Why Retire a 2-Year Old Warship?
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- Опубліковано 16 тра 2024
- The US Navy has slated a 2-year old ship to be decommissioned. In fact, a completed class of active Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) are being decommissioned, all 9 of them! The issues with LCS have been know for some time. But why would the navy continue building them? It's #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #longs
Music:
U Gotta Admit - Got Happy
Misguided Path - Bonnie Grace
Sweet Talk (Instrumental Version) - Tyra Chantey
Antidote X - Van Sandano
Impulse - Hampus Naeselius
Kowli - i.am.in / koli
The Quest - Philip Ayers
Aurora Borealis - Chill Cole
Hemisphere - Ooyy
Footage:
US Department of Defense
Note: "The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement."
0:00 Intro
0:37 The Inception of LCS
1:46 Propulsion System
3:02 Modular Design
3:59 Surface Warfare Mission Package
4:30 Mine Countermeasure Package
5:41 Anti-Submarine Package
6:28 What Went Wrong?
7:30 Two Important Questions
I wrote a research paper on the military's cost overruns. The causes included "padding the budget", designing unrealistic equipment and systems, whining to congress that modifications had to be made for extra $, little (if any) oversight or accountability, and the hiring of former government officials and congressmen by almost all the defense contractors. Looks like things haven't changed.....I wrote this paper while I was in college, almost 50 years ago.
Seems like the Military Industrial Complex corporate welfare bums have found a winning formula. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 🤣
I mean in there Defense a High budget was necessary because it was the Cold War back then But now they have no excuse
🤣🤣🤣 yep. Nothing ever changes.
Where is it now?
@@Nikoeab I believe $700 billion Right now(I think I don’t know It could be higher)
Military Procurement Policy 101:
- Promise the moon
- Budget a blimp
- Add another moon
- Add another moon
- Budget a gold plated blimp
- Build several units
- See what doesn't work
- Fund for a small planet
- Subtract a moon
- Revise a moon
- Fund for a large planet
- See what still doesn't work
- Scrap project
- Promise a moon...
That's a flawless description. But where does the ruminant procurement office come in with their sheep specs?
@@Vaivai371 ... The Bureau of Repetitive Redundancy Department of Duplicate Design Office of Officious Over Estimation Section 7.1(a) Subsection 13.314(b).823(j) listed as "The Sheep You Say" Special Wool Task Force, Over Your Eyes, Pull The
Just make a new cruiser damn it
When does the Special High Intensity Training component come into this process?
Also call it modular to sell it
The costs were far greater to repair those already in service. What you may not have heard is that the ships of both classes are seeing stress cracks in addition to the engine issues. I believe the new hulls were strengthened and the engines replaced.
Was that woman who just didn't do the temperature testing on subs the same person who did the stress testing on the LCSs?
It doesn't take geniuses to design shit that doesn't do that. What this is, is just a small symptom of the military industrial complex black budget being seen. They have to pretend to explain where it all goes.
That's a guarantee job. Want to bet that the same contractor is getting to build the replacements?
They are still garbage. Complete boondoggle.
The ship was a big mistake that never should have been built.
As kinda mentioned by others, the aluminum hulls on these ships are a major issue as well. Aluminum is far less forgiving than steel and they've had a lot of embrittlement and cracking issues.
Not to mention that they melt or burn when hit. The British learned that lesson in the Falklands War, you would think the US would have observed what happened there.
The Falkland War exposed the vulnerability of aluminum, it burns! A British ship was hit by an Exorcet missile, the aluminum structure started burning. There is an electrolysis problem.
And of course there is the utterly idoitic case of Zumwalt class made of aluminium and various other supporting metals. It turned theses vessells into a Galvanic corrosion party! Galvanic corrosion is an electrochemical process in which one metal corrodes preferentially when it is in electrical contact with another, in the presence of an electrolyte. Doh lets use the sea as the electrolyte. The only thing littoral about these ships is that they littorally melt in the prsesence of sea water. You really couldn't make this shit up.
@@Dave_Sisson Well, the US is being set up to lose the next major war so how can TPTB accomplish that (and therefore remove the constitution) if America has a strong navy?
Former General dynamics - nassco 1st class pipe welder speaking: aluminum exposed to salt water causes a lot of embrittlement and contamination issues. The only nassco shipyard that made major advancement is quality of repair work was nassco mayport. Procedures were made that only worked for the climate of mayport. Other procedures had to be written based off of climate of the repair work. It would have been a very capable ship if made out of steel. 2 ft deeper draft of vessel but easier to maintain. These decisions are beyond me. Fair wind and following seas
The Freedom class littoral combat ships are the most survivable ships in the world...they never leave the shipyard.
Lol
😂😂😂😂😂
You add 2 arleigh burke(mccain and fitz) who collided with a tanker as big as a mountain and could not see them😂😂😂😂
It's like Admiral Kuznetsov
😆 Agreed!
I say that attempting innovation at this level is not so much a bad thing. However, it seems laughable and questionable how several LCSs were built first instead of building only 1 or 2 then conduct extensive sea trials and drills using those 2 ships to get a glimpse of the ship class's problems and possible improvements.
Cause of so called Greed for 💰
The idea of series production whilst proving trials were under way started in the second world war used mainly by the Brits. It worked alright with tanks and other vehicles, because they were small enough that remanufacturing wasn't a burden, and having the vehicles in service offset those that would later be removed from service. This idea doesn't work so well with naval vessels, mainly because of the cost and the difficulty in remanufacturing. The idea of a pre-production series, the one or two to test and improve, would have made much more sense in this case.
They did only build 2 at first. The Freedom and Independence. One of each, and they both were terrible. But they had contracts with the ship builders already.
Most ships have a couple years of kinks to work out and they end up sailing w no issues (see ford class carriers 😂) but these were garbage from the start. Almost as bad as Zumwalt Destroyers
@@WhatKiDD7.3 that's the point. They really had a utopia dream in deciding to contract double digits of these ships in the first place instead of stopping on a few of each class first.
Department of defense appears to be as corrupt and incompetent as SCOTUS. 🤐🤐🤐🤐
One problem is the lack of competition in the US defense industry. There are too few defense companies, and there is no real reason for them to innovate, or produce quality systems because the government has nowhere else to buy defense systems.
More than that, the better companies were the ones that were run out of business.
As a Coast Guard veteran and and a former 378 sailor (USCG Secretary Class) I am astounded to hear the information in this video regarding the propulsion issues. The Secretary Class pioneered this type of propulsion in the US military and they were laid down starting in the sixties (the British built the first CODOG - Combined Diesel or Gas - powered ships a few years before this). My ship had two diesel and two gas turbines coupled together just as explained in this video... and the last of them were just recently decommissioned and sold to foreign allies. So, we built something 50 plus years ago, which the Navy adopted and successfully built for decades after that, but in the 2000s we can't reproduce? Somebodies ass needs to get fired at Lockheed. Apart from the jet final drive replacing shaft drive the concepts were almost the same.
why would lockheed fire them? they just designed a ship that the navy paid fully for and had to decommission in 2 years so now they have to buy more ships from lockheed. seems like a big win for them
The problem is, our 'leaders' are power hungry, which means educating people properly and giving them easy access career opportunities is antithetical to their agenda. They hate the fact they live in a constitutional republic, they want to be kings and queens. They try to achieve this by constantly spreading false information, gatekeeping, and disenfranchising capable people through third parties. They aren't that smart, so they have to make everyone else stupider if they want to control them. As a result, it is affecting national security and is causing a brain drain from existentially crucial industries. It's all going to come to a head when the USA needs to implement a draft so we can fight an actual war for our survival, only for everyone to say "Lol, no" because our leadership has left us nothing to fight for.
Modern feminism has resulted in the death of nuclear family, race and gender politics has resulted in divided communities individuals have no investment in maintaining, opportunity is stifled by extreme college costs combined with toxic Marxist propaganda, news networks lie all the time which will result in a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" scenario, predatory lending practices combined with market manipulation resulting in millions losing their homes to rich oligarchs, unbalanced and biased application of the law that only seems to punish whistle blowers, a blind eye turned to anti-consumer practices like manufacturer's DRM firmware in FRIGGING FARMING EQUIPMENT, government regulations and involvement making things like medical care inaccessibly expensive, the right to self-defense being actively infringed upon, and finally gaslighting on top of outright censorship when any of this is brought up.
