Posted on 09/30/2021 6:16:50 AM PDT by artichokegrower
You maybe confused by this headline but so are we. USS Freedom (LCS 1), the lead ship of the Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship, recognized little more than a decade of naval service during a decommissioning ceremony at Naval Base San Diego this week. It was “envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant.” but most naval experts agree the program was an expensive failure.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
I suggest these names for the three additional ships:
USS Biden USS Harris USS Pelosi
The graft MUST flow.
Wicked looking ship, but an easy target for the ChiComm’s missiles.
Little Crappy Ships
Pournelle was saying bad things about them 6-8 years ago. I think one of his sons served on one.
Sails
That’s what we need!
Sails
So typical of the Navy these days - expensive toys that do not work or do not work as planned. Then there is the DDG-1000 class ‘destroyer’ which are also colossal failures but they are building more. Or the CVN Ford which still is not able to move beyond a training ship, but the Navy is building 4 more.
Or the single engine F-35s where 2 engines are better. Or the Marine vertical landing version whose exhaust is so hot that special landing plates have to be installed, lest they melt the decks. The list goes on : now with a new Frigate class whose proven design has been questionably altered in significant ways.
easy target for the ChiComm’s missiles.
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Being aluminum, they burn great also.
I thought they looked silly in port. I never heard anyone that was stationed on one have a positive thing to say about them.
Just like student loans. Decry the [real] problems, partially of your own making, while continuing to make them.
I was in the shipbuilding industry in Mobile. The U.S. government gave Austal, an Australian company, millions and millions of dollars to build their facility. Austal recently bought the facility I used to work at and said that they and U.S. government were going to put 50 to 100 million dollars into that facility. Now, here’s the problem. There were many U.S. shipyards that could have built these vessels if the government had given them millions of dollars. The facility that Austal and government are going to upgrade was where I used to work until it went bankrupt under 3 different U.S. owners. If the government had given one of them 50 million dollars they would still be in business. There’s just something wrong with the whole Austal business.
There’s money to be had. Ike warned us 70 years ago.
The USS Harris will definitely be a submarine.
Given modern armaments and pinpoint positioning, the era of surface combatants is over. Yet never underestimate the power and influence of today’s “battleship” admirals and sycophants to spend money and send brave young men to their watery graves.
Heh, hadn’t thought about that.
The USS Biden should be a leaky life raft.
I was thinking more like a comfort ship
The first of the Burke class destroyers is 30 years old. It won’t be too much longer before they start decommissioning the first of those.
These LCSs have never had a truly spelled out combat role as far as I can see, despite being able to operate in shallow water. They don’t even do this well, really. AL congressmen (Jerry Carl, I’m talking to you!) think keeping jobs flowing at Austal AND OTHERS is more important than, well, anything. The LCS MIGHT work in 2021 if it was about a thousand percent smaller, with full capabilities, in other words, a drone.
I’m no expert, but didn’t they retire the ‘Perry-class’ because the anti-ship missile was obsolete and had no replacement? True, they were otherwise old and generally worn-out, but the ‘other’ reason was that their main striking weapon went bye-bye.
One solution would have been a modernized Perry featuring vertical launch cells?
Nope! Can’t do that!
Not a docking ship?
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