The Need for Speed Remains Unclear

8th

The Need for Speed Remains Unclear

September 2009

080728-O-XXXXX-001 The September 2009 issue of Proceedings is topic centric to Naval Aviation, and there are several naval aviation articles in the issue that are very good. However, I want to discuss the subscription only LCS article written by Milan Vego included in this months issue. It covers a number of LCS issues from history to current situation with module challenges ahead, but as the title hints (the topic of the article is No Need for High Speed), the LCS speed issue is addressed squarely.

High speed for a surface combatant generally incurs much higher construction costs, power requirements, fuel consumption, and maintenance; and decreased range, payload, and stealth. Yet the Navy’s specifications required the LCS to achieve a full speed of 47 to 50 knots. Normally, the high-speed requirement is based on the ship’s size, primary missions, and prospective operating environment…

Because of the speed requirement, the useful space for weapons and sensors is only about 400 tons. After deducting the needs for fuel, ammunition, crew, and stores, some 180 tons of payload remain for the mission packages.

This article is nearly 2400 words, so I am not attempting to capture the greater quality present in the article, rather examine options available for the LCS the designs.

Bob Work released a report for CSBA (PDF) during the Presidential transition period that emphasized the Littoral Combat Ship from a point of view of innovation, suggesting block purchases be used to develop the design from the current starting position. Frank Hoffman released a report for CNAS (PDF) during the same Presidential transition period that also highlighted the need for innovations in littoral warfare. This isn’t trivial, Bob Work is Undersecretary of the Navy now, and Frank Hoffman is now working out of Bob Works office. That would suggest the civilian side of the Navy is looking at the two initial LCS designs as a starting place, not a conclusion.

Milan Vego’s article stresses that the high costs of the initial LCS hulls are a result of the emphasis on speed in the design of both ships; and he also suggests that emphasis directly influences design decisions that impact power requirements, fuel consumption, maintenance, endurance, and payload. Everything from the materials used to the specific detail design is influenced by the speed requirement, so if the LCS requirement for speed is reduced, my first question would be how much redesign is even possible? What would the LCS trade speed for?

Assuming the hull forms do not change significantly, the size and available space of the ships are unlikely to change. That means speed would be traded for either endurance or weight, perhaps a little of both. Maximum speed, cruising speed, and endurance are all factors primarily determined by the diesel and turbine engines, which raises the question whether change would require a redesign of the power plants. Could hull design changes, absent large scale power plant adjustments, significantly influence cruising speed on diesels? Absent the speed requirement, would there be significant cost reductions in LCS construction? I am unsure; I tend to think the costs will simply be spread around and savings will be minimal, but smart shipbuilders have suggested to me in the past that significant costs could be saved per hull by simply dropping the speed requirement.

If Milan Vego is right regarding the costs of speed, how does the Navy justify the increased costs? The Navy has a responsibility to the taxpayer to be a good steward of money spent for the fleet. How much of the LCS construction cost is a result of speed? 1/3? 1/4? 1/5? What about operational costs? What do logistics models look like with a cruising range of 4000nm? What about 6000nm? The Coast Guards Bertholf class has a 12,000nm range. What compelling warfighting argument suggests very high speed is ‘worth’ the investment?

The DDG-1000 was truncated for reasons of costs, likely in part due to the stealth design requirement in particular which increased the cost of existing large surface combatants by around 25%, because stealth required a much larger hull. I do wonder if the LCS cost is 25% higher because of the speed requirement. Both ships were over budget by several hundred million dollars, how much of the cost increase is a result of design considerations that must factor the speed requirement?

25% seems like a high estimate, but very smart people have suggested it may in fact be very close to the truth. Why would that extra cost for speed be excused? In the LCS program, the speed requirement could potentially be increasing the program costs by more than $7.5 billion over 55 hulls, and the operational cost increases as a result of the speed requirement won’t be insignificant.

