How much can you do with the LCS?

[Rudd]

My vote goes to this, maybe with an AN/SPY-1F.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... N9J-S3BZvA

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... x5CtUKCTkg

[skjold89]

I personally think the LCS (I heard them referred to as Little Crappy Ships) is getting alot of flak becouse at least on face value it has less capability and is more expensive then the ships it is replacing.

[mikmykWS]

Yeah lots of development problems and the modules aren't done. Press bangs on this and the F35 equally.

This being said I've been on Freedom and you can see the potential. Lots of space for stuff and a very slick ship.

Mike

[Wiz33]

Well, Looks like the LCS is finally getting some teeth:

http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-new ... ile-2016-4

[Sabresandy]

Given a little more self-defense capability and the ability to mothership a handful of unmanned systems--ideally a mix of ACTUVs, RHIB-based systems, and a few UASes for eyes and light strike--there might well be something to the LCSes. The really high dash speed is of suspect usefulness, though; that seems to be an overemphasis on the small boat swarm threat.

[Sardaukar]

I think LCS is way overpriced for capabilities it offers. It also lacks range for replacing all ships it is supposed to replace. Lack of defensive/offensive weaponry is of concern too.

[jtoatoktoe]

LCS 1 is getting the Naval Strike Missile, so that's a start.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: jtoatoktoe

LCS 1 is getting the Naval Strike Missile, so that's a start.

Indeed. But there is certain perceived lack of self-defence capabilities, which are critical to environment those ships are supposed to operate in.

I am sure they will sort that out with enough money...but...

[Wiz33]

Short of adding the necessary fire control suite for ESSM. The best that can be hoped for in short term is probably SeaRAM.

[MichaelJCuozzo]

The CMANO group on Facebook has gone over the usefulness of the LCS in depth. Basically, until the weapons change and the ship is fitted to face legitimate 21st Century blue water threats, it's a coffin.

[Sabresandy]

In which case, might it not make more sense to buy dedicated blue-water frigates for the role? If we really wanted the jack-of-all-trades not-really-a-warship, the Danish approach with the Absalon-class support ship or a larger number of Sea Fighter types would work relatively well. (Come to think of it, the Danish Absalons are almost everything that the LCS is supposed to be, discounting the anti-small boat mission.)

[ExNusquam]

ORIGINAL: Mikewritesfic face legitimate 21st Century blue water threats,

What does the "L" in LCS stand for again?

ORIGINAL: Sabresandy
If we really wanted the jack-of-all-trades not-really-a-warship, the Danish approach with the Absalon-class support ship or a larger number of Sea Fighter types would work relatively well. (Come to think of it, the Danish Absalons are almost everything that the LCS is supposed to be, discounting the anti-small boat mission.)

In what world is the Absalon-Class not a warship? It weights 6000+ tons, and nominally carries 16 Harpoons and 30+ ESSMs. The Absalon weighs twice as much as an LCS and has significantly more capability than was ever intended for the LCS program (C2, Hospital and sealift)

You guys really seem to think the LCS is supposed to be something that it's just not. It was never designed or envisioned to go toe-to-toe with peer-level surface combatants. Here's a quote about what it was supposed to do:

That requires the ability to counter growing “asymmetric” threats like coastal mines, quiet diesel submarines, global piracy, and terrorists on small fast attack boats. It also requires intelligence gathering and scouting, some ground combat support capabilities, and the ability to act as a local command node, sharing tactical information with other Navy aircraft, ships, submarines, and joint units.

I've yet to see any evidence that the original LCS plan would have failed to complete these missions.

[Dysta]

I think the major issue to make LCS has to be nimble and seems underpowered is due to the single powerplant to achieve abnormally fast speed. Last I remember, the surface ship that could reach above 35 knots will be either civilian motor yacht, hydrofoil or alike with very small displacement, or US CVN that reaching to 'classified' top speed with all nuclear reactors giving peak powers. Even Cold War era of sub-chasers rarely need to be that fast since the nuclear powered sub rarely flanking all the way with substanial noise, until the quieter models are introduced.

Hovercraft is even faster (50 knots or above), the Bora-class is a fine example from the ex-Soviet engineering that is as heavily armed and fast as possible to counter surface naval invasion, do not forget that it got lots of powerplants and redundancies for numerous sea conditions, and that is the reason why it won't endure the journey as long as the conventional corvettes did.

