Update on the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship Program - Naval News
The Independent class
About 400 feet long with basically an armaments of some 50 calibers, a 57mm gun which sounds great until you realize 57 mm is just a little more than two inches, like 2 1/4 inches and Hellfire missiles.
Then you have the Freedom Class
about 350 feet long and same basic armaments as Independence class
Which means, given the failure of pretty much any of the "modules" that were supposed to make this platform a well armed jack of all trades depending on configuration you have got essentially a lemon.
And it appears the Navy is trying to make lemonade.. problem is these lemons are rotten.
But...Before I go on to what type of lemonade I wanted to show a few snapshots of what similarly sized warships from our peers and near peers are configured. What we might have gotten had a whole generation of leaders not drank the transformational cool aide.
Besides vey questionable acquisitions also included minimal manning, perform to serve, multiple crews for one platform... ect
So first up the ruskies
lets just start with the Steregushchy-class corvette
Just about the same size as the Freedom Class except she packs a much bigger punch. Deck gun is going to range between 100 mm and 130 mm (the translates into 5 inches), also 12 VLS cells that can accommodate the Kalibr familly of missiles. Yes that fanilly of Kaliber that can be a ship killer or land attack cruise missiles with about 1000 mile range if OSINT is to be believed
Ok yes she is about 40 foot longer then the Independence class and about 9 feet longer than Freedom. But she, like the Russian packs it in with a 100 mm main gun 32 VLS cells and some anti ship missiles
So now on to the rancid lemonade that I think the Navy is making. It sounds like they want the LCS to do mine warfare and replace PC's... This is a big mistake.
Even the Navy appears to admit this.
So I'm all for Unmanned Systems, but you have to have capable unmanned systems. And oh by the way, once again we could do alot to learn from our Baltic and Nordic brethren whom have been doing mine warfare as a professional subsection of surface warfare well for a long time.
The below is the Ensdorf Class Mine Sweeper first came into service in the 1990's. That uses Unmanned Surface Vehicles to actively sweep for magnetic and pressure mines. Pretty cool..maybe we could like ask the Germans for assistance in scaling this to something that could fit aboard LCS? And maybe ask the Norwegians about how to utilize AUV's?
The USV's by the way came into service in the 1980s.
But now we are basically going to get rid of our dedicated MCM in the form of the Avenger class and shove it all onto LCS..
Yes the Avenger's are getting long in the tooth and need to have a dedicated replacement..but tagging the LCS for this is not really smart. At least not right now..
Apparently, the reporter here got to get the unvarnished truth from an O-3 hope the O-3 was not taken out back by the woodshed.
"Now as far as LCS goes…to say that is it getting faster or more time consuming… Today, it is clear and faster because we have [MCM] systems [that the LCS] didn’t have five years ago. Five years into the future, we should have these [LCS MCM] systems, if managed correctly, that you can employ all at once"
.......
"So, for an Avenger that can detect and destroy a mine in four hours, it might take the LCS an entire day and that is because the LCS cannot do a single sortie to detect and engage and relies on unmanned systems"
By the way, I think the 4 hour mark is a little generous, It can take days and or weeks sometimes, I would say once you have positively identified a mine 4 hours is probably ok assuming nothing breaks
Then same reporter got ahold of an O-4 whom may have been through JPME so the answer was a litttle more hedged but still damning
“Bottom line: It’s expensive, the reasons being that some of these systems on the LCS Mission package have technologies that have not yet existed so we have to research and we have to look into these technologies and build them up and that cost money. I think that anything that is new and shiny is going to initially cost money. And when the systems are in full production and fully fielded, it will drive down the cost, but for now it’s expensive and that is just the nature of Acquisitions in buying something new.”
We have literally been designing these MCM modules for over a decade, and we still can't seem to make it work. How about lets ask those countries that know how to do mine warfare vice trying to transformationalize our way to a newer way of mine warfare.
Mine warfare is not sexy and it is not easy, and the more effective ways to do it are decidedly low tech. Which Boils down to hunt when you can, sweep when you must accept risk at last resort...something that has not changed in several hundred years
Below is from “Damn the Torpedoes 99 0 . A Short History of U.S. Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777-1991 by Tamara Moser Melia.
Its a great read and can be found here
DamnTorpedoesWhole.pdf (nps.edu)
and if you believe the Damn the Torpedoes myth your about to be disappointed.