Posted by galrahn in Uncategorized

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Chap

Bill–what you’re saying is what I’m hearing from several folks who should know; I don’t have the data myself. I would note that over the life of a surface ship class the ships tend to get heavier and specifically more top heavy and if I were designing a first-of-class I’d try to err on the side of accommodating that future growth.
Bill

@Chap: I was sneaking up on that factor with my remark about the difficulties inherent in increasing the capacity of an already overweight vessel. Revist Cyclones, USCG WSES and many foreign advanced ship and craft to see that amply illustrated. Few navies (or commercial operators, for that matter) have the..what I would call ‘discipline’ to mange the life cycle of advanced ship types; said management requireing a rigorous control and prevention of any weight growth at all. Not a popular concept for your average ship, is it?

The successful Norwegian navy design/build of advanced ship types are an exception that few can – or even want to -duplicate. The service life growth allowance for the ‘Skjold’ class 60-knot MTBs is offically ‘zero’..but in practical terms as much as 7%. 7 percent.. *chuckle* heck, ..the LCS-1 total weight grew 40% during the contract design cycle alone..then add in what various folks think is currently ‘missing’..and…
http://www.informationdissemination.net/ Galrahn

Bill,

Isn’t that the point though? Speed adds considerable pressure to design parameters, particularly weight. If the speed requirement gets lifted, the design becomes more flexible for meeting requirements.

Your comments over time haven’t been ignored, they are why I see speed as the big question mark of the entire program.
Bill

G. We are converging in a roundabout way on similar conclusions. I apprach the design of anything like the LCS with a determined focus on the objective sped requirements and a knowledge of how to meet those requirements. You and others are approaching it differently; why the speed requirement in the first place?

But you probably understand why, as the designer of such vessels by trade, I do not ask that question. I assume those who have commissioned my services to design a fast ship or craft knew well why they needed the speed. I always read with great interest the posts that you and many others put forth that challenge those assumptions and requirements.

In the parallel world of fast ferries, something roughly similar occured..but occured due to natural forces. During the heady days of the 80s and early 90s, it was all about how fast any ferry could be designed to go. Economic and operational reality bit hard for most operators and the building boom was over a little over a decade after it began. But I’m not sure that represents an analogy either..since naval requirements are driven by different factors entirely..right?
Scott B.

Galrahn said : “Know your history, Pensacola and Salt Lake City didn’t have enough armor or firepower to compete;”

Below are the broadside weight for the first cruisers designed to the limits set by the WNT :

1. Pensacola (US, 1st of class launched 1929) : 2,600 lb
2. Myoko (Japan, 1st of class launched 1927) : 2,425 lb
3. Duquesne (France, 1st of class launched 1925) : 2,360 lb
4. Trento (Italy, 1st of class launched 1926) : 2,210 lb
5. County (UK, 1st of class launched 1926) : 2,048 lb

The Myokos were later upgraded with more powerful guns (3rd year Type 2 replacing 3rd year Type 1), giving them a broadside weight of 2,774 lb.
Scott B.

Chap said : “I would note that over the life of a surface ship class the ships tend to get heavier and specifically more top heavy and if I were designing a first-of-class I’d try to err on the side of accommodating that future growth.”

The defunct DK Brown, in his Future British Surface Fleet, provides some interesting insights on ship’s growth over service life (pp. 106-108).

He noted that experience shows that growth in service is about 0.5 percent of the displacement per year, meaning about 15 percent of the displacement over a service life of 30 years.

LCS-1 was completed 190 tons overweight, i.e. over 6% of her target full load displacement.

Leaving aside the consequences of such overweight on survivability, what that means is that the LCS-1 probably doesn’t have any growth margins at all.
Bill

“LCS-1 was completed 190 tons overweight, i.e. over 6% of her target full load displacement.”

No..it most certainly was not. IF it was ‘only’ that much overweight, most of this discussion would not be happening.

2225 metric tons full load and 1550 operational light ship..that is the original LCS-1 baseline on which everything related to speed was based and is what the modified Destriero hullform would probably have supported very well, given DLB’s superb track record. That is certainly not where it is and is one heck of a lot more than 190 tons less than where it is.

You simply cannot do that to a semi-planing ship. And how on earth do you fix it?
Byron

But it’s got all that space in the missions bay!!!! Big empty space!!!!
Scott B.

Bill said : “You simply cannot do that to a semi-planing ship. And how on earth do you fix it?”

You cannot.
Scott B.

Ken Adams said : “Sounds to me like LCS may actually be small for the capability she can deliver.”

