LCS is Back, Baby!
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- Опубліковано 15 сер 2022
- Littoral Combat Ship (LCS); In a shocking announcement, the U.S. Navy plans to work with Lockheed to fix the combining gear problem on the Freedom-class LCS ships that were scheduled to be decommissioning next year.
#lcs #lockheedmartin #fix
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Congress is famous for "falling" for the sunk cost fallacy. Don't want to be seen as "wasting" all that money on something that doesn't work, so keep pumping money into it. It'll work. Eventually. Not sure how much experience Aaron has with LM. I have direct experience with the C-130J and supported F-35. They have no problem delivery something that does not meet the spec and then asking for more money to make it meet spec. Even if they have to get the spec changed to their failure and reissued to the original to get a new contract. There may be some great people there, but Corporate culture-wise, they are evil. I don't use that word lightly. There are seriously bad people running the company.
Zumwalt comes to mind when thinking of "sunk cost". Unfortunate that they met their maximum budget and we're canned after so few units.
F35 has been showing that sometimes it turns out very well...
As soon as congress even mentions the possibility of not spending the money, a regular group of politicians, lobbyists and certain news networks go into maximum overdrive crying about how congress doesn’t respect the defence force and numerous other repeated claims. So they get pressured back into spending that money. It’s a no win situation when influential politicians and media are paid off by defence contractors to mislead the public into believing this money is well spent.
@@nehrigen yes. Finally. But it was close to a decade late and how many billions over budget? The USMC declared IOC, and I think all they had was 1000lbs JDAM and AMRAAM. It is successful, but it was a near run thing.
The f-35 was NEVER like the LCS’s, all it’s issues were fixed after 2010 reforms to the program and it has always been the best fighter at BVR and is only beaten in dogfights by the f-22,
People who moan about the f-35 being to expensive and useless don’t have a leg to stand on, t achieved a 28:1 kill ratio at red flag FFS
Absolutely insane that outside contractors are the only ones who can do routine service and repair on certain components.
Probably about the Only ones who said "YAy! WOOT!" when they read this headline.
this isn't uncommon, same thing is happening in the Air Force with the KC-46..
sounds pretty sweet if you're a contractor :D
Dirty contractor for LIFE!
Yes. Poor fund management for sure.
The Navy needs to hire Louis Rossman to fix the OEM only repair problems.
Louis the great...... The right to repair King.
lol you're not wrong
Bet he can keep all the data they said was lost, and resolve problems with the switch out mission bays.
Johnson 😜
I
It's called pork barrel project
LCS Captain: Give em hell, send everything!
One minute later...
LCS Captain: well that was lame.
His brother that is a DDG capt: Lol, loser!
It’s magazine is its readied storage of ammo, it definitely has more rounds stored within the ship however it would take time to transfer that ammo between the the ship armory and the various magazines, essentially performing the naval equivalent of reloading a rifle, soldier carries more than one mag but it takes time to reload another mag
One of my big complaints on this ship and others of a similar size is this lack of armaments. That big gun is nice, those 30mm guns are nice, even the 50’s are nice. And if it was all working perfectly and the most it was doing was anti piracy or costal patrols near a friendly coastline, it’d be fine (if the engines worked correctly). But they were designed for shallow semi-contested waterways like the Gulf of Arabia, where Iran has hundreds of anti-ship shore batteries along the coastline that can reach nearly completely across the entire Gulf. So just one CIWS sounds pretty crappy to me. Hellfire missiles are a good system, but anything within its range is also within the range of the 57mm Bofors for far less expensive. The NSM system would be a really good thing to have. Overall, it just needed (IMO) to effectively double the armament and in that sense it’d be fine. That engine issue though….
Yeah, what do you know, it's just a 3500 ton ship and not the freaking Bismark ! What a surprise !
Nope, it’s not a poor excuse for a u-boat. But it’s also a poor excuse for a coastal patrol boat that can’t defend itself either. You’re telling me that there’s not room for at least a 2nd rolling airframe launcher?
I'd like to see a top to bottom investigation looking for corruption in how these contracts were written up and signed off on, as well as how this continues to persist like this.
Yup it stinks of someone getting paid off.
It's a turd of a ship
Yeah, but who would conduct it?