What are our supposed foreign enemies going to do that our own government has not? Kill us? That would be a sweet release for incels buried under mountains of debt, with no opportunities and no future. People will say that people should stop complaining because 'it's still the greatest nation on Earth', as if it somehow excuses it. Just because one bully bullies less than another bully doesn't suddenly make them good. They both deserve to have their butts kicked, the only question is how much each should receive...
My question is why in the hell was Lockheed making a full ship? Subsystems I can understand, but the full hull, power plant, and drive system? That should have been left to the Navy yards that have the experience in building warships and can do things like building the lead ship of the class, doing trials and figuring out the issues and fixing those when the subsequent ships are still on the slipway.
When the same company gets to make new ships with no repercussion when the others don't work, it isn't really something to fire people over.
And now we all know how, with just a little more corruption, Russia ended up the way they did.
The real lesson from Ukraine is that this kind of stuff doesn't just cost money, it cripples the military
>build expensive warship
>decommission it in 2 years
>refuse to elaborate
>leave
>congress passed FY 20xx NDAA
>build more expensive new warship
>decommission expensive warship
>REPEAT
>send bill to taxpayers
GiVE ThOEs SHiPS To Ukraine
Military-industrial complex in a nutshell.
Sail to paddle wheel to screw shaft propeller...... Actually pretty common in all services. I wonder what US SPACE FORCE.....I think they should be more USMC instead kissing ass of fighter pilots...Get a spine stop pigeon hole you budget into Air Force pet projects...you got your own pet projects....
Innovation will always come with mistakes and failures. That's how we learn and improve. Maybe, however, commission 1-3 ships as fully functional prototypes and run them through their paces. Learn and modify the ships until we feel they satisfy expectations. Then commission a fleet. We could even use the prototypes to play a devious "enemy" in war training exercises after the testing program has finished.
What if it was Chinese
I suppose that the physical ship might be the cheapest component compared to recurrant ongoing costs and design and logistics. So it might be cheaper to scrap a problematic ship.
To be optimistic, newer ships have better tech and valuable knowledge of ship and weapons deployment is gained.
i had read that when they designed them they used this new sort of metal, and it was spouse to be strong enough that they wouldnt need to add a ton of armor to the ships, but after all was said and done, they tested it and the ships were actualyl quite susceptible to sinking like any torpedo hit was gonna put it at the botom of the ocean, so they added a bunch of armor and then it slowed the ships down a crap ton
@@soulsreaper7145 maybe they should have tested this metal first...
@@nicholasvinen it’s a lot more complex than just “test the metal”.
Optimistic!
Just face the reality this is all about corrupt corporate greed of the military-industrial complex.
But you'll keep on funding it
What a waste of money .. the money laundering is out of control
From a Perry class frigate veteran of Desert Storm, I have always felt that they should have just modernized and upgraded the Perry class, as at the time, they were really good at ASW, all they really needed was a better surface warfare capability and they would have been fine. Now, it looks like the Navy figured out that what they had was still the way to go, so they are going to build new frigates of the Constellation class to do what they could have done 20 years ago with ships they already had.......typical.
Have they scrapped the Perrys, or are they mothballed?
@@corneliuscrewe677 All decommissioned, some sold to other countries, others sunk as targets, the rest scrapped......as far as I know....not entirely sure if there are any left in mothballs or not, but I don't think so.
@@adamjabs The Navy and the Air Force sure do love new and expensive, don’t they?
@@corneliuscrewe677 So it would seem lol.
Really good point. New shiny F35 which can barely function as designed and cost billions for just a few, or would it make more sense to upgrade the F15E and have 100 of them?
this is why prototype phase should have a thorough test and evaluation before said technology be in use
It was a failed concept to begin with. You don't need to make any prototypes to know that making your boat out of aluminum means it is as fragile as a glass figurine thus making it useless in combat. Stupid boat can't even defend itself. It would need many escorts to be combat effect, thus negating any benefit a boat like this was supposed to do.
@@toolbaggers Except nothing you listed here was addressed in the video. Everything was reliability based
@@toolbaggers the only issues were its engines and weapon modularity which can be fixed if it were still a prototype
@@toolbaggers It's only intended combat role was to hunt ships that were in general too small to even get in range before being detected and destroyed. Other than that, it was to detect subs and mines, none of which is a real active combat role.
So your entire tirade about the ship not being fit for combat and to "defend itself" makes you look either ill informed or slow on the uptake.
@@AJAtcho There has been hull cracking on some of the ships. Though this has less to do with them being made of aluminum and more that the designers of the indepence class transferred their knowledge from working on civilian ferries to the LCS project.
In operation, their ferry designs have worked well with the expected service life. But they underestimated how much they needed to reinforce the hull for rough sea states.
And the ship's 'fragility' in combat is sort of a red herring since any AShM worth its salt would wreck a ship in that tonnage regardless of what it's made from, and crippled much larger and more expensive vessels, while anything less powerful is well within the LCS' ability to fend off.
The Burke class destroyers are capable of completing the missions of the LCS'. They have a fantastic layout and can be somewhat modular in creation. Given that all the work has already been paid for to design and test the hauls and combat arrays, it's cheap (relatively speaking) to just modify them slightly and roll out the new version after every dozen or so.
Former sonar engineer, no I wasn't in the military just worked for them.
I guess it's always a good thing to push the boundaries when you managed your risks well, and have a realistic view on the project's vision. It's not a bad thing to take risks, but it's also not a bad thing to be a little conservative. If they can manage the balance between these two for future ship projects, I'm sure they can avoid building another LCS and Zumwalt.
In fact, I think that's how PLA managed to build their current fleet?
4:25 I really like the idea of a "Ludicrous Speed" button ngl. I hope they keep it in the 6 new ships and also upcoming ships that use the same propulsion system.
“They’re going into plaid!”
@@slavsquatsuperstar but are their jammers raspberry?
@@johnr797 hold up, are you from le bote discord?
@@khoipham8303 nah
switch*
My boat sat for over a year and a half (still is) and it cost 70 million. Not including repairs to diesel motors, combining gear, and radio equipment. The combining gear replacement has failed other boats and ours. We didn't deploy or do anything. It costs 120 million to operate a DDG for a year. A much better and more capable platform. Plus has nearly six times the crew size. Three section duty is killing us.
I was in a 3 section watch bill for the entire 4 years I was in, quit yer bitchin' !
Yea my boat also costs 70 million dollars a year to maintain
What are your watches like?
yeah my boat is also cost 95 million per year
It would make more sense to build a smaller purpose built ship, most could use same hull just makes more sense in my opinion, somthing like 2 water jet diesel turbine driven corvettes or patrol boats smallest ship you could put a heli on
There was another mission module that would have made a difference. There was a plan for a hospital and disaster relief module set. Even at a week refit time, having a handful of additional, shallow draft, hospital ships to go with the Comfort and Mercy could be world wide in a couple weeks. Add the military capability still in the ship that doesn't exist on the dedicated hospital ships, and you could have had these floating relief vessels in more dangerous waters like the Horn or Gulf.
Of course because it doesn't go pew, it was the first module cut before even making it out of design phase.
What good would have they done if the propulsion kept breaking and the hull cracking?
I’ve watched about a dozen of these ship launches. My pops worked out of Newport News Va and building these in Menominee Mi. Almost 40years sad to see these fail like they did.
My grandfather God rest his soul he was a sailor on the USS Missouri in world war ii. He would talk a lot of the stories of things that he and some of his sailor friends would do on the ship and import he didn't talk much about combat and when he did he would always get that look in his eye like he's looking through you and his voice would get soft and kind of distant he did not like discussing combat at all and I never asked him a single thing about it. He was terrified of thunderstorms that he didn't know were approaching. I've seen that man hit the floor more than once. One time in particular though we did not know that there was a thunderstorm there it was barely raining outside and right outside the kitchen window which was only maybe seven or eight feet away from the kitchen table was a Maple tree. Pretty big one. Lightning hit it and when lightning hit that tree two of the three lights in the kitchen got knocked right out the bulbs blue or something happened but it got a little darker in there instantly and the sound of the report from the lightning was deafening and the house shook violently. And this all happened in like just a second or two. His reaction though.. even as a little kid it broke my heart to see what that did to him. He Dove on the floor slid a few feet hit the wall in the fetal position screaming. And then a few seconds later he was just crying his eyes out shaking. It was fucking awful to see.