The reason why the 400 tons may look *good* (assuming 400 tons is the correct figure) for a 3,000+ tons (war)ship is largely due to the very austere weapons & sensors suite of the LCS seaframe.

Once you factor something decent in terms of organic weapons & sensors, the big picture is different.

For instance, here are the payloads for the 2,000-ton small combatant described in the 2004 NATO SLC study :

Electronics : 88 tons
Weapons : 75 tons
Aviation (incl. JP-5) : 73 tons
Ammunitions : 68 tons
Fuel : 230 tons

TOTAL : 534 tons

Full load displacement : 2,466 tons

Of course, the 2,000-ton SLC was supposed to have a trial speed of *only* 32 knots, meaning a propulsive power of 35,500 kW.

Contrast that with 45+ knots and 84,800 kW, and you’ll understand where the difference in payload might come from.

Bottom line : there’s no free lunch !!!
http://smadanek.blogspot.com Ken Adams, Amphib Sailor

Bill, you and Scott B. are obviously working from different baselines. Does your baseline predate the change from aluminum to steel hull? Scott, are you talking about growth after final design, or from AWE? And are there any sources of this data available in the public domain?
Scott B.

Bill said : “No..it most certainly was not. IF it was ‘only’ that much overweight, most of this discussion would not be happening.”

You’re right, the LCS-1 design experienced some frantic growth in displacement over the years.

For instance, in a brief he made back in August 2004, RDML Ray Spicer stated a full load displacement of 2,839 tons for LCS-1.

In a January 2009 article, CAPT Jim Murdoch (LCS program manager) declared :

“At full load we want to be at roughly 3,140 tons displacement with fuel and the mission package on board,”

The 190 tons overweight comes on top of the 3,140 tons, meaning a *hypothetical* full load displacement of 3,330 tons for LCS-1 as it currently stands.

At some point, they went through the roof displacement-wise with LCS-1, and just decided that they could do even better and started to aim at the moon !!!

Bottom line is a design that will most likely end up at the bottom whenever something not-that-big hits the fan !!!
Scott B.

Ken Adams said : “And are there any sources of this data available in the public domain?”

There’s a link for the January 2009 article from Defense News in the previous.

RDML(S) Ray Spicer (Deputy of Surface Ships) made his aforementioned brief at the Surface Navy Association Luncheon on 10 August 2004. This presentation is unclassified, but I’m not sure where you can find a copy of it.
Scott B.

Galrahn said : “Absent the speed requirement, would there be significant cost reductions in LCS construction?”

Let’s clarify once thing once for all : the requirement for high sprint speed is sort of *genetically* inscribed in the LCS-1 design.

In other words, derating this requirement for the LCS-1 design won’t produce significant cost reductions.

The real question is whether a (war)ship that will occasionally make 45 knots or so and structurally suffer numerous operational limitations is worth the current $700+ million.

Seeing how the LCS proponents have failed to produce any meaningful justification for the high sprint speed requirement, whereas the analytical framework has been in place since the 1970s, I don’t see how the answer to THE question could even be the shy *maybe* we’ve been offered for some time now.
Scott B.

Galrahn said : “Show me where a 3000 ton ship is going to be mission capable after taking a direct hit from a modern weapon system.”

You’re confusing two distinct notions : the ability to survive damage on the one hand, and the ability to fight hurt on the other hand.

A design that doesn’t meet Navy stability requirements for the damaged ship condition (which is what the inclined experiment performed during acceptance trials of LCS-1 apparently show) is more likely to capsize when damaged.

Whether a design that may be less prone to capsizing (i.e. a design that meets Navy stability requirements) will be able to remain battleworthy after sustaining combat damage is an entirely different subject.
Scott B.

URR said : “The 23mm cannon, 14.5 and 12.7mm HMGs, RPGs, mortars, etc., are many decades old, some dating back to WWII. They are plentiful, and widely and effectively employed worldwide. Those weapons, ones we are certain to see, will chop up such a fragile design.”

One of the sensitivity analysis presented in the 2004 NATO SLC study is about how much it would cost (in terms of displacement and $$$) to include a *comprehensive ballistic protection* in the 2,000-ton surface combatant design.