It's like asking Congress to pass term limits-
You will find a lot of retired admirals on those defense industry boards as “Advisors”.
it will never happen. austal makes the independence class in mobile. they are the largest employer in alabama. Lockheed Martin makes the freedom class. they have been given a blank check by congress. in reality every one should go to jail, but there is so much incompetence all the way up that every ones defense would be "i didnt know"
It really is a simple philosophy that you take part in yourself.
Companies sell printers at a loss.
They then sell you cartridges that are ridiculously overpriced.
LCS is the same. The ship was cheap, the cartridges are super expensive.
We have to buy the blueprints to the equipment on the ships for bookoo dollars to fix it.
Pay me now or pay me later.
That is why other ships are so expensive.
Someone, somewhere, is getting rich off this.
As if thats any different from other mil contracts
I hope it's the person who did the thumbnail
It’s part of the MIC making good incomes in every congressional district.
I will say the navy argument is weak leading with current threats…….All armed forces are always fighting the last war….I understand we really don’t know the next war, there are lots of possibilities, but we can’t float enough anything to be ready for anything.
This is war, somebody's *always* getting rich off it
Ok and? Yes? How is that any different from any other of the thousands of projects the military has at any given time?
Strap em to the side of the carriers, soak up incoming missiles.
Oh jeez, just get rid of them and force Lockheed to reimburse the Navy for the damn costs, wasted missions, and piss poor engineering and design. But I guess the the great Congress critters in Alabama and Mississippi got involved to waste more money. And lets add in the metal fatigue issues.
The aluminum hulls did not work well! But was all these things the idea of the USN or the ship builders? If the ship builders were building to the navy's demands, then the USN is to blame, or partly to blame, as for the technical problems with the Ford class carriers!
On the other hand, if the USN put forth requirements and the shipbuilders said we can do that, and then the systems don't work, then that is the fault of the shipbuilders, don't you think?
They dont see it as wasting.......
Everyone likes to crap on Boeing. But it is Lockheed that really fleeces the US government.
Why I am not surprised these thugs all have R next to name? Just vote them out...
The odd class is actually made in Wisconsin.
This class of ships has more "back from dead" moments than comic book villains.
And does about as much to keep its nation safe as the average comic villain in their respective universe.
@@Archangelm127 I’m pretty sure that the Chinese fishing fleet has more firepower, than an LCS.
@@teddy.d174 No bet.
I thought I'd seen some big grifts when the Iraq War got exposed for contractor abuses and excesses ... nope, turns out the Navy is running 'em stronger and longer. Clearly someone is getting rich off keeping this project alive.
As a Canadian this reminds me of our own fast ferry scandal, but on steroids. They were bad ships full of structural problems due to aluminum alloy construction. But unlike the LCS, we chose to end it when the evidence came out that the whole thing was horribly effed up. Some got scrapped, some got sold off below cost.
That Congressman/Senator has to protect "those jobs", plus the contractor made a large "donation" to the politician, but it has nothing to do with these ships....
CoRrUpTiOn.
government = incompetence
@@_R-R as is tradition.
RHIB is Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat, not 'reinforced hull'. Its a hybrid boat with a solid bottom to prevent damage from shoals and inflatable sides to improve resilience in collisions with other vessels, the inflated collar also gives it the buoyancy to stay afloat even if holed and filled with water. It was invented by the British RNLI to make a more survivable rescue craft for rescuing people trapped on the shore line.
It’s a big dingy with an air compressor built into the back.... pretty much. I mean, come on.
@@miamijules2149 If a Dinghy went 50 knots....
People complain about the contractors getting rich, and while it is an issue it’s not the heart of the matter it’s the person or persons who signed off on allowing it to happen
Nemo🤪
That LCS bit had me cracking up.
Makes Australian defence procurement look good.
The ship was supposed to get NSM (Naval Strike Missile) launchers, 2 x 4. If that upgrade to the ship will now go forward, at least the class it will get some longer teeth. However, the maintenance strategy is still and likely will always be an expensive mess.
LCS are concept ships from the early 2000s, Horizon class and derivative are proved designs from the 80s
The Navy should join Louis Rossmann "right to repair" movement :)
In this case "right to repair" literaly is "national security" and not only in the US. In other cases it is really the right to own the stuff you buy and an aspect of freedom itself ...