Now this was a man that was on a vessel that would have been damn hard to think. You know how much armor there was on those ships? Quite a bit. They could take multiple hits I mean they could take a fucking pounding and of course men would die that's what happens when shit explodes on ships obviously but the ship itself would float for a while most of those older world war II era ships it took a lot to render them combat ineffective or to sink them.
Now granted technology changes and back then you had to actually see the enemy before you could take your shot. Obviously now that's not the case. You can be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away fire rocket off fire missile and that's that you never see the result or the explosion. The defensive systems on modern day ships are phenomenal. But still no ship is untouchable. And when you take this much aluminum and you start manufacturing the entire damn vessel out of it.. the structure compared to steel is not nearly as strong. You've got corrosion you've got cracking just under its own goddamn load. And God have mercy if a cruise missile hits a superstructure that's made of aluminum on a vessel or the hull made of aluminum. One hit will probably render it combat ineffective or sink it.
My grandfather would talk about what he thought the future of naval vessels would be like. And for the most part he was correct. Overpriced ships that were not thought out well enough before they were actually constructed. Shit looks great on paper shit looks great in computer programs. But in the real world it doesn't always work out so good. And I believe some of these vessels are a prime example of that. And our tax dollars you know even though our military has the absolute highest budget globally.. well over a trillion dollars a year I think.. the money still is not.. it's not a bottomless money pit.
I don't really get why the hell they would have to go with a completely new design a completely new weapon system completely different weapons they're never really taking anything from the past that worked and incorporating it with modern technology and I don't fucking understand why that is. Maybe the ships they're too big they're too heavy they're too slow.. well engineer some solutions then dammit! If you can engineer billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars of pissed away money you could do that.
The Missouri was a massive, well defended artillery platform. As far as I know it only took damage once in combat, when a kamikaze plane struck it off Okinawa, doing only light damage with no casualties. It was statistically one of the safest ships to be in during the whole war. Either grandpa fudged the truth and served on another ship that saw more intense combat, or he was scared of his own guns. Sorry you had to find out like this.
Not a american taxpayer, but:
A apollogy and explanation why it took them _9 ships_ and _12 years_ to realize the unrepairable design flaws would propably be appreciated.
At least with the Zumwalt, they figured the issues in 2-3 ships.
2-3 2 billion dollar ships lol
Because they thought they could fix it...for the first ten years or so. They needed an answer that could fix the problem before they could say 'but that doesn't work for the ones we already have'...
Because they tried to fix it first and came into conclusion its unrepairable??
Because the Admirals in charge are god damn liars!
The Navy is like a big ship. Big ships dont turn on a dime. But when they finally do turn they figure out they over turned and need to come about again. The US Navy has always been like that.
Brilliant Question at the end. Love your videoes and intelligent way of reporting. Love from Denmark.
I am an advocate for taking risk in new concepts since it drives innovation and invention. Despite the cost and potential for loss, staying ahead of your adversaries is a good deterrent for military conflicts that are even more costly. We should regard this as a "lessons learned" platform.
@@reydecastro6651, but we won't learn any of those lessons, time and time again they happen no matter the cost.
Those Oliver Hazard Perry class ships in their day, were very basic but well designed ships for their price.👍
I remember a photographer who worked new equipment into his "working method" slowly...after it had been proven.
Sounds like wise advice.
Unfortunately the army is not a place where you can afford to wait until equipment is proven. In fact, while a photographer can still work relatively well even with decades old equipment, an army working with outdated gear will not fare well in combat against more modern weapons, which could cost lives or even lose a war entirely. Add to that the reputation of the US armed forces for having state-of-the-art weaponry, and nobody will just be content with what works if there is something developed that works better and will potentially save many American lifes.
As a Canadian I can only shake my head that even this level of inefficiency is vastly superior to our own naval procurement process.
Lol wtf
You mean just wait until the UK, France and the US decomission hardware and buy that.
What are you talking about you don't even have a navy.
I agree brother. seems like America has more money than brains to throw around
Oh Your Just S Wright ! USA's Number One in Frivolous Spending and Stupid Decisions. I Think ? 🤔😁😎
YoUr Freedom? Retired
YoUr Independence? Retired
Good one!
GIVE WAR A CHANCE!
- i want two parallel lines crossing each other!!
-it cant be done sir..!
-Maybe if one of two lines is blue??
-WTF...?
Don’t give them anymore idea-rs…
Innovation and all aside it seems like a pretty big oversight to purchase NINE of anything without proven testing and field work. If they had ordered maybe three instead it would have been a softer blow. But someone saw this thing on paper and just approved nine of the damn things lol 🤣
Because when all is said and done, main purpose of buying the ships is to put the taxpayer's money into the pockets of billionaires who owns the companies that make these ships.
It's like planned obsolescence, but in scale of battleships. Gotta give 'em reason to keep buyin'.
@@fatcat1250 I'll half agree with you, but you've worded it to seem like the companies are evil...
Every company does this, market themselves and promote their stock so the get sales, a supermarket or superstore would be no different in that retrospect.
Military equipment just tends to have more things go wrong with it, more problems hence results in more spending for countries like America who can't stand not having the number 1 military. I don't believe it's intentional at all.
If we use civilian aircraft as an exmaple we also can see this problem, the amount of aircraft Boeing and Airbus have made that ended up being useless or scraped later because these massive designs had serious practical issues once built.
I think there's ways to avoid it, but I don't think it's the companies faults, rather the blinding obsession of the pentagon and military generals constantly wanted more equipment without properly testing anything.
@@unlockingsnow8571 On top of what you mentioned there are also cases where governments or companies will put in production orders for things they already have in stock just to make sure the production team retains the experience and practical knowledge of how to create whatever it is they make. iirc the US government did something to this effect in the mid-2010's with the Abrams, ordering a bunch of them when they already had hundreds sitting idle.
@@S3Cs4uN8 without researching I’d imagine that building new abrams with updated systems and components is cheaper and faster than retrofitting older models immediately - so they’d rather buy some new ones as a buffer.
@@Matt_10203 Pretty much.
Seems like history has a long line of projects that were "designed to do everything" and ended up either doing none of it well, or having some kind of massive flaw...airplanes, ships, rifles...
On the other hand, the systems and platforms that have proven to have great multi-function ability were designed for one purpose...but designed so well that they could carry out other roles with a few relatively minor tweaks.
It's a pattern that the military has consistently ignored.
I keep saying this about the f35 but so many lightning 2 fanboys keep defending it blindly
@@c0ldyloxproductions324 Holy shit, the same can be said about people who hate the F35.....
@@c0ldyloxproductions324 maybe two years ago but ragging on fat Amy is so out of fashion nowadays:
F-35A: ~78mil
Gripen E: ~85mil
@@c0ldyloxproductions324 The F-35 isn't necessarily flawed or a failure, it's actually doing really well sales wise with foreign buyers. The problem lies in the fact that it isn't exactly what the US Armed Forces wanted. They want aircraft that can carry more long range bombs and missiles, neither of which the F-35 can do without considerable sacrifice.
Most of the F-35's customers are most countries within the EU, all of which use the same weapons and are all dependent on the militaries of one another, which is where the F-35 fits in perfectly.
The pattern is that we make panicky, overblown observations about Russia's latest tech and overspend to outdo these unproven threats only to fall back to reality and then try to consolidate all of this specialized tech that exists for a threat that never was. Rinse and repeat about every 15 years.
I know it’s just easier to blame the US Navy for these ships but let’s also blame the Lockheed Martin because they lied to the Navy and sold them a ship and a concept that doesn’t work.
you know you are right. and as a tax payer in the USA. fucking spend it!! because we will need everything we have. when we cross the ocean and fight the CCP. ww3 is coming. lets be ready
Yeah, when I heard "Lockheed Martin" I immediately thought "over promise, under deliver and reap the rewards through cost overruns later". This seems to be that company's whole business model.
@@Error6503 No accountability for failure.
They need to get a refund from LM, for at least half the cost those ships.
