The purpose of the U.S. Navy is to use seapower in all its definitions to defend the United States and its interests.
We the taxpayer give them money to draw up requirements of what they need so we can hand over more money to build what they say they need.
This is not being done. What we are getting are the fielding of large giga-dollar aircraft carriers that have obsolete-to-the-threat air wings. We get wasteful dreadnoughts that will end up like the Prince of Wales. We get poor leadership. And we get a fraudulent attempts at “warships” in the name of the Littoral Combat Ship.
“One thing you will hear discussed on a regular basis will be the cost per unit in this announcement. This is what gets me twitchy the most as that is a stripped down LCS with no mission modules. Just the baseline model. It is like buying a baseline car with no radio, no AC, etc. You cannot compare per unit or per ton cost of LCS with FFG and DD/DDG that already are configured for full multi-mission operation, vice the uni-mission LCS. Remember, the quote does not represent the per unit cost even close. Even if it did – the tactical utility of the whole class is still snake bit.
Inside DC, there is a love of programatics and number games where costs are fudged and victory is seen as getting a check in the block with money attached – that is their battlefield. That is not why you have shipbuilding programs though. The goal of shipbuilding is to produce the best tradeoff between cost and capability and to give to the Sailors at sea the best ability to operate, fight, win, and survive in war at sea and power projection ashore.
That is the measure. By that measure, LCS continues to be a rolling disgrace.”
Anywhere else, this would be the RICO statue.
Unfortunately, as spec’d the LCS combat suites covering MCM, ASUW and ASW just don’t seem like that big an advance.
The ASUW suite is a 30mm gun and an ‘undefined’ missile suite, since the Netfires option is cancelled, with a Firescout as spotter and an MH-60R as backup chaser.
If the enemy sends out 15 Boghammars, you have just put a billion dollar boat at critical disadvantagment with a close in weapons suite that is really little better than a 5″ mount on a destroyer with improved Mk.15 (optics and manual tracking) on a conventional DDG.
The MCM and ASW suite are basically the same systems with biased UUV/USV deployment of long line deployable sonar and remote networked buoys. While I admit that the well deck will help in -recovery- of these systems, the fact is that they largely already exist and could be adapted to existing hulls without a major new class design whose draft is so shallow and it’s base load so light that it cannot be called a deep water asset. It should also be noted that both the unmanned vehicles on which these systems are based have had to go back to the drawing board, based on power, connectivity and endurance issues.
And the CONOPS is absurd-
http://faculty.nps.edu/jekline/docs/LCS%20CONOPS%20brief%2011-15%20Backups.ppt#3
We’re talking distributed (‘networked’) 6-8 ship squadrons still with the assumption of full ESG/CSG and strategic (MMA/RQ-4) ISR backup in most cases and we’re doing so, in-shore, in places like Hormuz and the Formosa Straights where the numeric saturation and high threat potential with advanced missile systems and even nukes looks possible.
This is worrisome because the one are -not- mentioned is the AAW suite whose defensive nature (57mm AHEAD, 30mm if mounted and RIM-116) is little better than an Amphibious Warfare or Fleet Train supply ship. Now they talk about the capability of fitting 16 cell VLS rigs and SPY-1F, but now you’re talking a 1.5 billion dollar Burke II class cost for a ship that carries half as much!
The RQ-8 has lousy altitude and payload performance which means it’s station time and sensor horizon are going to be short and the airframe may itself be vulnerable to basic MANPADS.
There is no missile like an active ESSM or SM6 in development which means that saturation attacks with large numbers of even subsonic AShM are a big risk.
And without Netfires, you also lose the surface to surface mode of Standard to plink light craft.
I see no deep inshore attack system to support the Amphibious Warfare and STOM mission suite using V-22s more than 50nm inshore and again, without Netfires and with only 16 launch cells for ‘either or’ AAW loading, it becomes hard to see Standard LAM being a cheap or wise means to a stand-in capability if the snake eaters get into real trouble in the Special Warfare surfzone support mission.
I also don’t see any kind of incapacitating and heavy suppression system (air delivered, standoff via griffin or similar with thermobaric/EB and gas warheads) which would ‘clear the decks’ and make hostile VBSS easier. See Israeli Commandos getting the crap kicked out of them by ‘humanitarian’ food delivery convoy that was actually carrying weapons.