The navy has three types of missions and those are red (combat), yellow (pirates and smugglers) and green missions (rescue and humanitarian). Only about 20% of the world's oceans has red mission probability for the navy. The rest of it is where the navy is going after pirates and smugglers, rescuing ships at sea and providing aid to nations after natural disasters. I can see the LCS ships working around Texas, Southern California, Florida and the Mediterranean Sea.
Ummmm, isn’t the Gulf a job for the Coast Guard?
@@CorePathway Doesn't mean the navy can't operate or aid in operations there too
@@CorePathway The coast guard doesn’t have the means to cover a lot of area. It’s a very small service. LCS helps fill the gaps
@@CorePathway Yes, but the navy already has the ships and the crew allowing joint missions.
The LCS lack of armament is the least of its problems. They’re unreliable and don’t carry enough crew to maintain them. They’re nervous breakdown machines for sailors.
Please keep on putting out the great content always look forward to watching your videos
LCS-1 and 3 (the first two freedom class hulls) had a different combining gear which never failed. It was designed and manufactured in the USA. LCS-5 and onwards switched to a german designed and manufactured combining gear which is the ones that failed time and again. Why did they switch ? Well ultimately because the Navy wanted to implement cost savings and the american made combining gear cost more. This is WHY the contractor and navy are splitting the replacement costs to fix the gears. Lockheed presented a cheaper option after the first two ships and the Navy jumped at it, without any idea if it was as durable. This was entirely a defect of the navy's own doing and that's why L-M isn't willing to absorb the entire cost to fix each ship. They designed the propulsion system around a particular design and manufacturer of combining gear, and then the customer specified an entirely different part.
Ignorant buffoons don't realise military corporate sabotage happens I guess. They should check out France's corporate sabotage.
Yikes!
Didn’t LCS 1 and 3 spend all their time broken down from, well, virtually everything possible? I’m not sure that the combining gear on those ships ever had a real test.
Id Imagine that there will be a few contractor's always attached to any of the LCS. Good if your the contractor in peace time. Bad for the navy in war time. I personally don't think the ships are lemons. The ideal of having a small shallow water ship is sound in the west pacific. I just think the Navy should only consider this ship for un contested waters. Like a networked patrol ship or a well armed Coast Guard ship. With that said, the new frigate is basically what the LCS Should have been.
The LCS concept was a joke right from the start. Automation means small crew? Aside from no damage control or underway repairs, it was still too few and they had to cram more crew into not enough space.
Then that whole modular nonsense, plenty of people told them it wouldn't work, and it didn't.
Like that idiotic gun on the Zumwalt DD, incompatible with any Army gun, uses special guided long range ammo which costs as much as a cruise missile which has far more range and much larger warhead, too expensive to buy, so now those DD run around with a paperweight up forward.
Too many admiral politicians currying favor or something.
Everything about the LCS was lemon. None of the mission modules worked. Both the Freedom and Independence classes suffered from faulty designs. The Freedom from the combining gear issue and the Independence is suffering from severe cracking in its hull. Both classes will require major repair.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 I Agree that it was a bad program. All im saying is the concept of a corvette type ship is something the U.S navy was lacking and didn't have before LCS. These are just fact. Don't misss the forest for the tree's ya know. And as far as Zumwalt. They already announced there placing Hyper Sonic weapon bays in place of the gun system. Would turn the ship into a hunter killer type ship. I hope your not the type to say we need to bring back the battleships....
@@JackRABBITslim27 Now who's jumping to conclusions?
Radio et all made ships defenseless in the face of soft kills. Missiles made gunships useless, smart bombs confirmed it, and speed became a lot less useful with no immune zone to control.
Carriers need speed to get wind over deck and get back on course after flight ops. Escorts need speed to get up. 47 knot frigates / corvettes are useless, although maybe not when they drain their ammo in under a minute.
The only cheap warships in the electronic age are river boats or coastal patrol boats, not LCS-sized monstrosities. Small ocean-going warships have no real use; what good is a ship with half the missile loadout of an Arleigh Burke but all the expensive electronics? It's the same argument as half-size carriers; yes, it distributes the planes and presents more targets, but all those electronics mean they aren't half the cost, and shortening the flight deck means airplanes have to launch and land with less weight.
Everything is a tradeoff. The LCS traded away everything useful for nothing but useless speed.