Ohhh
Every time he says “it’s not what you think” the credits roll in my head
I find this to be a heart-warming story. Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon were paid regardless of this tremendous failure. And they feed so many families in the US...
What???? And costing billions to the taxpayers Wow!!! Wake up from your coma
@@stevenstair1068 I belive if you tae some irony into account you and I are in agreement :)
..expanding on this: the whole US military industrial complex is a money-laundering machine :)
I belive that it should be known that aroud 80 percent of money the US taxpayers (read: Biden) dedicated to help Ukraine war effort never left the country, The US of A. The Ukrainians got the crumbs. Lokcheed-Martin, Raytheon, Grumman and the likes got the steak.-
There was an almost infinite amount of 'and then the magic happens" in the concept of operations. Like the idea that a MH-60S can tow the mine sleds. To which the laws of physics and hydrodynamics said "Are you kidding"?
This was obviously going to be a disaster from when the contracts were issued. Everything was sacrificed to speed, and the speed was never really required by the operational concept. The decision to not install the anticorrosion anodes on the ships was also a sign as to how incompetent the US Navy has become. Highest and best use: Artificial reef.
The reason for not installing sacrificial anodes is because hull composition and coatings were thought to have become advanced enough to not need them.
Unfortunately, as one of my coworkers says: "In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, theory and practice are different."
@@deusexaethera In other news, the navy has apparently just learned about the lack of a fatigue limit in Aluminum, as the 'good' class's hull starts to crack.
This is what greed gets you. You know the designers of all this shit they got fucking paid failure or not they made a killing. And the taxpayers are the ones that financially in the end pay for it and I pray none of our men and women lose a life on one of these vessels due to a catastrophic failure because of a design flaw or God forbid something like a tomahawk hitting the superstructure that's made of aluminum and rendering the ship 100% combat ineffective or sinking it. We should have learned our lesson back in the late seventies early eighties when they were experimenting on ships with aluminum and they did learn the government said no more fucking aluminum as part of the ship's hall or superstructure as long as it's part of like the structural support. And for a while it was fine. And then some genius decided to reverse that and here we are. I know there are a thing of the past but things like the Iowa class battleship from the world war II era now there was a vessel that was just.. holy shit! You know how hard it was to sink one of those? Not impossible but very difficult. Especially compared to the modern vessels like the ones that were seeing in this particular program. 🤦
What they really needed was more Frigates based on an improved FFG-7 design.
I suggest you making a video about different bow types of a warship (example: atlantic bow design, etc.)
I hope they do so, the Wikipedia page for naval bow types doesn't really have that much information on how most bow types work, only bulbous bow.
I’m a Marine engineer. Look up books on Naval architecture. I recommend “Reeds Vol 4, Naval Architecture for Marine Engineers”.
Essentially Bulbous bows are used to reduce drag along a ships hull by creating a bow wave at 180degrees to the waves present to negate them out. Their shape depends mostly on speed of the vessel, ships with higher speeds need a longer bulbous bow to crest the bow wave sooner before the ships hull catches up.
Next to be built is the Boondoggle Class
These ships have always been proof of concept platforms.
Greatest Financial Mistake of USN . Helpless Little Ship.
I think Zumwalt class tops that list
@@iracingrookie3301 the zumwalt is actually a pretty good ship it only failed because it was to expensive the ship itself is pretty good
@@Ukfairgrounds Problem was that the Zumwalt was designed around a weapon system that was never commisioned into operation. That is the problem of the Zumwalts. Besides it being a warship with no weapon system, it isn't bad. Would have been better if it was designed a working and operational weapon system though.
@@Ukfairgrounds “it only failed because it was expensive”
Yeah no shit.
So expensive they could have purchased 4 attack submarines for the cost of 1 destroyer.
And a destroyer that doesnt carry ammo for its main guns.
And to top it off, they need to refit them with VLS launchers to bring the cost up even more
Its a Massive failure
@@iracingrookie3301 Zumwalt is at least useful as a test platform for new technologies.
Retired navy. This class of ship was built because the lawmakers wanted their shipyards to make money. Lay off shipyard workers, area goes into recession, lawmakers voted out of office. THIS SUCKS but don't see any change anytime soon.
Except the Navy could just as easily have comissioned a frigate class instead. Or a class of patrol ships that didn't try to do everything in a single hull. Or did so more conventionally.
Contractors want to make money through development since that is where the dollars are. If you propose a new improved object but its close to prior objects of the same type just incrementally improved Cost Price Analysts on the government side will have a lot of historical pricing information to reference negotiate you down on. If you instead propose something novel the pricing side at the buying commands kind of have to take their word for it. The contractor then uses the novel concepts to justify the higher than normal price by arguing that the new concept will replace frigates, minesweepers, ASW platforms, and large costal patrol vessels with a single class saving money on the whole despite the high unit cost.
Bottom line all branches need to REJECT the swiss army knife concept for new weapon systems, instead they should settle for lower-risk generational improvements.
I work on ships with multiple motors, 2 or 4 usually. And I have never seen a "combining gearbox". The motors drive generators and the drives are electric. This was old news in submarines during WW2. Some cruise ships have diesel/turbine electric drives that work reliably. A "combining gearbox" seems a atrociously expensive, heavy and unreliable way to eek out a bit of efficiency. Efficiency that can be claimed back on a diesel electric by the better hull shapes that electric drives and their shorter shafts allow.
What he means by "combining gearbox" is one that can handle multiple high and low speed inputs (CODAG). This tech is proven if done correctly (but the navy could fuck up a wet dream). USCG WMSL's have a CODAG propulsion plant and combine the diesel and gas turbine inputs for it's top speed. Northrop Grumman offered up a modified WMSL for the LCS but the navy turned their nose up at anything that was also a cutter lol.
The "problem" here why you need a complex gearbox in a CODLAG (Combined Diesel-eLectric And Gas) drive is, that the gas-turbine does not power a generator, but the drive shafts directly. (to get all the gas-turbine power to the propellers)
So you have electrical motors powering the drive shafts in normal drive mode, like you described, but in "sprint mode" one gas turbine needs to be able to put its power on both drive shafts. This results in a rather complex gearbox design, usually with several gearboxes.
@@KyrainMcLeod I'm a marine engineering Officer, so I get that, what I don't get is why not go turbine electric, it is just soo much easier to package, build, maintain etc. I fail to see a single positive except maybe EM emissions.
First of all, drive system are not my specialty, so there's some guessing here.
However, one positive is the size-to-power ration.
For example, the German frigate class Braunschweig uses a CODLAG system.
The two electrical drive motors produce about 4.7 MW of power each. The gas turbine produces 20 MW of power and is only as big as one of the motors.
Also, and this is the me guessing part, the drive motors seem to have trouble with the fast revolutions. The gas turbine is only for "sprints".
However, the Zumwalt-class of the US Navy and the British Daring Class destroyer actually uses the system you proposed.
How to decide which system to use, I don't know. I only know that central parts like the drive system are decided very early in the project by people who most likely only encounter ships in the projects letterhead stationery.
@@smellysam they did that design because they're dumb. The en
Funny thing that the next class, the constellation, will be a European design ( it’s based on the french Italian program of FREMM, European multi mission program)
I hope they call it the USS Enterprise ;)
Good….the Europeans make good frigates. We should just buy the designs and let BIW and Ingallis build them.
Fun fact: The Avenger class minesweepers are the only ships in the Navy, other than the USS Constitution, to be made of wood
The Swiss have some interesting ships made of polymers...Visby-class corvette. I think those should be the next class of ships...at only 253 to 300 feet long...
@@rgloria40 the swiss...?! Visby...? you're thinking of the swedes, right?
@@STScott-qo4pw He must. I hear that the Swiss boats all have a bunch of holes in them.
@@vintagethrifter2114 Yes but the ships have 4 layered hull and it only sinks if the holes line up.
"Or does the US Navy owe a big apology to American taxpayer?"
American taxpayer: *"YES!!"*
but they won't apologize. The defence contractors still got paid so they won't be lobbying for any changes. They now get to start a new project!!!!
Ya'll are still paying taxes....?
Under no circumstance should the Navy apologize to the taxpayer.
I think the company that built them owes a big apology to the government.
Should have done more testing with the prototype USS Freedom before making sister ships.
Well with the ones under construction I’d add a lot of changes to it for good measure.
