Posted on 01/13/2010 1:16:32 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
The Surface Navy Association holds its annual conference this week here in the Washington, DC area. This year’s topic: hybrid warfare at sea. We’ll be eager to hear where the surface folks come down on what should be one of the biggest questions going forward as the fleet looks at hybrid fights in littoral waters: whether to build a large number of smallish multipurpose fast-attack craft or to continue to build the planned 55 or so hugely expensive Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) that is probably the wrong ship for the littorals.
We’ll also have a chance to hear from the inestimable Bob Work, formerly of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who has been locked away for the past year trying to inject some strategic sense into the Navy as an undersecretary. Those of us who cover the defense world still eagerly await — vainly perhaps — a naval strategist with the command of the topic to replace Work in the think tank ranks. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to read my former colleague Chris Cavas and the folks over at the Information Dissemination blog.
(Excerpt) Read more at dodbuzz.com ...
When I first heard of the LCS program I believed they were developing a new class of Corvettes. Simple, inexpensive, well armed for their size, and many. I have shook my head in wonder for years now at how impressively the whole concept has been lost and generally mishandled.
If you don’t have air superiority it doesn’t matter how fast these ships are unless you’re doing coastal defense. If you have to project power there’s nothing like air superiority and firepower.
Show me a military program that has ever managed to stay on budget and as conceived. I have never heard of one, but there must be one or two out there somewhere.
I would postulate that a different hull would be required for such a mission. I am thinking that a steel or aluminum hull may not be the best design.
>>>Show me a military program that has ever managed to stay on budget
It’s not just a question of simply staying in budget, though taking an oversized patrol boat and making it cost as much as a cruiser is an impressive feat in itself. But it’s more a matter of just making the darn thing WORK, and doing so for a cost that permits more then two to be built.
As I said, I was only looking for corvette or DE type ships with a few missiles. That shouldn’t be impossible, and no way they should have so totally mismanaged the program with nothing to show for it.
My guess is those littoral trimarans would be pretty survivable platforms. I wonder how they compare?
Sometimes I wonder what the Navy brass is smoking.
They decommissioned and SANK the entire Spruance class, even though they were no where near the end of their service life and could have been mothballed...
They keep building these hugemungous carriers, each bigger and fancier than the last, even though their very size limits the number they can buy and makes them priority targets...
They are running out of submarines with the Los Angeles class getting long in the tooth and no real options for producing more now that most of the yards that built subs are out of business...
The only ship class that seems to be doing exactly what it is supposed to do, within budget, is the Burke class. The last I heard, the Navy wants to can the LCS and start building more Burkes.
That is such a great, common sense idea, it has absolutely no chance of ever happening.
Actually, I was thinking concrete. Of course, the fact that I have applied for a patent related to the construction of an all concrete hull might have something to do with that.
The LCS will end up one of the greatest procurement disasters in US military history, certainly in terms of the Navy and in terms of post-WW II. (Both the ships and the “mission modules.”
Hard to compare with stuff like the A-12 that never had hardware, but it’s bad.
This is one case where I wish the mass media was a bit more investigative, instead of just publishing happy horse**** stories they’re fed about how cool and fast they are and how they’ll chase pirates.
Out in the operational navy, pretty much any officer from O-6 on down will freely talk about the LCS being useless in private.
The design and the requirements for the ship were deeply flawed from the start.
They’re canning CG(X) in favor of building more Burkes.
LCS, unfortunately, seems to be unkillable. I just hope the least horrible design of the two wins the downselect.
I am hoping adequate research is underway for larger underwater launch systems of un-manned fighter aircraft, camera drones and even bombers that are launched from submersible carriers.
Give the boat stealth from the minute it leaves home port.
Bump
Not quite what you’re looking for, but there’s plenty of pretty out-there stuff in the unclassified DARPA budget, including development of high-speed supercavitating transport submarines. “Programmable Matter” (Think the T-1000 Liquid Metal Terminator) is another good one.
http://www.darpa.mil/Docs/2010PBDARPAMay2009.pdf
Sometimes I wonder what the Navy brass is smoking.
Some kind of massive ego boosting material.
I liked the original concept - relatively small, shallow draft, high speed and packing a punch. Then everyone with stars on their shoulders had to have their pet likes included. Does it really need roll on/ roll off capability? Is it a combat ship or an assault ship? Does it really need a helicopter landing pad, hanger and the accompanying support facility and personnel? It seems that now it has the roll of taking on enemy mines, submarines and small ships. We already have that capability. The helicopters are now needed - the ship’s small 57 mm bow gun can’t do much.
I see it as a case of new for the sake of new.
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