As Farragut literally hunted when he could swept when he had to and took risk when required against the mine warfare threat he faced
"Late Sunday night, on 31 July 1864, as one witness recalled it, Lieutenant John Crittenden Watson, Farragut’s flag lieutenant and personal friend, set out on a curious expedition to Mobile Bay. Heavily armed, Watson and his men rowed quietly into the bay with muffled oars. Unobserved by the enemy on this particular occasion, they proceeded with their nightly mission of examining a field of these moored Confederate contact mines blocking much of the entrance to Mobile Bay.
Although this foray through the mine lines is the best documented example of Watson’s minehunting activities, surviving ship deck logs and memoirs attest to his repeated attempts to gain information for Farragut on the extent of the mine danger zone. Watson took picket boats out from Farragut’s flagship, the sloop of war Hartford, on the nights of 30 June, 25 July, and 27 July; on 25 July he had been accompanied on an extended survey by boats from gunboat Sebago and sloop Monongahela.
In his battle orders Farragut assured his fleet that the mine line had been thoroughly surveyed. “It being understood that there are torpedoes and other obstructions between the buoys, the vessels will take care to pass eastward of the easternmost buoy”; which he knew from Watson’s reconnaissance should be “clear of all obstructions. At high tide on the morning of 5 August Farragut entered the bay. Farragut’s officers had persuaded him to allow the sloop Brooklyn, hastily rigged with a rudimentary torpedo catcher on the bowsprit, to lead the advance in place of Farragut’s flagship, Hartford. Contrary to Farragut’s orders, monitor Tecumseh moved west of the red buoy where it struck and detonated one of the newly placed mines. As Tecumseh quickly went down, Brooklyn suddenly stopped and backed, stalling the fleet’s ad~ance.~ High in Hartford‘s rigging Farragut watched Tecumseh sink and Brooklyn hesitate. From Hurtford‘s poop deck Lieutenant Watson heard the admiral’s exchange with Brooklyn: “Farragut hailed again and all that could be distinguished of her reply was something about torpedoes. ‘Damn the torpedoes!’ he instantly shouted, ordering Hartford‘s captain ‘Full speed ahead, Drayton.”’
........
On 6 August Farragut issued a general order of thanks to his men for their conduct of the previous day. Unwittingly underplaying Watson’s efforts while exaggerating his own ignorance of the state of the mine defenses of the bay, Farragut claimed that of the mines he “knew nothing except the exaggerations of the enemy.”1° Some of Farragut’s officers later asserted that Watson’s minehunting efforts were far more extensive than even Farragut himself knew. “How far he entered the Bay on these occasions in the darkness of the night I doubt if the Admiral knew himself,” one man reported, although “he evidently was in close touch with the enemy.”” Confederates on the scene agreed that however they were discovered, Farragut knew exactly where the live mines were
Farragut’s daring in the face of enemy mines was real. Before the battle Farragut had decided to enter the bay whatever the obstacles. Confederate mine warfare had, however, been so successful in stalling the Union advance that by 1864 no captain in the Union Navy could afford to ignore the mine threat when attacking a fortified harbor. Watson’s efforts no doubt added to the failure rate of the mines, and the knowledge he gave Farragut of the extent and exact parameters of the mine threat influenced Farragut’s decision to take the risk. Farragut prepared to battle the mines as carefully as he prepared his vessels for the fight, gaining sufficient information about the condition of the minefield before him to make a dangerous yet measured decision. Farragut did not, as many assert, merely “damn” the mines at Mobile Bay but, rather, assiduously hunted, examined, and disabled them before steaming into the bay. His meticulous approach to the mine threat is a crucial lesson in risk assessment that, unfortunately, most contemporary observers missed
So to bring this back to full cycle using an LCS as Mine Warfare Asset is a bad idea unless you make it into a mine warfare asset as its primary mission. Not a module, Your also going to have to permanently embark MIW helos and and all that stuff. In short take USS Inchon and merge it with MCM -1. Im not sure how your are going to duplicate the the MIW disposal ability of the MCM ROV's but perhaps the UUV/AUV advances in the last several years have mitigated that.
Oh did you also read they are thinking about getting rid of PC's and giving that mission to LCS....
"RADM Paul Schlise said that the roles of the PCs will be replaced by the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) and the smaller U.S. Coast Guard boats. Schlise described the Coast Guard boats as platforms that work in both peace and wartime and having great capabilities that can make up for the retirement of the Patrol Coastals. This article will explore those options further below"
How about this...lets get rid of all the LCS's use the money in savings to buy replacement PC's and MCM's that work.
Lets admit that there are different types of knives and tools and while a swiss army knife has most of the implements you may need, your are not going to build a house are fix machinery well with one.
You need to invest in specialized tools.
ok friday rant complete
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