The question is often asked, “Why keep beating up on LCS and all its problems? We get it, move on.”
Well, why would we want to do that when we seem to be unremembering how we got in the place we are today with this misbegotten class of large corvettes?
The GAO has been a firm, steady hand pointing out the bespoke issues deriving from the transformational CONOPS that were risk-layer upon risk-layer slathered over LCS. The latest example is one of the transformational ideas that LCS was to gift us so much bother – along with the manning and mission-module CONOPS – and that is the maintenance CONOPS.
Let’s let the GAO via Geoff Ziezulewicz give us an update:
…the Navy’s littoral combat ships were billed as agile, efficient vessels capable of taking on a variety of missions.
Part of that efficiency involved small crews,
Yes, the handmaiden of the Cult of Transformationalism – the Cult of Efficiency.
… which in turn required heavy reliance on contractors for even routine maintenance.
But such choices have led the embattled class to encounter maintenance challenges not seen elsewhere in the fleet …
…
GAO investigators found that the Navy doesn’t even know how to repair many commercial systems onboard LCS and is starting to pay the manufacturers of such systems for the required data to troubleshoot and fix issues on the ships.
…
…contractors will still have to be flown overseas to perform routine maintenance, resulting in travel costs billed to the government that range from a few thousand dollars to more than $1 million, …
Good news, well over a decade later after the warnings a half-decade earlier were ignored, we now have a CNO admitting we’ve made a grave error.
“So, if you snap the chalk line today, the costs are pretty high, especially compared to a [guided-missile destroyer] DDG,” Gilday said. “But what we’re trying to do is move from a contractor-centric maintenance model to a sailor-centric maintenance model, or a Navy-centric maintenance model.”
However, good people in hard jobs will still have to dance with the date their Navy told them to go to the dance with;
“A majority of this unplanned work occurred because the Navy did not fully understand the ship’s condition before starting maintenance,” GAO wrote, adding that the Navy is beginning to systemically collect maintenance data to more accurately plan for such work.
…
“A senior Navy maintenance official stated that the amount of growth work for LCS is ‘unbelievable,’” the report states.In its analysis of 18 LCS delivery orders — 16 of which were for minor or routine maintenance — GAO found that there were 651 contract change requests for growth work, and that 52 percent of those requests involved work that emerged only after the ship was in the availability.
How many more seabags of money and buckets of Sailor sweat do we need to fix this … or lawyers?
GAO reported in March 2020 that, because the LCS program planned to use contracted maintenance, the Navy never purchased the technical documentation necessary to maintain ship systems.
“This limited access to information is in contrast with other ship classes that have systems that provide the Navy greater access to technical data to inform maintenance tasks,” the report states.
Original manufacturers have also placed markings on data that obscure “key information,” and the Navy “has had to work with its legal team to remove these markings and to obtain needed rights to the information.”
In the end, we need to keep the problems and mistakes of LCS top of mind for this one reason if no other: to help future program leaders remember not to repeat them.
It would also be helpful if those in charge back when this program was set – individuals that continue to show up on panels, board of directors, advisory groups, etc – would be asked questions about why they felt they could ignore the warnings about the unrealistic manning, maintenance and mission module CONOPS. If they say they didn’t hear what the rest of us heard at the time, then they should be asked why that had such a command climate that they never heard about them?
As we face a strong and rising Chinese navy – behold the opportunity cost weighing down our fleet today.
What have we learned?