The so-called *comprehensive ballistic protection* was meant to address the threats you’ve listed, i.e. :

1) 23mm armor piercing rounds fired at a stand-off range of 500m and impacting at an obliquity angle of 90 degrees.

2) Reinforcing transverse W.T. bulkheads to withstand a 250kg high-explosive warhead at a standoff range of 5 meters.

3) Protection of topside magazines against penetration by RPG-7 type shaped charge warheads.

4) Provision of port and starboard longitudinal protective trunks for vital fore-and-aft distributed systems.

The impacts of adding this protection were a 7.9% increase in light ship displacement (2,120 tons vs 1,965 tons for the baseline) and a 7.8% increase in normalized acquisition cost.

At this stage, you could ask a couple of question :

1) How can you add 155 tons of ballistic protection in a design that is already 190 tons overweight ? (without further compromising stability requirements for the damaged condition that is).

2) Where is the additional funding for this kind of *comprehensive ballistic protection*, i.e. about $3 billion for 55 (war)ships, going to come from ?
Byron

Seems like a pretty thorough answer, Galrahn.

And of course, we never did get to that pesky manned DC section did we…
Bill

@Ken “Bill, you and Scott B. are obviously working from different baselines. Does your baseline predate the change from aluminum to steel hull?”

No indeed. Those are the contractual baseline numbers at time of the award for detailed design and construction. Everything was set in stone at that point..supposedly.

A Scandinavian smack-down for US builders and their Navy oversight:

1993 Skjold Concept design FLD: 260 metric tons

1995 Skjold Contract Design Baseline FLD: 260 metric tons

1997 Detailed Design and Construction FLD: 260 metric tons

1999 Skjold Prototype Trial Condition FLD: 260 mt

2005 Skjold Series Production FLD: 260 mt

THAT is how a succesful advanced high-speed naval ship program progresses. Just saying…
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com CDR Salamander

Chap and Bill speak with Big Medicine.

Scott B. uses big slide-rule.
Bill

A caveat about the early 2004 numbers..ABS HSNC rules are called out and strengthened in many areas by superseding MIL specs for shock, vibration, EMC and other environmental factors. The impact of the ABS NVR, when later injected is oft argued, especially with regard to cost imact, but I’ve seen no real numbers on how big the impact really was on weight. I’m skeptical that invoking the NVR was the real driver for all that weight growth.

That said, the ABS HSNC rules as augmented by the various MIL callouts resulted in a package of requirements that, to me, seemed prety much in line with what we built other naval platforms to..like the Skjold, for example. Of course there we were building to DnV and STANAG…but the similarities between those and ABS are hardly accidental.
Scott B.

Bill said : “A Scandinavian smack-down for US builders and their Navy oversight:”

To inject some more infos on the Norwegian Skjolds :

Light Ship : 200 tons

Fuel / Fluids : 35-40 tons

Payload : 30-35 tons

Fully Loaded : 270 tons

Operated during OPEVAL at 300 tons in all range of sea states.
Bill

@Scott: Where did that OPEVAL displacement number of 300 tons come from? At the time she carried a lot of ballast (mostly sand bags I believe..and I helped carry ‘em on board. I was younger then ) to match the weight of missing wepaons systems (gun and missiles) but that was only to bring her up to design FLD. As the design lead, I’m really scratching my head trying figure out how one could even stuff another 40 tons on the craft..where, how and ..what for?

Sorry for LCS thread digression.
Scott B.

Bill said : “Where did that OPEVAL displacement number of 300 tons come from?”

See this presentation, last sentence at the bottom page 9.
sid

Isn’t that the point though? Speed adds considerable pressure to design parameters, particularly weight. If the speed requirement gets lifted, the design becomes more flexible for meeting requirements.

Then there is no point in sticking with the two hull designs, which make sense ONLY because of they are optimized for the very high speed.

And this is why your Pensacola analogy is completely vaporous…Malodorous in fact.

Where are the follow on improved designs?

Oh.

There are none.
sid

Sid, you are right, the Fletchers were amazingly tough and packed a hell of a punch with 5x 5-inch guns. I’d love to have a few hundred back in the fleet. I wonder what it would cost to dust off the prints and build them today.

No need for 70 year old designs into today’s fleet Ken. Nobody is seriously suggesting it needs to happen.