@@JackRABBITslim27 now hear me out, I'm not saying that the battleship needs to return but I do think a modern designed battleship not focused around guns but more like the Kirov class battlecruisers could be effective. I think the problem with people thinking of battleships is they always think of things like the Iowa or South Dakota class which a modern BB wouldn't look like or be designed like. I'm not saying it's a great idea but the idea of BBG with VLS cells and modern countermeasures is more plausible than most people assume. Of course it would be insanely expensive and probably unreliable but it would be cool to see.
The LCS seems like a very slow and expensive way to get firepower equivalent to a couple of light tanks and four APCs with 50mm guns into a coastal conflict region. An air-drop and some paratroops seems a more cost effective way to get a relatively small force A to point B. When the LCS was going to have sonar modules, missiles modules etc. etc. available it made more sense, but the 'cut down' single role LCS seems a huge waste of money. I wonder which commercial contractor that will get paid to do the maintenance and support has friends in high places?
Good ship for the Coast Guard, but they don't want it... Ouch!
@@jonathanbair523 I don't blame them. Have you seen how much of a money pit that ship is? :P
Morgan 😜
I've been on board USS Detroit LCS7 when she was in Detroit for her christening ceremony. Love a fast ship but at this point it feels like we were all lied to and we're just throwing good money after bad.
LCS is so lightly armed, they are basically corvettes (and in this case for Freedom class, gunboats). They are big ships with little teeth. Before new ships are commissioned, we should bring back Spruance-class destroyers while keep Ticonderoga-class cruisers in service as stopgap measure due to the growing security threat to international order.
Never mind, most Spruance-class were longer in the inventory anymore. Kinda a dumb way too end ships with potential.
Two LCS are facing off hundreds of Chinese fishing boats off the coast of Ecuador (2000 km away). One LCS misfired (warning shots) its 76 mm robo-control fast cannon, spent all 100 rounds in 60 seconds. The other LCS misfired its twin 30 mm robo-control fast guns spent all 200 rounds in 60 seconds. The rounds are preloaded at port by the contractor's machines, now the only thing the capts can do is call for contractor services at sea, from San Diego. Meanwhile buy some fresh fish from the Chinese boats for supper. 😉😎
Never thought i would see a program worse than the F35
The F-35 is actually turning out to be a successful program.
@@WALTERBROADDUS other than the cost, it's still an impressive bit of kit
@@JoshuaC923 not when you consider it's not good for anything. It's a well-armed charter fishing boat. Put some chairs on it and go Marlin fishing or something.
@@WALTERBROADDUS I'm referring to the F35 being an impressive bit of kit, not the boat
@@JoshuaC923 well in that case, it is by far the best selling jet on the market out there. Everybody wants one.
So they're not target drone ships, thought they had finally found a purpose. My bad.
They are useful against pirates and smugglers.
Rotfl No, the primary armement of an LCS is not the itty bitty cannon, that both yards told the navy, "we can put a bigger gun on this ship".
They are waiting for price of scrap Aluminum to go up. Drink more canned 🍺
As someone from a small country with a small navy I can only shake my head at all the waste.
If I had any say in the matter I would scrap half, fix the other half and send them all over to some training command in mainland USA.
Not just to keep them close to maintenance but so that new sailors and promising junior officers and non commissioned officers can get some valuable experience without getting in the way of more serious stuff. Things like living on board a ship well away from home, navigation, weapons etc. And for experienced crew teaching the newbies it could be a nice reward for good service as these ships would be away for half a year or more.
But I'm just a foreigner with opinions... 😎
The cost to operate one U.S. aircraft carrier for a year can buy 3 LCS.
Isnt that 1.5 billion?
@@eliahaj2233 $1.5 billion to run a U.S. aircraft carrier for a year and $500 million to build one LCS.
@@RTmadnesstoo When going after armed men in fishing boats, 3 LCS are cheaper than one aircraft carrier and have the same value.
Always learn alot from your videos.
🏴☠
Seems like a Navy procurement success story. Not a single Naval officer lost their job or was punished in any way. It's provided lots of highly paid retirement jobs for the senior officers who created the LCS project. And the shipyards that built ships that crack get paid millions per year to maintain then while they are welded to the pier. Since the LCS can't actually go into harms way it keeps the sailors from being arrested by Iran.