The Navy needs some new munitions. It needs a UAV that performs like Predator from a short deck entirely dedicated to light ‘sea control’ airpower so you aren’t anchoring a carrier to a frigate/corvette escort mission rather than the other damn way around like it should be. The Navy needs to take the blinders off what the consequences to this-
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Even as future procurement trends will make LCS ships the most common form of US naval power.
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“Because the Navy has invested heavily in land-attack capabilities such as the Advanced Gun System and land-attack missiles in DD (X), there is no requirement for [the Littoral Combat Ship] to have this capability. Similarly, LCS does not require an antiair capability beyond self-defense because DD (X) and CG (X) will provide area air defense. Thus, if either DD (X) or CG (X) does not occur in the numbers required and on time, the Navy will face two options: leave LCS as is, and accept the risk inherent in employment of this ship in a threat environment beyond what it can handle (which is what it did with the FFG-7); or “grow” LCS to give it the necessary capabilities that originally were intended to reside off board in DD (X) and CG (X). Neither option is acceptable.”
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The current plan also expects to buy 64 mission modules for the 55-ship program, or about 1.2 modules per ship, down from the originally-envisaged 3-4 modules per ship.
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http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-usas-new-littoral-combat-ships-updated-01343/
Will be.
The above is essentially an admission that the LCS fleet cannot be purchased, at current cost, with a full mission capability spectrum and this is getting -worse not better- as more and more of the intended remote/network hardware heads back to the labs for failure to perform.
All this while a 700 million dollar hull _originally intended to be bought cheap_ (300-400 million, tops) so that it could get bloody without being a huge capital asset loss of prestige, now needs conventional CG-X/DD-X support in the more ‘conventional’ mission sets such as AAW and particularly antimissile warfare. Which will bring these heavy assets close inshore regardless.
Dare I remind the USN that when you use big hulls as missile traps to support light assets, it’s usually the big hull which ends up being staked out, bait goated and _sunk_. Elephant’s Head and HMS Coventry come to mind here as an attempt to seal off the approaches to the Falklands Sound amphib anchorage that just didn’t work and there it was -two- AAW ships, with Sea Dart (SM-1 equivalent) and Sea Wolf (Barak equivalent) capability overlap.
Nor is it entirely a PCI (Boghammar) threat these days. FAC-Ms are making a come back with significant AAW protection of their own. And between these, coastal launchers and mines, you just don’t want to be trying to ‘protect’ light inshore craft from short-horizon AShM, using SARH driven weapons.
There is no doubt that the USN could use a 50 knot speed boat chaser and Special Warfare platform for the next Armilla Patrol/Praying Mantis scenario. But it doesn’t need to be 3,000 tons. And it doesn’t need to do all of these mission sets. Because the essence of winning the littoral fight is staying deep blue and sending in the cheap stuff, by air or small sub, until you can secure a COEA with a -few- specialist mission systems like MCM craft.
Quite good overall analysis on the LCS, a, imho. Well presented. It’s unfortuantely a jobs creation ship building program first and foremost – sold as cheap, multi-do-anything-new-age way to build up the fleet – and conceived from a different era of thinking (old way of defense acquisition).
I could possibly support about 4 more hulls though: either mix of 2 ea or 3/1 or 4/0 is someone pulls out, for 4th fleet support of Coast guard plus special contingency ops, e.g., spec ops requirement or a rapid show of presence — first on scene post-natural disaster emergency assistance, etc. (i.e. a crisis stability asset). Very important and underestimated strategic requirement, the second example imo, and lacking.
So perhaps comtemplating a baseline (helo equipped only depending on ops, w/mini light class launched-uav drones), 50mm gun + 30mm gun + Evolved SeaRAM kit. Sufficient capability and credible vs rogue force and for a low-militarized theater such as 4th fleet area of responsibility.. Inform the builder of the up-front fixed price offer, under warranty, or scratch the whole deal.
Better design the strategic requirements and acquisition plan for the ship building industrial/fleet/National defense interests next time. Go fish.
