Lots of traffic over at Salamander’s Place, and at POGO, regarding continued problems with the Littoral Combat Ship program. I have commented on this struggling and costly program several times, and will refrain from doing so here, with the exception of a paraphrase of a comment that Sid made at Sal’s:

The Littoral Combat Ship is not built to survive combat in the littorals.

LCS was constructed to house weapons “modules” that do not exist, and in fact, consist largely of the theoretical.

Speed was going to be the capability which allowed LCS to avoid trouble. And now that single capability is negated by the fragility of the design that was required to reach those speeds.

Summed up thus:

IT (IS A) COMBAT SEAFRAME THAT CANNOT PERFORM ITS MISSION IN COMBAT THAT IT CANNOT BE EMPLOYED IN while RELYING ON SPEED THAT IT CANNOT MAKE, (THAT) WILL COMPRISE THE MAJORITY OF THE SURFACE COMBATANT FLEET OF THE US NAVY… 

Someone, ANYONE, with a wide stripe on a sleeve tell us that he is wrong. And WHY he is wrong.