Ya know when the RMS Titanic sunk, they brought the RMS Olympic (the prototype) back to dry dock to be refitted (basically redesigned) with better bulk heads that actually reach the ceiling unlike the Titanic and adding a lot more stuff that I can’t remember at this time.
You may think it looks good on paper but when its on the field it ends up not doing well or should I say doing bad, that is not gooding to look good on your part.
With the Prototype they should have tested the engines more.
I was finishing up my Navy enlistment when this concept first was proposed. Most of us were against it from the beginning feeling that the frigate and destroyer is a far more flexible platform. Yes there is definitely a need for littoral ships but they should have focused on existing designs that were proven and just improved on the knowledge of those platforms. The coast guard needs more ships. Maybe repairing the existing and putting them into the coast guard would make sense. Every coast guard littoral should still have air to air and ship to ship offensive systems in additon to special operations type capabilities for drug interdiction.
Excellent suggestion!
corvettes (dnmark, norway, sweden, finland) are excellent. smaller displacement frigates would do, too. these ships in the four navies listed do yeoman work, very capable, ocean-going also in danish and norwegian fleets.
@@STScott-qo4pw agree
@@STScott-qo4pw Denmark has no Corvettes.
Denmark have 5 new multirole Frigates built on the Ivar Huitfelt class and Esben Snare class, and 4 Patrol frigates of the Thetis class.
Denmark has announced it needs Corvettes and has partnered up with Ficantieri in italy and Norway and France to build 4-5 new corvettes to operate littoral and in the Baltic.
@@ulrichkristensen4087 ouch! I had thought it was a corvette-type ship denmark deployed to somali coast in late 90s to help stop pirates. Do you know what ship it was?
One of the major shortcomings of these ships was the failure of the Navy to spend the money to build a prototype test bed of its all-new propulsion system. It this had been done, the design's many problems might have been identified and corrected. Or at the worst, would have resulted in a complete redesign into something that would work. As is, the LCS's propulsion is utterly unreliable, and every article that I have seen on it claims that the issues are either unsolvable, or will require a major rebuild that will cost almost as much as a new ship. Meanwhile, the Navy has changed their minds about the mission and weapons mix that they wanted these frigates to have. Essentially, the entire program has been a boondoggle from the start that has wasted years, and tens of billions of dollars while the Chinese have been building a new navy of their own.
This would fall under a broader category of failing to control technological risk. Developing a proper test bed for the propulsion system would have accomplished this. However, under the timescales of the project, the best thing they probably could have done was choose a lower risk design. This would involve troubleshooting the design specifications and asking whether they really wanted a frigate-like ship that could go 50 knots in short bursts.
That said, we should not assume that the Russian and Chinese military industrial complexes do it any better. If the Chinese had a frigate like the LCS, they wouldn't be complaining about it incessantly on the internet.
I am sure they saved money by using modelling and simulation to prove everything would work perfectly...
I machined valves for the company that built them. The lip on flange was faced off.
They were sent back with a bunch of metal chips still inside. Stuffed plastic in hole, machined and then pulled plastic out.
I asked if should be cleaned better and told nope they can deal with it.
This was a machine shop sub work for the ship yard.
Weird metal chips were giving them problems
And Americans make less and pay more taxes......?.....except Thedump
Yeah, but that would require some oversight of the huge "defense" corporations - that ain't gonna happen!
My dad used to work for Fincantieri Marine in Marinette Wisconsin, around 2011, I remember going out there and seeing the yard, although I did not see much, it was cool, I am not too sure what he did while he worked there as I was 7 or 8 at the time.
Italian company building american ships. They have had a bunch in Escanaba being worked on. Two just left and a new one is there
What a brainless comment it makes me very happy to know you and your dad had a warm loving relationship
I worked on ships 19 through 31 they are complex and difficult to work on. The gear issue isnt an easy fix!
The independence class was mostly an Australian design based on successful Australian ships. Our congress cried about the missing pork in the Independence class, so the Austral company agreed to build the ships in Mississippi. The Navy had selected the Austral design, but congress insisted on splitting the class with the Lockheed Shipbuilding designed and built Freedom Class. Of course, it had to be fancier because it was American and a fancier ship meant more pork to spread around and more inefficiencies. The Austral design wasn't entirely a clean sheet process, they changed only what they had to from their tried and true components and their designers had years of experience with similar designs. Lockheed's design was clean sheet and they needed a gee whiz product to justify their program. It ended up being something like a Swiss Army Knife knockoff or a counterfeit Rolex watch. Good bling, but didn't work very well.
Sydney Opera house effect. But LM have to add their personal bling to justify themselves.
Sometimes, the original design has a genius within itself
Successful Australian warships? No such thing
.... Isn't this what they are doing with the Constellation class?
Austal is Australian company with a US subsidiary. Austal is an accomplished multi hull builder. The monohull is an Italian design that has been successful in fast ferry applications.
They’re built in Mobile Al though. Maybe some of them are worked on in Mississippi
was just watching the video about winning modern war, it was so great Im gonna buy a mule in case it might be useful
😁
The guy flipping the switch to engage “Ludicrous Speed” was the best part of this video.
*Before watchign the video* "I'm sure that the problems are design flaws and costs problems"
"Not what you thing"
*After watching the video*
"Exactly what I was thinking".
Yeah, same here lol.
There needs to be a push to introduce more competition into the defense industry and an update to the way contracts are awarded. Something tells me even though they failed miserably the same companies involved in this project are still getting millions in contracts.
Retired Admirals belong in prison for this.
Lockheed Martin needs to be broken up, and Congressional heads (figuratively) roll for allowing them to become the monster they are
Bingo! This is a result mostly due to lack of competition in the US , and this is why the Navy opted for an international competition in 2018 where companies around the world could show off their frigates and provide bids. It's actually pretty sad that US companies can no longer make a good reliable ship and we have to look to our NATO partners for our next generation warships. At least they made what I think was the best choice going with the larger (than Freedom class) French/Italian FREMM which are more than littoral ships, and capable of operating around the world.
That’s how corruption works
@@lgd1974 The Admirals and captains that made the recommendations and were instrumental in the decision to place the Freedom frigate orders with Lockheed in the 2000's have long been hired by Lockheed as executives and been given senior leadership positions. Most of them have retired from Lockheed. Many of them have senior level jobs waiting for them at big Defense companies when they retire from the armed forces. I am not saying all of them don't deserve it though. Some of them actually do, especially the ones that are/were war heroes or fought many tours overseas.
My uncle left the Army as a Lt. Col. in the early 90's after 32 years of service, and not long after that he got a VP job with a major Defense company. Within 2 years he became a Sr. Vice President and headed an entire product division. He was mostly involved with evaluating the M1A1 Abrams tank and responsible for orders of several thousand units while in the Army. He continued to work on improving the Abrams for several years as a private citizen, and his team also came up with a new night targeting system in the mid-late 90's that many of the tanks still use today . He had a Masters in Engineering when he left the Army, and went back to school and got his PHD in a couple of years before getting hired by the Defense industry. He was wounded 3 times during his career on secret missions overseas, 1 of them seriously, so I think he deserved his good paying job and he worked hard to get his doctorate and be successful. But from the conversations I had with him, the Generals had it easier and had jobs waiting for them, whereas he had to go back to school for his PHD so that he could compete and get the jobs the generals were getting as soon as they retired.
Which is why at the least, they should have had proof of concept tests after a few of them were built, with an option to continue construction after those tested satisfactory.
Yeah, I am baffled that one wasnt tested before going into full production.
@@geckoman1011 right? That is usually how it has been done. Lead ship of the class is usually 90% complete or fully complete and on trials before they even think about laying the keel for the next ship so that the issues that will show up on trials can be corrected. But I have never heard of Lockheed making warships, so chalk this one up to the inexperience of the company and the yard as well as a 'gotta make that bread' mentally from the Lockheed board.
@@hokutoulrik7345 Inexperience? Personally I consider it to be "hubris" ... and borderline fraud!
The model worked like a charm in the bathtub
@@77space-vt8wi 😂😂😂
I look forward to seeing the new frigates that’s supposed to replace the LCSs.