It might be true that speed and jack-of-all-trades are essential, and proved its worth since the existence of USS Constitution two centuries ago. Moreover, war is getting more dimensional, and gun-to-gun battle become past, it is understandable that even the small vessel have to act like a tough flagship to perform more intelligences and asymmetrical advantages, instead of a minion-style workhorse for frontline battle.

But again, speed is the double-edge sword, fast can hunt small and imminent threat down fast, but so does the engine and fuel.

[Primarchx]

ORIGINAL: ExNusquam
I've yet to see any evidence that the original LCS plan would have failed to complete these missions.

So what missions does the LCS excel at?

ASuW? No one thinks so. The implementation of AGM-114L was seen as a major lethality boost (huh?) but at least now they're talking NSM for the future.

ASW? Mission modules are too heavy and still not ready. Prosecution is only possible with helos.

MCM? Nope, still years from deployment.

[FTBSS]

And the capability to cost ratio is way to low in other words for what these things cost they should be alot more effective in most roles you think they are capable in

[mikmykWS]

My only issue with them is there isn't really a completed module yet. We can't even evaluate how good they are at x until these are completed. Other than tour around we have yet to see these ships do something other than travel. This could totally be how the Navy is communicating though.

Mike

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

My only issue with them is there isn't really a completed module yet. We can't even evaluate how good they are at x until these are completed. Other than tour around we have yet to see these ships do something other than travel. This could totally be how the Navy is communicating though.

Mike

You're right about the modules.

One has to look at LCS first in terms of its design effort to control long term sustainment costs for operations.

I worked Army acquisition, and post production sustainment costs (including manpower, training, and hard sustainment items such as ammunition, fuel, and spares) drove anywhere from 65 to 90 percent of the life cycle costs for deploying a combat system after engineering development, production, and initial deployment costs were factored in. The largest single cost impact over the lifecycle of a system was manpower and training for operations, maintenance, and its share of supply support.

LCS is one of the first deployed systems whose design criteria placed life cycle cost containment on a par with combat capability.

Launching the platform allows the Navy to begin testing its concept for reducing operational costs by minimizing the crew complement necessary to sail the ship, and rotating crews on the platform to keep it operationally available up to 50-percent of the time during its life (current systems average approximately 25-percent operational availability due in part to crew fatigue / workload constraints to maintain combat readiness).

When LCS combat role was first defined, the Navy was focusing on the emerging DoD role to support combat against asymmetrical threats and insurgent operations. Today, it appears that DoD is building a consensus that conflicts with major powers such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are potential threats.

The late 90s doctrine developers were wise to recognize that the threat environment could change while the LCS platform was still in production, and defined the modular weapons hosting concept you mention in the design criteria so the platform remained viable as the threat focus changed.

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

My only issue with them is there isn't really a completed module yet. We can't even evaluate how good they are at x until these are completed. Other than tour around we have yet to see these ships do something other than travel. This could totally be how the Navy is communicating though.

Mike

You're right about the modules.

One has to look at LCS first in terms of its design effort to control long term sustainment costs for operations.

I worked Army acquisition, and post production sustainment costs (including manpower, training, and hard sustainment items such as ammunition, fuel, and spares) drove anywhere from 65 to 90 percent of the life cycle costs for deploying a combat system after engineering development, production, and initial deployment costs were factored in. The largest single cost impact over the lifecycle of a system was manpower and training for operations, maintenance, and its share of supply support.

LCS is one of the first deployed systems whose design criteria placed life cycle cost containment on a par with combat capability.

Launching the platform allows the Navy to begin testing its concept for reducing operational costs by minimizing the crew complement necessary to sail the ship, and rotating crews on the platform to keep it operationally available up to 50-percent of the time during its life (current systems average approximately 25-percent operational availability due in part to crew fatigue / workload constraints to maintain combat readiness).

When LCS combat role was first defined, the Navy was focusing on the emerging DoD role to support combat against asymmetrical threats and insurgent operations. Today, it appears that DoD is building a consensus that conflicts with major powers such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are potential threats.

The late 90s doctrine developers were wise to recognize that the threat environment could change while the LCS platform was still in production, and defined the modular weapons hosting concept you mention in the design criteria so the platform remained viable as the threat focus changed.

