Whoever did the design specifications at NavSea has remained a closely guarded secret, but the result was a “Swoose”. That is, a ship that's part swan and part goose that cannot do either job as well as the single purpose design. To fix this obvious shortcoming, NavSea specified the LCS accommodate various “plug and play” modules to configure it as a submarine hunter, mine hunter, or anti-air platform.
NavSea has said the LCS is a “sub-optimal” ship and its crew is expendable. NavSea has exempted the LCS design from its normal warship design certification procedures. The LCS does not have enough crew to do damage control or avoid work overload or preventative maintenance. Adding crew berthing modules does not alter the fact this highly automated ship was designed for a core crew of 45 and all crew support facilities were designed around that core number. Doubling crew size by adding berthing modules does not help that showers, heads, and messing facilities are designed for 45.
The LCS in either form — LCS-1 USS Freedom or LCS-2 USS Independence — are oversold in abilities and overpriced; they are underarmed, undermanned, and unsurvivable.
“he LCS in either form — LCS-1 USS Freedom or LCS-2 USS Independence — are oversold in abilities and overpriced; they are underarmed, undermanned, and unsurvivable.”
I suspect the thinking from the various commands is, “We know Congress will not approve multiple specialized vehicles. So we’ll propose one all-purpose platform that will do everything then we’ll make sure that it’s optimized for our mission.” Unfortunately, they all think the same. The Army’s Future Combat Systems was supposed to be one modularized vehicle. The modules could then be configured any way needed like a toy transformer robot. The development command, either out of fear or cowardice refused to make key decisions until six weeks before the Preliminary Design Review. So the program had moved forward for years with the “design” not knowing such key factors as will the engine be in the front, the rear or the middle? Will it have treads or wheels? It is impossible to design a vehicle not knowing if it is to be a race car, a limo or a tank. But the award fees were predicated on the spend plan. So you can bet we spent the money. Each year toward October every contractor hired bodies and put them on charge numbers. I went over to the room full of programmers and saw them playing computer games, surfing the net and sitting around talking. When I asked they had no specifications to work to so what could they do? But the money got spent the VP’s got their bonuses and the bodies were laid off again in January.
Then, on top of that, some ecology loon got to add in every idiot lefty-liberal-unicorn dust crazy idea they have. So the product had to be corrosion resistant but we not only couldn’t use the array of proven products and chemical treatments (like chromate treated parts) but we also couldn’t deal with a company that used those treatments anywhere in any process whether we used their treated products or not. Then the diversity people got into the act and we had to have a diversity program and we had to set aside a huge chunk for minority owned and small, disadvantaged companies who mostly subbed out the work to companies who really existed and just collected their generous cut.
Then there was the craziness that there were two integrators of integrators SAIC and Boeing. So 50 cents of every dollar went to their management. I figured that of every dollar spent only 20 cents went to design and actual product.
The procurement system isn’t broken so much as out of control.
I asked one of my buddies from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren what the mission of the LCS was now and he said “to sink in shallow water”.
Agreed.
Yup, the LCS is the surface fleet version of the F-35.