San Diego Native - we have many of the Independence and Freedom class ships in San Diego back and forth out to see. It's truly a sad situation to see so much money be flushed. Too much technology into two different class ships. Hmmm. I hope this three new ships are completed and sea worthy soon.
I'm surprised they thought they could get "cheap" and "over 40 knots" in the same package. I'm glad to see they discovered the problem with the gears and can fix these in the 6 ships being built.
A Perry could do 7 knots on diesel power or 33 knots with both LM 2500s online.
Butt when the standard missle was program was ended for single and twin arm launchers. The launcher was removed. No VLS was designed to replace them.
Basically making the it a ASW only platform. The SH-60 was originally operational In 1984 ON the type III USS Crommelin FFG 37.
That ship could handle 70-90 knot winds and waves 120 ft. from apex to the trough.
You do get tired of it after 8 hours.
It cost 900 million to launch as commissioned ship 1983 and $600,000 in upgrades were added over the next 5 years.
The Crommelin was sank as a target 19 JUL 2016. It took 8 hours to sink it.
You are on the money with that comment. What's their definition of cheap? High speed, cheap, and military spending are not words that go together.😄 Their biggest problem is they believed that jet drives would be the solution. They work great on high-speed ferries but the hull shape required for military ships is quite different. Jet drives are inefficient with up to a 30% loss in HP. Combine that with a high RPM requirement and you get a low fuel efficiency. The Independence-class ships also have a huge issue. This LCS class has severe structural problems. This has caused major hull cracks. The damage to the hulls has limited their speed and prevents them from operating in heavy sea conditions. These issues and the Zumwalt debacle have many wondering what is going on with the Navy! They tried to innovate too much too fast and it has ended badly.
You _can_ get "cheap" and "over 40 knots" in the same package -- just not in a package the size of a warship.
@@deusexaethera Exactly! 👍It was all pie in the sky calculations. Those never add up.
Why not make REALLY BIG PT boats? Littorals were designed as SHALLOW DRAFT water craft for close-to-coast operations.
Something that is seldom mentioned. Viet Nam era river gun boats and WW2 PT boats filled certain requirements that the LCS was supposed to help fulfill with the modules.
Should have just made MANY small, easily modifiable boats for a variety of missions. That's what was done with PT boats and river boats.
I saw examples of this in Vietnam. One ship I was on was an AE with a modern rail system to move bombs and other ordinance from the hold elevator to the transfer station. Only thing was, there wasn’t enough space for the ordinance between the ceiling rail and the deck.
Your comment reminds me of a car that people loved in the UK in the 90’s, the Ford Cosworth, all the ‘cool’ guys had them (they were very bad-ass to be fair, lol), but they soon realised that they couldn’t change the CD in fith gear as the gear stick would be in the way,…. Not as cool anymore, lol
I guess engineers have their off-days too 🙂 🍻
@@KumaBean Tbh, if I had a cool car, I wouldn't want music either way.
@@ravenouself4181 On that side of the car scene, music is a big part of it, it’s all just one big dick-swinging contest, lol 🍻
@@KumaBean I thin the Pontiac Fiero was the same way except it was a cassette tape instead of a cd.
Deck head rail
Got my ESWS pin on a frigate(FFG). Those ships were tough little bastards. The Navy sank my ship during a weponsEX. She took a huge pounding and only finally sank when a couple torpedoes snapped her keel.
Something for NZ navy to do and a real role for reserves. And great overseas opportunities
This is the problem when you give all most the contract to one company
“ Lockheed Martin “ !!!
There was a film made in 1951 with Gary Cooper called " You're In the Navy Now ".
Cooper plays the Captain of a ship with a new engine that is consistently breaking down during
Sea Trials requiring them to be towed back to base. Sound familiar?
You can find the film here on UA-cam.
It is cheaper to use the diesel to turn the current 9 boats into mine warfare vessels for wartime use. They can patrol the two seaboards and the waters around Hawaii. Using the independence class and the new Freedom class for surface warfare and permanent mine countermeasures duty. So basically break the glass in case of war boats. That would mean active storage and training reserve units on their operations.
4:25 that switch does absolutely nothing, I love how some ships have humor and labeled it, if you look under the console it's not connected to anything.
The whole program is an example of the issues our military procurement faces.
First we have a tendency to look to high-tech solutions, the so-called "silver bullet syndrome.". This is where one must see a massive leap in capability, or perceived capability to justify the expense. Or replacing something good with something better isn't seen as enough reason. Look at the army's efforts to replace their service rifle over the past couple of decades for another example of this.
Secondly we see mission creep, a small relatively simple combatant to use and lose inshore instead of a cruiser or destroyer became a modular over engineered nightmare.
Third we have procurement politics, the art of making sure the money goes to the right districts in order to secure support for the program.
What did I miss?
Corporate greed .....
Well i take the army as saying...
We can look at new tech, but it needs to bring a lot to the table before we are going to replace all the whatever in the army.
Which is way more sane than the navy, who dont even seem to test the shit.
Lets build the billion dollar ship before we even know if we can make it work.
The problem is just corruption, too much influence by the military industrial complex on our politicians. Lobbying should be called for what it is, bribery and illegal. The Supreme court made an error when granting corporations the rights of individual citizenry under the concept of Corporate Personhood. Constitutional freedoms and natural rights should only apply to individual citizens.
It's called Transformationalism and it's a plague the US Armed Forces can't seem to shake, especially the navy.
@@deth3021 I think that's part of the problem. Significant leaps in capability bring risk and expense and as a result problems don't get addressed and we spend vast amounts without getting the system into the field.
Great video. Doomed from conception. If the concept was to operate in the "littorals" ....that's an operation area where the combat logistics forces don't operate. Fine....except that the legs (fuel capacity, JP5 capacity, food storage) is all pretty shallow. So if the LCS must hit port frequently to resupply that kind of defeats the whole stealth gig, right? UNREP capability on the LCS is weak, poorly designed. Routine maintenance carried out by contractors while inport. Contractors are expensive especially in a high cost country like Singapore.
There's never enough time to do something right but somehow always enough time to do it over again. This program was a ridiculous waste of time and money.
One can hope that at least someone learned some things throughout the series of failures.
No it was a great idea I design this ship it was the best ship the US ever had just in grateful customer and dumb crew don't know how to drive it
The IDEA of a Littoral Combat Ship is great; shallow draft, fast, heavily armed for her size, capable of swarm tactics, defending larger ships against swarm tactics where they're vulnerabe, and able to scoot from green water to blue for UnRep where the T-AKEs would be safe. Unfortunately, the brass couldn't just let a competent Naval Engineer design a Scalpel. They wanted a jobs creator (for their own retirement) to overpromise a Swiss Army Knife to replace Amphibs, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Frigates. We got a busted over-weight and under-crewed Frigate/Corvette with transmission issues, and a glorified car ferry that beats itself to shit transiting the Canal.
Food for thought. If you were to design a ship for the needs of the US Navy, what would you go with? I think the navy needs a dedicated missile carrier. Something like the arsenal ship concept. It seems to me that the Chinese specifically are designing their ships to beat ours in terms of missile numbers. [96 vs 128+] you get it
@@BravoCheesecake Build a few very large very capable super destroyers primarily dedicated to air/missile defence with a good number of anti ship missiles, 2+ helicopters for a reasonable ASW capability. Then build lots of smaller dedicated ASW frigates to screen them against subs.
General dynamics made them actually, also they were built at BIW in maine. Currently the navy has specialized personnel overseeing every aspect of construction, so provided the engineering is correct, they will sail.
No surprise that many in the Navy and elsewhere say that: "LCS stands for Little Crappy Ship."
In the early '80s Admiral Rickover called out major defense contractors who regularly won contracts with low-ball bids then threatened to stop projects if more money wasn't handed over. Angered by this routine shakedown, Rickover stated publicly that it would continue until those CEOs started going to prison. As always, the irascible Admiral's bluntness ruffled their feathers.
His candor was never really embraced by Navy brass, and those remarks led to his ouster - one can only imagine what he'd say about these latest wastes of money.
To answer at the end, I think it’s both. The US navy learned that in order to stay ahead of the game we still need to test new ideas but not a whole lot all at once, or we r not gonna know what worked and what doomed the project.