Point is that that ships -at 2100 tons and 36 knots- were built with multiple redundancies that enabled them to carry on the fight.

This won’t happen on the already overweight, but too lightly built anyway, LCS’s of today.

No room and no money after paying for all that needless speed.

Adding in, of course:
– those pesky habitability requirements
– collective CBR protection
– CHT systems
– plastic disposal and storage rooms
– carbon footprint reduction for those nasty black-oil boilers
– diversity training spaces
– etc. ad nauseam.

Well, from a navy that describes their WARships (glad to see that you are no longer trying to claim they are anything but G) as “nice rides”, the relative priorities are telling.

But going back to the Fletcher analogy for a minute. Those items might have cost a main gun mount or two…And lets not forget that those ships were 1000 tons lighter than today’s LCS’s.

Indeed, those ships did lose main mounts and torpedo tubes as they gained girth over their lives.

The LCSs have yet to be fitted with their main battery and they already have weight problems.

So much for that vaunted “flexibility”.
Scott B.

Re: no CBR protection on LCS-3 ?

Below are comments made by RhodeIslander over at Information Dissemination last week.

Any more infos on the subject out there ?

—————————————————————–
NAVSEA/PMS500 are still making errors:

LCS-3 is presently being built at the Italian shipyard up in North Wisconsin. Will this “warship” be able to operate near terrorists who might shoot at them with a rocket containing Chem or Bio agents ? NAVSEA / PMS-500 has decided to omit not one, but BOTH of the DECON stations designed into this class. Also, LCS-3 won’t have to be built with the pressurized air citadel CPS protection system. Gee whiz, even the US Coast Guard is constructing their large new cutters with these features ! So, perhaps our country will send the new 98% steel cutters to protect the 40% aluminum LCS-1 class whenever they operate near cowards and terrorists ?
RhodeIslander | 09.04.09 – 6:07 pm |

—————————————————————–
LCS-1 Tours:

I’ve had several, both inport and during test team inspections. Tour guides readily show you how LCS-1 was designed for 2 DECON STATIONS. One aft accessed thru area in the fwd part of the helo hanger, and one station forward accessed from the forecastle. To save weight, the forward DECON was converted into a Paint storage locker, etc. and some handrails were added so that crew members contaminated while working near the bow, would simply climb up the sloped superstructure, crawl across the top of the ship past many antennas, decend a few vertical ladders, and then enter the helo hanger, proceed forward past the helo’s and enter the aft DECON station. As for the pressurized CPS citadel, LCS-1 does, indeed, have it installed, and it is adjusted and working well. I guess LCS-3 (and beyond ?) just won’t need these warship features that are being installed onboard the new large USCG Cutters.
RhodeIslander | 09.05.09 – 12:34 am |

—————————————————————–
sid

Lou Coatney:
Speed is a primary need in any kind of combat operation, and what LCSs end up doing most effectively may only be realized once the curtain opens – God forbid.

In all the historical examples you cite, no ships flitting about at 50 knots.

In fact, if you go back and look Lou, you will find that the speeds rarely reached into the 30′s.

As brought up in the article, the speed differential between a 35 knot ship, and a 50 knot one will mean very little in tewrms of tactical advantage.

Certainly it is not worth all the costs.

Don’t have time to find it now, as its not online, but the Proceedings ran an article a few years ago which illustrated that high design speed is very rarely needed or used historically.

Of course, the LCS was all about ignoring history from the very beginning.

It was to be Transformational….
sid

Of course, another survivability question is whether armor or flotation is more important – and how they interface with speed.

And Survivability -in this context “Vulnerability Reduction” and “Recoverability”- is NOT synonymous with tons of armor.

Its about compartmentalization, redundancy and separation of critical components such as electrical and interior communication systems, sufficient crew aboard to absorb losses and repair damage, and rational tactical and operational doctrine…
Byron

No one has talked about how the “modules” (or as I call it, Lego-shipbuilding blocks) will interact with the weight and stability issues. I heard the NLOS launcher will mount on top of the deckhouse…above the metacenter, and aft of it. I know that there are several different foundations for Firescout, several of which go on top of the superstructure, and not including the bits and pieces which have to be as high as possible (no, I ain’t saying). Without all these “bits and pieces”, you aren’t going to fly Firescout.
sid

Assumptions by outsiders regarding speed and weight alone accounts for the entire supporting evidence that the LCS cannot be evolved over time.

