Posted on 05/11/2022 12:27:33 PM PDT by artichokegrower
The US Navy wants to scrap nine of 16 Littoral Combat Ships built by Lockheed Martin Corp. well short of their projected service lives in order to save a projected $4.3 billion in upgrades and maintenance over coming years.
(Excerpt) Read more at gcaptain.com ...
They tried to give them away. No one wanted them. Four have already been de-commissioned. There isn’t even much “salvage” on them because they were such a wet dream to start with.
Probably retired to gated Florida mansions with side gigs as advisers to military-industrial complex.
By all means lets increase the defense budget.
Thats sarcasm. The amount of money the DoD wastes is staggering. They should get a cut and learn to make better decisions. But of course that will never happen.
We knew that was never going to happen. The Navy argued the LCS could go “in harm’s way” in the brown water and could provide congressionally required fire support for the Marines. That obviously failed. Then the DDGX program failed. Then the extended range guided munition which also was supposed to fulfill the fire support requirement also turned into another boondoggle. Meanwhile Congress approved the striking of the Iowas.
The Navy started a real Frigate program and should cut their losses with these ships. Not Strike Group assets and way to expensive as mine sweepers.
It truly is amazing. This is at least 20 years of utter failure by the DON. I remember reading about DDG-21 and the LCS program many, many years ago. I even wrote a letter to the editor of Surface Warfare Magazine, which was published, expressing my opinion on how dumb this was.
“Weren‘t these supposed to be the ships to replace the Iowa Class?”
Bahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
Oh my, that was funny! (-:
Like communism, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Drones and missiles make any offensive close shore support suicidal now. And they don’t have the strike capability for defensive shore support. And then there’s the general mucking up the MIC does to any weapons system. They could have made the ships out of compressed money, and they would have cost less.
The DDG-1000 hull will likely be the new Large Surface Combatant (CG-47/DDG-51 replacement). The Navy’s current plan is to remove the large gun and outfit the existing ships with Hypersonic weapons as well as Standard missiles in Vertical Launch System. But your right..a cluster
Someone someplace in the USA could fix this and sell them back to the USA. Offer a billion dollar buy back clause and someone will figure it out.
We are SENDING A MESSAGE to Russia and China, which is that we no longer need navel ships, since we now have the UN on our side.
Saves Russia the trouble of wasting hypersonics on them.
Ship I served. The new ones are ugly
I watched a documentary on the battle in the Pacific during WWII.
They used a lot of naval gunfire during the amphibious operations.
Can the Navy still do that?
The Marines are giving up their tanks.
I read that they are thinking about giving up their artillery.
Is this smart?
What about the LCS ships made by General Dynamics?
Very wealthy retired admirals sitting on the board of Lockheed.
You’d have thought the Navy would have learned their lesson about “no gun” platforms with the F4-D. If It’s DD size or larger it needs at least one automatic 128mm or larger gun. Quick inyo action and versatile counts go a lot missle can be quick and accurate but cannot replace a good gun.
Absolutely.
The Navy spent $5 billion in taxpayer money for the ships and are looking at $4.3 billion in upgrades and maintenance.
The ships were meant to carry anti-submarine warfare equipment from Raytheon that failed in development and that plan was abandoned.
The ships were "hobbled by a latent propulsion system gear defect caused by a subcontractor that requires replacement".
Boat: A hole in the water that one throws money into.
The two happiest days in a boat owner's life are the day they bought the boat and the day they sell it.
These ships are very big holes for throwing money into and we, the taxpayers, would be happy to get rid of them.
Because we only built 3 DDG-1000s instead of the originally 32 planned..,the 8 inch gun rounds where $800k apiece…Navy choose not to pay that and this year replace the guns with hypersonic missiles….the DDG-1000 has small guns for self defense
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