Relatively speaking, those NAVSEA contracts (4) were quite small in the larger scope of not only the LCS program, but just about any other ship / aviation program. For perspective, that money (all 4 contracts combined) would not pay for 1 week of effort on Columbia development. And the LM fix is only $3M per ship. Does not seem like a huge effort. Maybe they figured something out that was simple and elegant. The last point is that the Navy pays dearly for canceled programs. Think A-12. It was later learned sadly that it would have been better to see it through (financially) than stop it midstream. The complexity and interdependencies of these large programs is not something you can describe in a 10 min video.
Just saw LCS 23 heading down the Welland Canal last week. Was an amazing sight.
Lockheed: *Bats an eye.
The Brass: LCS good. LCS stays.
As much respect as I have for USN personnel, the brass needs a thorough trimming.
Jive you are easily in the top 10 coolest people I can think of. Probably a strong contender for top 5.
I do think it's strange the US Navy didn't stick with the KISS principle with these ships, because I could see the utility in a class of ships as small as possible that a helicopter could still use, that operates closer to shore given the historical problems with pirates and gunboats harassing merchant shipping in certain areas. I'm not quite sure if the dates align, but they probably could've done something with a modified Legend Class Cutter.
Heck even if they wanted their weird experimental types, they could've just ordered one or two of each class just to get some idea for their capabilities.
Navy: I can't decide on which one.
Secnav: Why not both! We're not paying for it.
Charles🤪
I can see a role for them in overseas anti-piracy, anti smuggling, and similar operations where an FFG/DDG would be overkill. Maybe even for carrying out freedom of navigation ops where you wouldn’t want to risk something more costly with more sailors. They do seem a little redundant when it comes to fleet operations though. Is there any news on why they’ve made this about turn?
Given that the USN has been dealing with such a serious hull shortage for decades (to the point that the ships are breaking apart because of the sheer stress they're being put under) and the OHPs retired unilaterally without a replacement...
... so you get what you sow.
The problem with the USN isn't really the USN but with Congress, more often than not. The USN has been a victim of Congress's penny-pinching since its inception. The 'Mosquito boats', the fact that they couldn't get a cannon to work right in the 1800s until an _officer_ decided to _design his own guns_ just so the USN would have some guns (which led to the 'soda bottle' style guns that had an excellent safety record), the Mk14 debacle (because Congress wouldn't allow the USN the money to produce enough torpedoes, leading to a lack of tests on the torpedoes because they were worth far more then they weighted in _gold_ with predictable results), the attempts to get autocannon into aircraft (which was consistently so bad that the US wouldn't adopt autocannon during the start of the _jet age_ , i.e. when MGs became useless), and even _battleship guns_ (the Iowas weren't originally designed the way they are, they were more compact in design but BeuOrd royally screwed up with the guns, leading to their now-famous design)...
@@TheTrueAdept the more things change, the more they stay the same. Go back 200 years and you’d hear fleet admirals complaining of exactly the same problem, “not enough frigates”.
@@sam1812seal and the same stem of the problems goes straight to Congress...
if the US really needed a cheap ship for anti-piracy and maritime patrol it could easily just buy off the shelf hulls from europe, but that wouldn't make people in congress money.
@@hughmungus2760 here's the thing, none of the shipyards in Europe (nor their designs) go 'up to snuff' with the various requirements the USN has.
That's why the US's FEMM is overweight compared to its original...
As they come off the slips. PARK THEM. Don't man them. Just park the damn things.
Truth to power... your a good man thanks for the update 07
The news on these ships is all over the place. There are multiple sources with multiple statements and it's apparently on us to figure out which of the reports have been implemented or are simply speculation. Anyway, this is the most accurate plan I can find overall. Keep in mind, with the numbers quoted below, the maximum number of total LCS ships would be 40x (combined), which was cut down from 50+ originally.
I guess the analysis/rumor is that the latest 373-ship plan for the USN's future is to include 5x Freedom-class LCS ships in the SuW (Surface Warfare) configuration, which should ultimately be the 8x NSM via deck-mounted launch cells, the SSMM vertical launch cells for 24x AGM-114L Hellfire missiles, the dual 30mm autocannons, 57mm cannon with guided programmable artillery shells, 21x RIM-116 SAM for defense, an MQ-8B Firescout drone, and the MH-60R in a hangar for anti-submarine warfare.