Thanks Jim

Do you think the problem is though is that the module designs are also fluid? Not that this is wrong but it does lead people to the conclusion that they're not ready/completed.

Ex. Surface module was first built to deal with swarms in the littoral (guns and small missiles with high rates of fire). Now there is an added requirement of being able to duke it out with a contemporary or Chinese/Russian vessel with defensive systems?

I'm really a fan of these ships!

Mike

[Primarchx]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

Thanks Jim

Do you think the problem is though is that the module designs are also fluid? Not that this is wrong but it does lead people to the conclusion that they're not ready/completed.

Ex. Surface module was first built to deal with swarms in the littoral (guns and small missiles with high rates of fire). Now there is an added requirement of being able to duke it out with a contemporary or Chinese/Russian vessel with defensive systems?

I'm really a fan of these ships!

Mike

Both good points above about cost savings and expectations. But from what I've seen only the LCS ASuW module has actually been effectively deployed to date. The others seem to be chasing a moving target and failing in basic performance benchmarks followed by lengthy 'back to the drawing board' periods. I'm all for finding good TCO economies but what we see more and more of (not just with LCS) are promises of fiscal improvement turning into programs of spiraling cost that struggle to meet even fundamental performance goals.

I have no expectation of LCS competing 1:1 with a well-defended warship. However it should be an offensive/defensive match for a FAC-M, a frequent resident of the littoral region the LCS was designed to operate in. While helos/UAVs help even the scales, organic, all-weather offensive OTH weapons are IMHO necessary to make that happen.

[jimcarravall]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

My only issue with them is there isn't really a completed module yet. We can't even evaluate how good they are at x until these are completed. Other than tour around we have yet to see these ships do something other than travel. This could totally be how the Navy is communicating though.

Mike

You're right about the modules.

One has to look at LCS first in terms of its design effort to control long term sustainment costs for operations.

I worked Army acquisition, and post production sustainment costs (including manpower, training, and hard sustainment items such as ammunition, fuel, and spares) drove anywhere from 65 to 90 percent of the life cycle costs for deploying a combat system after engineering development, production, and initial deployment costs were factored in. The largest single cost impact over the lifecycle of a system was manpower and training for operations, maintenance, and its share of supply support.

LCS is one of the first deployed systems whose design criteria placed life cycle cost containment on a par with combat capability.

Launching the platform allows the Navy to begin testing its concept for reducing operational costs by minimizing the crew complement necessary to sail the ship, and rotating crews on the platform to keep it operationally available up to 50-percent of the time during its life (current systems average approximately 25-percent operational availability due in part to crew fatigue / workload constraints to maintain combat readiness).

When LCS combat role was first defined, the Navy was focusing on the emerging DoD role to support combat against asymmetrical threats and insurgent operations. Today, it appears that DoD is building a consensus that conflicts with major powers such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are potential threats.

The late 90s doctrine developers were wise to recognize that the threat environment could change while the LCS platform was still in production, and defined the modular weapons hosting concept you mention in the design criteria so the platform remained viable as the threat focus changed.

Thanks Jim

Do you think the problem is though is that the module designs are also fluid? Not that this is wrong but it does lead people to the conclusion that they're not ready/completed.

Ex. Surface module was first built to deal with swarms in the littoral (guns and small missiles with high rates of fire). Now there is an added requirement of being able to duke it out with a contemporary or Chinese/Russian vessel with defensive systems?

I'm really a fan of these ships!

Mike

I worked for the material developer (logistics development for new systems).

You describe what we called "mission creep" -- it's the case you see when you fix a customer's issue with a software update, and that customer says, "Thanks for the quick turn around to address my problem, now what if . . ."

The war fighter who defines the threat and the capability desired to address the threat changes their mind after the original documentation is used to develop the engineering solution (the material developer's part of the program) once the engineering costs have been sunk and the schedule allocated to address the design solution has been used. Starts the whole cycle over again (particularly when the vendor performing the services based on the material developer's contracted costs and schedules sees more money coming his way if the new requirement is added and sides with the war fighter) and generates cost overruns and schedule delays.

You have to freeze an engineering design to build a solution, but you can't stop technology from superseding the design once it's been built, but not yet tested or put in operation.