Galrahn, perhaps if you had spent some more time going to sea and actually around ships, it would be immediately obvious to you as well.

It doesn’t take any “inside” knowledge to see this.

Once you come off the speed requirement, then there is no need for the two exotic hull designs built -as Hamilton put it- with “alternative and lighter materials.”

Thats where you will find the savings…And increased combat effectiveness.
http://www.checkswithchart.com Fast Nav

Interesting discussion…here’s a thought for you.

When LCS-1 came out, there was tons of media coverage on how it performed, etc. I’ve heard nothing about LCS-2 since it’s first U/W and return to port for broken things. I wonder why….

and I’m tired of seeing this..
“The DDG-1000 was truncated for reasons of costs, likely in part due to the stealth design requirement in particular which increased the cost of existing large surface combatants by around 25%, because stealth required a much larger hull.”

Nowhere has the Navy stated the program was truncated for costs. It was truncated for lack of need in light of emerging threats.
Bill

“When LCS-1 came out, there was tons of media coverage on how it performed, etc. I’ve heard nothing about LCS-2 since it’s first U/W and return to port for broken things. I wonder why….”

Springboard posted exactly that question recently on his blog in an “Open Letter to Austal”. Not sure if they ever got back to him on that.
Byron

You know, I bet there’s a long list of names at the various NG and LM yards that say, “shoot on sight!”.

I only hope my name is near the top…
Bill

Mine will be right below yours, I’m sure. I have no sympathy and only disdain for those that create or enable failures like this. Every such failure is later pointed to by skeptics (within Navy and outside) as a reason why advanced ship concepts ‘don’t work’, should not be considered, and that designers of them (like me) are only quacks at worst, blind platform advocates at best, to be best ignored. And then there is the ‘got some on me’ factor that makes those on the Navy procurement and technical management side reluctant to touch anything ever again that even looks like a risky build…and remain reluctant until they retire. The damage created by a failed or botched program is far more extensive and endemic than some folks realize..espeically, it seems to me, when it comes to advanced ship types.

It took FOREVER to ‘flush’ the effects of the Cardinal MSH debacle out of the system, as just one of those historical examples I could point to. And it should not have ever happened that way. But here we go again.
sid

Galrahn:
We have all seen the LCS-I version, heard of the Saudi LCS version proposal, and have even seen the brochures for multi-mission versions of both hulls. The Navy has consistently stated the ship design is very flexible.

All we have “seen” are some fanciful artists’ renderings and cool table models.

So much for “inside” information….
http://xbradtc.wordpress.com XBradTC

If you took away the 50kt requirement, you’d dump BOTH hull forms and go with a fairly conventional hull. You’d also end up with a different engineering plant as well. And for damn sure, it would be a smaller platform to mount the same systems. And it would almost certainly cost a lot less. And you’d be able to use more conventional construction techniques and materials.

In fact, I’d like to see what a 35kt ship with the same combat systems would look like. I could almost get behind an LCS program like that.
Michael

Semi-random questions in my head:

What could LCSs do for special forces insertion and extraction that the assortment of boats and submarines they already have at their disposal (Virginia class comes to mind) cannot?

To what extent can the hulls already in the water be modified for lower speed and higher survivability? Beyond that, would it be cheaper over the long run to replace them now or to hand them over to volunteer crews and pray?

How on earth can there be a “tradition” of naming LCSs after cities when half of them are named after concepts?!
Byron

They’re not named after concepts, they’re named after talking points and brand names…least ways, that’s the way the fine people in the five sided wind tunnel think.

And when I say, “fine people”, I don’t really mean it, I’m just being polite.
UltimaRatioReg

But Byron, they ARE fine people. That is the damnable, head-scratching mystery to it all.

What in the wide world of sports would otherwise make someone like Admiral Hamilton, an obviously distinguished Naval Officer who cannot be lacking in knowledge or intelligence, utter the following:

“And what we’ve chosen to do here is couple high speed and maneuverability and situational awareness in ways that allow LCS to be in the right place at the right time and to be out of the right place at the wrong time. Okay?”