The USN concluded (this being old news) that the modularity design aspect wasn't going to work, with the anti-submarine warfare module never proven to be 100% functional, as I think there were some issues with the towed array they were attempting to install. Then the surface warfare and mine countermeasure modules took longer than anticipated to establish, but it's those two that they're going with. The Independence-class has apparently been deemed the more successful series overall, so they are working to acquire 15x mine countermeasure "modules" for Independence ships, and as part of the module, the MQ-8B Firescout drones will be equipped with a special suite of sensors designed to detect enemy naval mines.
All remaining ships will head towards early decommissioning and be placed into the reserve fleet. I don't care if people disagree, as I like the fact they keep the reserve fleet, and perhaps that's the best place for them at this point. You're preventing operating costs from hitting the budget, yet it's not a 100% write-off if the country were to become desperate for additional ships.
So, if this plan proceeds, this would mean an additional 10x Freedom-class (for 11 total in the reserve fleet) and 3x Independence-class (4 total in reserve) ships will be decommissioned over the next few years. I wish they would have stopped construction when this whole deal became obvious. For example, if they retain the 5 latest Freedom class ships, it means all five haven't even been commissioned yet, with four being fitted and one more still under construction; that's some wasteful stuff.
I'll take a few and turn them into super yachts. I can put nice jacuzzis where the RAM launcher and the main gun goes, and we can open up the 30mm emplacement areas for an open-deck cafe/bar.
Wow, this is quite a nice coast guard ship
I remember the discussion of the LCS vessels in the early 1990s and everyone I spoke with wondered why the Navy would want to build and operated 'shallow water' naval vessels that likely would not survive the first few days of a real conflict. These are terribly expensive patrol boats that should all be decommissioned and sold to other countries.
Saving it? What’s wrong with the Navy?
This is congress's idea.
I just saw three of these docked in Marinette, WI last weekend, and they were apparently dynamiting the riverbed to create more docking space for the shipyard. Obviously it's important for the town, and there are strategic advantages to having shipbuilding capacity in the Great Lakes, but I have to agree with you that these are basically a grift. Maybe the second set of engines could be removed and they could be relegated to a support role, perhaps as minelaying vessels or coastguard cutters. Perhaps with the auxiliary engines removed they could extend their range. The hulls might still have some value as a platform, but the strategic concept is a proven failure. If we're in a naval race with China we can't afford to be decommissioning brand new ships, even if they're of marginal value. However, we shouldn't be sending good money after bad and should shift production to a more sensible design rather than laying down more of these things.
I say this before, and I say this now. The Coast Guard does not want this piece of Navy crap at all!
The gift that keeps on giving.
Somehow I missed this one. No comment on the LCS itself, just here to mention I am very impressed you managed to cover this without a single expletive.
Didn't the Navy test the gearbox, or did it work for a few times and then fail?
I haven't read anything about the actual test results but my government contracting experience tells me that they probably had a prototype combining gear that worked as it was essentially hand crafted and tweaked to work well enough to pass the test. But the knowledge of what they did to get it in that state wasn't carried over to full production.
During the class approval trials the gearbox was replaced due to an issue with a different component but they didnt restart faultless operating hours accumulation for the fresh gearbox as the old one hadnt failed, they just carried the accumulated hours over. From memory the acceptance criteria was 10,000 faultless operating hours, the gearboxes combiner gears generally fail at 8,000 hours and the gearbox during the trial was purely coincidentally replaced after 7,000 hours, just before the fault would have revealed itself.
Edit: Might have been miles rather than hours, cant remember which the criteria was but the numbers are right.
@@watcherzero5256 Sounds like they tried to save time and money on retesting. Sounds like something an engineer would warn against but be over ruled by upper managements "risk assessment".
@@ethanleas6319 Get the contract, fix it in production. Except they never got it fixed.
yes the navy tested the gearboxes. there is a german company that makes the gearboxes for both classes. the independence class built by austal usa has never had a problem. they are bullet proof, because they have four gearboxes. each engine gets it own shaft gearbox and impeller. the freedom class told the german company to force a square peg into a round hole. the diesel engines turn at a slow speed. the turbines turn at a fast speed. so basically the clutch and the bearings that support the clutch are over sped every time the turbine is turned on. one could make a reduction gear for the reduction gear. but then your torque numbers would go through the roof and the original gearbox wouldnt support the torque numbers. the german company that built them said combining set up would never work. they are the experts. Lockheed martin and congress waved around 12 million per gearbox and said make it work. ie square peg into a round hole
Well if the LCS are going to operate outside US territorial waters ie. Asia Pacific and Middle East kind of makes sense to relocate level 2-4 techs & plan various maintenance equipment in the region. Sure expat costs go up but response time way higher. That's what a practical industrial player does.