With all the fancy engineering tools and techniques it is so easy to forget that those tools only help to predict and understand the problems you are already familiar with, not the shit you still don't have a clue about. Any new technology is a risk, and pushing those technologies in serial production before the risks and mitigation and permanent solutions can be put in place is such a incredible yolo solution. Sure, for the companies that's a risk they are willing to take: they can always have their margin on their solutions, where mostly balling for the US market only and they are so balls deep they are to big to fail. That is how you end up with ships that need 2 times more maintenance than originally specified, defeating their very existence, and organisations that keep chasing the dragon, cause they are to deep in to admit they made a mistake.
Well maybe it didn't learn as it went and built the USS Gerald R Ford carrier. $18 (and counting) and all the new technologies don't work when they should.
It's not to the Navy but from Lockheed martin to be more honnest and present apologies ! Lobbys are everywhere, and they eat all ! this is the real problem...thanks for sharing, Class Independence trimaran is so futuristic, like it ! take care Bro ; )
I suppose on the basis of NIH (Not Invented Here) neither the US NAVY nor Lockheed Martin talked to the British Navy who have many years experience of running CODAG (Combined Diesel and Gas Turbine) warships. They could then have short circuited the development process and avoided many of the snags that arose with the LCS.
I always think that these vids are so interesting,keep it up!
I am... intimately familiar with the military procurement process in the USA, so I figure I'd provide a bit of information on how it REALLY works::
Both the littoral combat ships and Zumwalt class were "wedged" to get funded.
In the military contracts game, a "wedge" - its when you are selling a project you know (or at least suspect) will cost far more than what originally is budgeted to be funded. Then once funded, you keep incrementally asking for more money. The military, like everyone else, doesn't want to have a "failed" project, so they just keep dumping more money into it.
You will never see a military procurement project be referred to as a "failure". If the results were so terrible that a product wasn't even produced, then the standard line is that you developed new technologies for future applications. The whole procurement system is screwed up, starting from Congress wanting the money in their districts, down to the small contracting companies run by the Admiral's nephew.
I do want people to know that the vast majority of the people involved in military procurement DO mean well and are proud to help defend their country. The whole procurement system is fundamentally broken.
On a side note, IMHO, the biggest philosophical issue the US military can't get over is knowing when it is okay NOT to use the latest and greatest technology. It wants to be the best at everything, and in doing so, is super inefficient with its spending. Ships today literally cost 10 times what the same class would have costed during WW2 because they have to be the best at everything. We need to come to terms with the fact that China will be better than us in certain domains - our job is to decide which domains are most important to us.
Sorry for the rant.
China liked the blueprints to the Zumwalt-class destroyer program so much that they stole them....apparently, the Chinese saw something in the ship design that you didn't.
@@MichaelJames-lz7ni Of course they would steal them if they could. Having a detailed drawing of an adversary ship gives you a much better understanding of its capability.
From an industrial espionage angle many of the ships subsystems could be of interest even if the ship as a whole is not.
The main thing I heard that doomed the Zumwalt was the "next gen gun system" that basically had shells that cost more than anti ship missiles PER SHELL and still had less range and a smaller warhead than the current iteration of the Harpoon. The hypersonic missiles that the Zumwalts are being refitted to should have been the original design
as in most cutting edge areas of industry and technology, the last few percentage points of performance cost exponentially more and more, and almost inevitably bring unforeseen problems with them. an often crucial part of design and manufacture is realising when a little restraint is called for, and dialling back the ambition just little can deliver a product that is 95% as effective for 70% of the cost and with 20% of the reliability and maintenance issues.
@@mrvwbug4423 The shells were not more than cruise missiles. Even at the bloated price caused by the cost of the project being spread over only three ships, the cost of the shell was still half of a cruise missile. The comparison to anti-ship missiles is wrong, the Advanced Gun System (AGS) was not really an anti-ship gun, it was meant to be fired inland. The guided-round was still a precision weapon. You have to keep in mind, when you're developing new technology, the cost of research is included.
You can send the to mothball, at least there modern. If you really have to scrap a ship you could start with the U.S.S. Texas Museum battleship.
Yup,I worked on the first LCS built Mobile Alabama 2008
US Navy ship development has a history of small numbers of a very expensive class or two and then a large number of effective/efficient ships of a single class. Basically they aim high and fail and those lessons are incorporated into the next class. The Arleigh Burke's are an example of cashing in on this kind of ship development and it can be seen particularly throughout US Navy destroyer history. The Fletcher class of WW2 was another example of development lessons creating an awesome class. The Littorals are a fairly new concept and they were never going to get it right first time, which is partly why there are 2 different classes. The Independence and Freedom classes are basically a huge R&D project which will pay dividends in the US Navy's littoral ships of the future. The Gerald R Ford is exactly the same thing, aim high technologically and figure it out or fix it for future ships. Without knowing the Navy's true reasons for building these ships it is not possible to class then as a success or failure. But yes, the dollar figures are astounding.
Ford class carriers.
This is what people don't get. You learn more from failures than you do success. Of course, it sucks with a program _that expensive_ but, it's how you stay ahead of the curve.
@@seventh-hydra Lockheed has the most program failures, but is still the #1 defense contractor.
@@seventh-hydra Except that anyone with an F-ing brain could have figured out that putting 155mm cannons on the Zumwalt destroyers was/is beyond stupid and a colossal mistake. Who the F are you going to shell from 25 miles away or 63 miles with the guided projectile???!!!! China??!!! These were obsolete 25 or more years ago. Remember the Iowa class battleships? Might as well just bring those back if you are going to go that route. This is NOT how you stay ahead of the curve!!!! Whoever came up with this idea needs to be put in front of a firing squad. They finally realized this mistake recently with the announcement of replacing those guns with missiles. DUH! Guns that were never once fired and probably would never have been ever.
If this is how you view progress, learning and staying ahead of the curve, it's no wonder there are so many failures within the Navy and military in general. Too many guys like you preaching this sort of stupidity which ultimately costs billions of wasted dollars. All this money wasted on LCSs that don't work and Zumwalts that have obsolete weaponry on them while at the same time Tico cruisers that need to be replaced with new versions, with more Burke destroyers or at the very least building more Constellation class frigates. Funny how they retire old ships, decide to try something new, fail miserably at it then go right back to the old concept that virtually every other Navy in the world knows works, i.e. Perry class frigates ---> LCSs ----> Constellation frigates and Arleigh Burke destroyers ----> Zumwalt destroyers ----> more Arleigh Burke destroyers/new DDG(X) plans. The Navy's plan now is to retire all the Tico cruisers within the next 5 years as well but at least they are continuing to build more Burke destroyers to somewhat offset this. Still doesn't address the loss of firepower you are going to take when you retire them. 22 cruisers with 122 VLS cells does not equal 20 more Burkes with 96 cells.
Zumwalt cost = $4.2 Billion, Arleigh Burke cost = $1.8 Billion, Constellation class cost = $1.1 Billion.
You could have gotten 2+ AB destroyers or 4 Constellations for the price of one Zumwalt. With the Navy screaming that they need more ships to counter China, this calculation is a no brainer to figure out.
"basically a huge R&D project which will pay dividends in the US Navy's littoral ships of the future" ----> How? They are going back to building standard frigates (Constellation class) to replace these pieces of garbage and use them as their littoral ships. Would have been much easier and cheaper to just build what you know works, i.e. frigates. They had the Perry class before and none of what they put on the LCSs as far as mission packages was necessarily revolutionary since destroyers, frigates and cruisers are all capable of surface warfare and anti-sub warfare. The only thing LCSs have going for them is mine detection but that's an expensive mistake to realize they are only good at one thing potentially.
I did armed security for Marinette Marine, which was building some of these LCS ships. I can say that they constantly had problems and had to be towed back to port after the majority of test runs.
They were known to be very fast however, and one captain claimed to go much faster than the specified top speed of the ship during a particular test run. However none of that means anything if they struggle to even get out of the Great Lakes and into the ocean without blowing and engine or some other issue.
If only they worked as designed. They would be very impressive, hopefully the newer models will fix the issues.
you shouldn't be allowed to work in that industry again
@@timlewis4623 I can talk about em since they're canceled lol
honesty a little shocked that the running cost were that low. seeing how it can easily cost 10-15mil a year just maintain yacht and that has a lot fewer crew and fewer systems to maintain.
Not shocked at all of the failure tho.