No, Admiral. Not “okay”. In fact, such a concept does not even pass the rudimentary smell test. As I said above, it is foolishly naive, dangerous, and silly. How a Flag Officer could think such a concept could not be quickly and easily defeated by an adaptive enemy is beyond me. Was he told to believe and uttered “three bags full” while saluting smartly? Or does he somehow really believe that?
Byron

I said, “fine people”, and and I meant it.
sid

URR, Hamilton got canned some years back…The current head of NAVSEA -Landay- was in that interview as well (or the now removed piece made it look that way on the NAVSEA website).

Beyond that, would it be cheaper over the long run to replace them now or to hand them over to volunteer crews and pray?

This is where Galrahn’s Pensacola analogy fall in the ditch.

First off the design elements of the heavy cruisers were part of a carefully considered, integrated fleet plan.

The LCS, as Ronald O’Rourke pointed out, was the product of an ‘analytical virgin birth.’

Now, “insiders” can dissemble all they want, but the fact of the matter is, the LCS and its ballyhooed speed were never considered in the same context as the CA’s were in the early 1920′s.

Now, the looming burdens of that silly speed “requirement” are becoming obvious.

Without it, the hull types make no sense. You don’t need a semi-planing hull, or the world’s biggest aluminum ship to go 36 knots.
Cap’n Bill

If this group of reeasonable and generally sympathetic experts can’t/won’t advcance a way out for USN—even one on the edges of being reasonable— the situation is more dire than I had thought. So far I have not detected even a scant suggestion of what might be done about this obviously failed major program. Think for a moment about how “lost” the staffs of Big Navy must be as they try to reconcile the financial facts of life with the emerging clear operational facts of life of the LCS.
Surface Navy has screwed itself bigtime.

Woe is me.
Byron

Kill LCS. Use money for ONE new build to fund SLEP for selected FFGs to keep the numbers up, and more importantly, keep sailors trained for the future fleet.

Then tell the big mil-corp yards thanks but no thanks, we’re going to license-build a Euro-frigate of some sort, meld the technology that’s useable from the LCS and get a real warship to sea in -5 years. It’s doable, if you keep the meddling fingers wanting to design an elephant by committee in the dark and under a blanket.
Grandpa Bluewater

Balzan, anyone?
Bill

From Sid: “Without it, the hull types make no sense. You don’t need a semi-planing hull, or the world’s biggest aluminum ship to go 36 knots.”

….as clearly evidenced in Fincantieri’s portfolio of 35-40 knot monohull designs, which they can and do routinely ‘adapt’ for ferry, yacht and naval platforms. Some are significantly larger than the current LCS. Its really not that haaaard….

But…there is still the Navy’s discipline issue to deal with; the self-restraint required to avoid piling on any new ship design that does not have unlimited weight growth potential.
Grandpa Bluewater

Beg pardon, Bazan class, or Nansen class, or Australian AAW destroyer.
leesea

Byron I know that the big corporate overseers of US shipyards continualy prevent designs from outside their portfolios being introduced into the subjugate shipyards. That plus the totally ignorant congressional types who ONLY want US work in US yards in their backyards WILL forever stifle innovation at major US shipyards. It was interesting to see that Marinette Marine now owned by Fincantieri split from their overeer LM. Hopefully something good will come from the new arrangement unlike what their LCS is?

Go read many of Tim Colton’s comments and more importantly look at his shipbuilding contracts database and you will see the decline is inevitable.

Another factor is the screwed up acquistion plans. LCS is the worst case example. Why not demand that NDI and COTS rules apply to a new and/or foreign ship design being introduced by a US shipyard? Or is NAVSEA and the Pentagon too beholding to the big corporate overseers?
sid

Or is NAVSEA and the Pentagon too beholding to the big corporate overseers?

Anyone who signs their name to an acquisition document which puts taxpayer $$$$ towards these last few standing entities should be barred from working for them for -say- a five year period.

Whats the retired pay for O-7 and up these days?
Chuck

I would agree with “SLEP the Figs” and I’d buy the T-shirt, but what’s this from the Navy about their hulls all being like tissue paper from the rust and they’re decrepit and blah blah blah?

Byron, are they decrepit in your experience?

The Need for Speed Remains Unclear

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