Hopefully by RIMPAC 2040 we will get see some of these in some SINK-Exercises.
It will be such a good feeling to see one of these get pounded by every naval armament in rapid sucession.
Something has be said about the lack of intimidation that newer warships have, when I see this gun boat broken down in front of me it's just lack luster.
Well, you know, the start of Cold War Part 2 has a tendency to make Navy reevaluate their decisions until more capable ship classes can be developed and implemented just a little bit.
What are these things going to even do in a war against Russia or China though? They have no offensive missiles, and apparently they're only going to have the anti-surface module, which isn't going to be much use against any kind of warship when the main armament is a 57mm cannon. All they really have that's useful in a modern war is 1 Seahawk.
Weve been saying for months that the US plan to give them away to allies wouldnt work as no one would take a broken ship with undefined repair costs, if the US wanted to give them away they had to fix them first.
DO look a gift horse in the mouth! Horses are very expensive to take care of even when they aren't sick, and ships even more so! The person who came up with that saying probably died of someone-else's problems.
@@TonboIV Ah, now Chrisjen Avasarala's comment on this saying "I never understood that idiotic phrase" makes sense. Thank you.
USN needs to revist late-WWII era fleet submarine operations, small complex vessels with small crews, utilizing much off-board support for repairs and some maintenance, characteristics shared with current LCS. Its been done before, and quite successfully.
Note: this is the LCS odd class, not the LCS evens. Evens are better than the odds for sure, although they still need some improvements to make them worthy of the USN.
Almost seems like these remaining LCS would be a good fit for and transferred to the Coast Guard
Interesting thought there. CG units don't usually have to slug it out against heavy warships. Also the Littoral aspect fits with (my understanding of) CG missions. So don't buy any more but your thoughts certainly merit some discussion.
I have one question about these LCS boats, After the repairs would these ships be better suited for, lets say the east sea and in particular the gulf of Finland right next to St. Petersburg? Maybe the US navy found a better usage for these ships outside the bigger fleets.
Hello 👋
Definition of INSANITY on full display! This decision is based on favors, money and politics! (you can also add incompetence)
yep that is about right ...government = incompetence
You should do a brief on the Canadian Halifax class frigates.
I think you missed two systems. First the anti ship missiles which are sourced from Sweden I think. Second the Hellfire missiles paired with the Long Bow radar.
Subbrief! Love your show!
3 more sitting dockside and under construction in Marinette. Drove by on Monday.
Navy: We want to get rid of this
Contractors: we don't
US Government: here's $1bn
The Military Industrial Complex will not be denied.
Why can't the sailors be trained to maintain these ships instead of contractors. The sailors would be apt to do a better job because there lives depend on it! This is a disgrace!!
When the USN faced no possibility of combat with near-peers in the 1990s-2000s it could afford boondoggles like this - all they did was rip off the taxpayer. But now that China is set to have the largest navy in the world programs like this are actually a serious threat to national security - every billion spent on them is a billion less spent on something that works and is badly needed. A point Perun makes in his talks about Russia's military is that corruption directly and massively reduces military effectiveness, as we see now in Ukraine.
I feel bad cause I’m the contracting office that awarded the TO for the port visit in Souda Bay. 😅
I believe the LCS is being fitted topside with modular 4x4, or 4x6, Hellfire missile system. Teamed with the longbow radar. I think they may be looking at the UK's Brimstone missile.
if you were going to do that your would fit it with spike or brimstone
@@richardthomson4693 They provide better range. The missile installation I saw was identified as Hellfire.
One of the Iowa's would probably be way more of a surface combatant than all of these LCS combined.
Crazy. Decom most and give the rest to the Coasties, they'd benefit from a craft that quick
Coasties rejected them (wisely) during the design phase due to their horrible range, among other things.
@@wesleyworley8982 Yeah I looked into it a bit more after making my original comment. It seems like a wise decision not to take them in larger numbers ultimately, but perhaps the proven best held in their reserve would do nicely on a particularly rainy day.
Another incredible stupid idea. The Coast Guard does not want or need them.
