Great Ship
Posted on 09/13/2023 10:22:23 AM PDT by FarCenter
How do you build a ship without a mission? The littoral combat ship (LCS) is how.
It could not carry out its original mission because the ship is not survivable in combat. The billions wasted on the US Navy’s so-called “urban street fighter” ship could have been used to build additional missile defense AEGIS destroyers or give the Navy more firepower or finance a new generation of robotic surface and subsurface vessels.
Instead, the Navy chose to build ships it did not need and could not use. Even when they were deployed, they often broke down, deeply embarrassing the Navy and harming US prestige. Worse yet, the Navy worked hard to salvage the ships – to no avail – by improving their firepower without making them more reliable.
Neither version of the littoral combat ship (one of them is a steel-hulled ship with an aluminum superstructure; the other is an all-aluminum trimaran design) can perform the original mission, which was “envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals.”
...
On September 8, the US Navy decommissioned the USS Milwaukee, LCS-5. The Milwaukee entered service in 2015 meaning that it was in use for only eight years. It was used primarily for intercepting drug traffickers.
The 2023 fiscal year budget calls for decommissioning nine Freedom-class LCS ships. Fourteen of the 16 completed Independence-class ships, along with the remaining Freedom class, remain in service. For how long is anyone’s guess.
Why the Navy keeps pouring money and manpower into these ships remains an open question.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
The main problem with the entire inventory of this failed experiment is that the mechanical systems were a total failure.
bkmk
The amazing part is no shipbuilder will be held accountable and no admiral will lose a star. It would be better to put the money in a pile and light it on fire.
It’s not about national defense.
It’s all about contract awards, kickbacks, and campaign contributions.
They violate all standards of damage control including a tiny crew that would be unable to do the physical work. They carry less firepower than a standard battle tank and would be in serious danger from a duel with a tank sitting on the beach. We would literally be better off with a Fletcher Class destroyer with it’s depth charges, 5” and 40mm guns and torpedoes from WWII than these things, especially for the interdiction mission.
They call it a Littoral “Combat” Ship. But what is it going to combat? Up close to the beach it could be slaughtered by an anti-tank missile or a tank. At sea? It could be defeated by everything. And it is super vulnerable to missiles.
No exaggeration, any LCS would be at the mercy of USS Ault.
Weird to see less capability than 7 decades ago.
USS Neverdock...
The propulsion system is inherently flawed.
It keeps blowing bearings in the driveshaft...
Inaccessible to replace.
Engineering failure
“Some rich cats are going to picking these ships up for song and make them into Yachts.”
they don’t work, are hideously complex, and parts for engines and transmissions that continuously fail will be impossible to find ... navy is getting rid of these pink elephants for a reason ...
“I think we waste 51% of our national defense budget and use 45% productively and 4% is stolen.”
and the rest is simply squandered ...
“Why couldn’t they give it to the Coast Guard and use it for the same purpose?”
because they don’t work, are insidiously complex, engines and transmissions fail all the time, and would cost an insane amount of money to keep running, if it was even possible to find parts ... the very reasons the navy is dumping these pink elephants ...
Why wouldn’t the coast guard want these?
Let’s just recognize U.S. military spending for what it really is: welfare for white people.
More like a jobs plan for black people.
Little Crappy Ships.
“Some rich cats are going to picking these ships up for song and make them into Yachts.”
Probably some of the same guys that got their hooks into the billions spent by the Navy. “Make it out of thin aluminum so I don’t have to spend so much on fuel after the conversion.”
Too tricked out, too complex, too expensive.
Good question.
They were still buying them when they were being decommissioned as soon as they arrived - I think I recall them announcing the plan to decommission one before it was even delivered.
Corruption by the military industrial complex at its finest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.