LCS is a coast guard toy. When there is real war, it’ll be gone. It’s middle of nowhere solution, neither fast and agile enough, or a full strength war ship.
If all they want is chasing third world pirates in shallow water, then my suggestion build more destroyer, except with much higher modularity.
in peace time, take out the expensive missile and data fusion compartment. fill with marine. It acts like a crew transport in destroyer hull.
In time of serious naval war, load up the usual gears.
LCS is more useless than a show boat. Pure gimme to LM shipyard.
Geogen/JC,
I don’t see these craft as being Cutter replacements. Their draft is too shallow and their range too short.
This-
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/pc-1.htm
Is where I would put a replacement fleet of 10-20 vessels.
The Cyclones are all 15+ years old-
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/pc-1-unit.htm
Their performance and armament is pathetic and though nominally well armed, they cannot handle more than a ‘terrorist’ threat in strategic conditions where I believe most of our SWOs will be bacck in conventional force support missions, heading ashore to find missile sites and act as spotters when the Iranians sort out their centrifuges and/or the Chinese realize that the U.S. just isn’t going to get any stronger and decide to push us aside as the worlds dominant economy.
One really easy way to do that would be to light the candle at both ends and give Iran serious nuclear standup support (they have developed the Shahab on their own and that is actually the ‘hard part’) with threats to post GMD-
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34051.pdf
Russia bluffed us into failing to install GMD so that the Iranian investment in nukes wouldn’t be for nothing. The Russian/Chinese aid to Irans nuclear infrastructure and specifically Russian ‘non weapons grade’ refinement of fuel for her reactors being the payoff for Putin.
Once Europe is out of the way, I can see a massive, rapid buildup, crisis being used to split our naval/air options and flatout overrun Taiwan and Korea with maximum threat posturement against Japan killing two and paralyzing the third tiger which prop up the increasingly featherless Eagle. All in a bid to demand currency value changes which would effectively end the hegemony of the USD and massively alter our position on the G8 besides.
If the dollar loses 50% of it’s buying power overnight, Fed supplements will be meaningless and even a massive tax hike will not keep most cities and many states afloat. We will all look like California.
The resulting municipals bond crisis would take the air out of the last real U.S. material wealth, our literal property values. And likely be the cliff edge point for a 10+ year recession as every major city in the United States would be forced into bankruptcy (can’t print more money out of this economic idiocy, the world won’t take it).
Since -that- would mean the end of U.S. federal power (State after State would Secede, just to allow populations to pay ONE tax), and no government in existence has yet willingly relinquished it’s sovereignity, the alternative is to pursue war to it’s fullest.
And we will need good hulls to do that.
RAM is nothing but an APS for ships. If you fail the missile shot, especially with supersonics or saturation/mixed attack (dropping 4-8 iron bombs from a popup dive toss standoff suddenly becomes a real possibility), the likelihood that any gun system will get enough cleanup to make a difference is small. Not at 1-2 turrets per hull.
There has to be a CLEAR delineation between outer/mid/inner zones and with ESSM being what it is, we have nothing to form a counter saturation option on threats coming out of a close littoral clutter backdrop where Standard may or may not perform well (and then, only if a DDG is readily available).
Similarly, we keep -dropping- A2G weapons systems that make the most sense for the inshore roles. Netfires is nothing if not Spike-NLOS.
http://www.rafael.co.il/Marketing/332-1608-en/Marketing.aspx
JCM/JAGM is simply Brimstone-2 minus the IIR element of tristar.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/military-forum/15706-bestest-anti-tank-missile-brimstone.html
So it’s not like, even with our massive ostrich fest on the munitions, we cannot make the LCS mission work. But nobody else is likely to develop a STOBAR light drone or the full-deck (short hull) to put a couple squadrons on.
And that, ultimately, is where it’s at for the LCS. The ability to keep the horizon long, the persistence high and the reach far, with altitude and decent transit performance.
Whichever way you do it: on-hull or by overarching hierarchy of fires, you have to have a method to extend the horizon of the LCS squadrons.
Or they’re not worth a damn.
And putting a 250,000 ton combined CSG into coastal waters to protect the ‘destroyer escort, lite’ 30,000 ton white water flotilla with is just… beneath contempt.