Add more guns and some naval strike missiles on the back get rid of the chopper and fill it with ammo
Oh, look! Water over the bow in Sea State 1.
I always thought that at least the LCS could fill the role the old Cyclone boats filled and maybe do minesweeping, but now it just looks like the whole lot of them should just be thrown away, what a waste!
So a few thoughts:
1) The LCS program is a mess, but the main fault lies with the Navy, who packed way too many unproven systems (like the mission modules and the propulsion systems) into the ship. Incremental progress is the way to go.
2) Divest to invest never works. We shouldn't retire a single hull until we put two new hulls in the water, with China putting the equivalent of the French Navy in the water every single year!
3) LCS could still serve the fleet! Instead of having Burke DDGs do low-end tasks and presence missions, LCS could do that - have them stationed in choke points where they can show the flag, conduct FONOPS and anti-piracy missions - places like Persian Gulf (Bahrain); Straits of Malacca (Singapore); Baltic (Gdansk); and/or Mediterranean (Rota and/or Souda Bay).
I just think it's insane to mothball ships that are virtually brand-new and that could serve a useful purpose. Not every ship in the fleet needs to be the tip of the spear in a peer fight. Meantime the Navy wants to retire aging CGs with no replacement for all those critical VLS cells.
Sadly the Navy has lost its way. The LCS program is a symptom of that. But let's salvage something from it. Otherwise it's just a total waste.
The problem with keeping them, and even I admit they could have some uses as getting rid of them pretty much means the Navy has no ships capable of MCM, is operating costs. It is estimated they cost as much as a Zumwalt to operate a year, 100 Million, and for a ship that size is insane.
One Ping, and one ping only Vassily!
Well Aaron as a surface ship isn’t that a “Target”?
The LCS is just a oversized aluminum jon boat, it will completely be torn up by Small Arms fire
Sounds like a ship designed solely to defend itself. Thats a class of ships we never had before.
They seem like they’d be great for the coast guard
Actually no, the coast guard expects much greater range/endurance from their ships of this size as well as more crew to be able to do their own at sea maintenance. While an Freedom class is expected to spend at most 21 days at sea with a crew of 65 and at most 3500nmi range, a similarly sized Heritage class cutter could be out for as much as 60 days with a crew of 126 and a 10,000nmi range. They also don't need the ship to do more than 25-28 knots range and instead rely on high speed boats and the helicopter to make interceptions of narcotics/smugglers.
Yes, unreliable, short ranged ships that drive their crews mad with overwork are perfect for the coasties. You’re a genius!
Anyone know what the 2 square pads, surrounded by hand rail, just below the radar forewards are? Weapon flatforms? Sensor platforms?
We need more sonar vids!!
Would love to hear your thoughts on the Malaysian LCS scandal.
Piccard: *face palm*
Can you brief us about the new French frigate the Bellhara?
Navy: we don’t want or need these ships, they need to be decommissioned.
Politicians: You will keep these, take more of them and like it!
Contractors: (greedily smiling) Show me the money!
its going to be some serious embarassament when in 10 years the US is still rolling upto the chinese coast with burkes and meeting a wall of type 055s because the navy didn't have to funds and shipyard space to build a single DDGx replacement.
Bet it is more of a special operators insertion, extraction and support vessel.
It was my understanding that Congress repeatedly refused to allow the Navy to decommission them.
"Broken up into two different types of ship" yeah that's one way to put it.
It's a Congressional Pork Barrel Project, not a working Navy ship. Just like the SLS rocket.
I heard these LCS’s are picking up some patrols to fill in the gaps in the Arleigh Burke destroyer schedules.
They appear to have done away with all the modular nonsense that was causing them all the problems.
If the navy wanted effective littoral combat they should up-arm their helos for that work.
Is this the same shipyard that is building the Congress class frigates?
Should of licensed the type 31 cheap and can fit 32 mk 41 vls or built something similar
JiveTurkey: That LCS we thought would be decommed? The Navy's trying to save her.
Me: *WHY?!!!*
(sing to the tune of for the love of money by the o'jays): Money money money money, money...
Admiral King’s ghost needs to show up and start kicking some asses.
Every time I hear this topic I think of Wooden Shoes.
What happened to the hellfire vls tubes? I thought all of the LCS’s had the hellfire VLS tubes? Also these LCS are band new. How many repairs do they already need? We need these ships in the fleet now!