led industry team launched the nation's 11th Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Sioux City (a Freedom class Littoral combat ship) into the Menominee River at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM) shipyard January 30th.
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