Bruh he said 500k a DAY! That's roughly 89 mil a year x7 ships that like half a billion a year for 7 ships. Hella wasteful
@@instantjizz Later he specified it was maybe 70 million a year by outside estimates and 50 million a year by US Navy estimates. The $500k per day is clearly rounded up significantly.
they pay them less than minimum wage and everything is broken, that's the secret
when the Navy says operational cost they only mean what it cost to run the ship while on mission not what it cost to maintain it fix it and put it in drydock
Yeah, but the champagne, caviar & other delicacies, plus the helicopter servicing & tenders are crippling. Especially when you're a bill gates or what his name who runs Amazon- type pain in the butt who has to pay top dollar for his staff, against the cost of the sailors who probably never get a tip from a billionaire...
I like the TAX ending 😂😂😂 it is true maybe public apologies is needed from the navy
And the Independence class is cracking. Stellar performance thus far...
The shipbuilders owe the apology.
Military industrial complex, all one needs to understand about the military. Keep it alive at all costs... Hence the wars around the world
Because, it is less expensive and feasible engineering to build new rather than upgrade the existing.
It has been said: Take a pile of S$##, cover it in gold, you end up with a gold covered pile of S$##. This is like the new carriers who have become 'Dock Queens' for years because of crappy construction and experimental equipment that doesn't work. We need to give our crews something that has been tried out and proved. Why sign contracts for a half dozen without making sure even one is what is needed?
According to the FAKE news media Brandon patched up relations with France by offering them the new USN catapult system - which doesn't work. Do you believe that? If not, the DHS and FBI may put you on their watch list.
@@johnteets2921 Already There! Spent 30 years with the STS Shuttle System, constructing and evaluating systems from civilian contractors. Heard many times the phrase "Senator xxxxx" is a supporter of this "outhouse' and wants it before his reelection. The giggle factor and refusals has my name prominently on a short list. If we hadn't done our job, the loss of shuttles would have been expanded.
"Not in their best shape" is a polite way to describe the Mine Countermeasures ships. Damn things run off of poorly maintained diesel engines. The only way I was able to see a patrol on one of the MCMs was after a year and a half of engine problems, one Chief Engineer fired, and one engineering dept. LCPO "stepping down", big Navy sent an Isotta Fraschini corporate mechanic to fully diagnose and fix the issues. We lasted a good six months before we had to limp back to homeport because of more engine issues. Good times.
Why didn't they use domestically produced EMD 20-710 (5000 hp) engines; up to 40,000 hours before overhauls.
@@191895 Sizing issues, I would guess. Just by looking at a picture of the EMD I can say that it wouldn't have fit in the main space of an MCM. Also, if I am not mistaken, the IF engines were made to put off as little of a magnetic trace as possible. Everything about those ships were designed with the most reliable degaussing methods in mind.
To be fair, I was on an MCM in the early 2010's, and by then they were long overdue to be decommed. If the LCS project worked the way it was supposed to then maybe they would have been.
The simple fact of the matter is that the USN (and other service branches) had a few years in which many terrible ideas somehow got through the design bureaus. We can only hope that they've been successfully dealt with and removed!
They aluminum built, aliminium not good enough for large ships. Thought about 9:44 are multitasking as fighter jets, but that is more komplekse at sea. As all at edge technology, it's costly and not always a success. Contracts made have to be fulfilled, and that is business.
Warships need to be fast, with enough, have effective weapons, have to withstand the power of the sea, and have to be stealthily. In total, it is a very complex wishlist.
Whatever it takes to get the job done so long as we keep being number one
We have a LCS here in Bremerton,WA in the inactive ship area. I think there's a FFG Perry class hull around too. Knowing how tough they are, I'd sail in a reactivated Perry class anytime.
lol that guy was sitting over in the everett bay for a few weeks just stranded it looks cool but fuuuck
10 to 15 knots ! So it could keep pace with a 19th century frigate under sail. So that's what the ludicrous speed switch at 4:52 was for .
Are warships covered by lemon laws ?
You build one or two. If they work, you build a few more and make improvements. If they fly off the shelves you make a whole bunch. The way they did this seems to be by the F-35 method... build a bunch and then figure out what isn't right and try to fix them while even more airframes roll off the assembly line with immediate need for fixing. Granted the F-35 is now kicking ass and developing to meet its role(s) but the teething process was scary. Same with this ship.
Everytime I Here. It's not what you think. Makes me wonder if I'm even thinking anymore
Just imagine what the US navy could have today if they invested that money into existing, off the line german Sachsen (or almost identical durch De Zeven) class frigattes. Or anything the french, italian, spanish, swedish, UKs or norways military / ship building industry had to offer.
But nooooo, big navy had to throw big money at a program that has impossible goals, just to find out that it was an expensive mistake to pursue them.
Who would've guessed?
You miss the entire point of these build programs. Jobs, and keeping the money within the country.
Did you not hear they are. There using the tow depth sonar from the UK. Also in the army trophy was built by Israel. The f-35 had its turbofan on the F-35B developed by Britain.
@Dr. BrightI don't like the system but here it is. And it's tax payers that will call their representative if they don't get a contract.
I'm ex military, I don't care where the equipment comes from I'd like the best stuff at a useful quantity. I don't work in procurement.
Germany's MEKO A-300 would be sweet to have in the US Navy, that ship is loaded for war and then some!
Could have written welfare cheques with one half, invested the other half, and been able to buy proper ships now.
Perhaps giving shipbuilding contracts to a historical aeronautical company wasn’t the best idea.
right? stick to Ingalls shipbuilding. thats whose building carriers
TBH LocMart hasn't been too good at coming in with aero/astro projects that A) Are on time. B) Are on budget. C) Actually meet the spec... or even work.
It seems the only thing they _are_ good at is making executives and congressmen rich.
@@jimurrata6785 And admirals who become board members upon retirement.
They've probably offered the cheapest ship (literally)
@@jimurrata6785 and they call other countries corrupt
The problem is that the navy is relying on OEM manufacturers for maintenance, under the contract for these ships, sailors do not perform routine maintenance of these ships, that’s because these are still intellectual property of OEM manufacturers and many of these systems are considered part of their intellectual property and for contracting reasons to protect this proprietary systems within the OEM, special 3rd party contractors are the only ones permitted to run routine maintenance, these have to be shipped from the Continental US to wherever the ships are deployed at the expense of the navy causing huge delays in servicing and basic maintenance. Sailors cannot perform routine maintenance of these ships and it’s because of this that the LCS program has incurred such a high cost and become terribly ineficiente. It’s also why ships are reported to be in poor condition when on deployment and adding the technical issues which again involve proprietary OEM manufacturers, you cannot have enlisted sailors perform repairs or maintenance on systems that are supposed to be automated and restricted to only OEM approved contractors which.
They, the LCS platforms are good in theory but this does not work when the ships cannot be maintained by the enlisted sailors and are the property of the OEM manufacturers that still hold the final say on the systems and machinery that is contained within these ships
If the American public knew the true extent of waste in the Department of Defense, it's likely they would rise up in the streets for sure. It is beyond absurd.
The DOD only gets roughly 3% of the budget. The rest goes to welfare and corruption
Out of US $700 bn military budget half of that goes into the pockets of the rich and big private companies who intentionally try to increase and delay such ambitious projects. Like how the f-35 program almost cost America a trillion.
It is not intentional. Things like this are normal for all high tech complex projects. When you are doing something for the first time using new untried technology there are bound to be many things that don't work as intended, and then there will be delays while the problem is worked around. It is not like building a house or a road, where you usually know exactly what you have to do.
@@Tugela60 BS. Just look at us germans
The problem isn't the Navy; it's the contractors. If something doesn't work as promised, they should be the ones footing the bill. Of course, that'll never actually happen.
and a few politicians
The problem is the Navy because they're the ones who still stick with POS contractors whose only goal is to line pockets, not meet performance goals.
Well the navy should do prototype testing too, instead of testing everything during production. But they want all their new toys quickly.
There is nothing new in a CODAG propulsion system.
The Independence class is mentioned a similar class without any problems. I remember that there where a problem with galvanic corrosion on the Independence class.
The USN really needs proper Frigates. The Constellation class are an excellent start, and should go into full production. They are much closer in spirit to the Perry class.