Byron - you're buying the beer

Best Sea & Anchor detail in the Navy - and the right call.

Florida's Mayport naval base got a boost March 9 when the U.S. Navy's top officer confirmed it as the future home and primary site of East Coast Littoral Combat Ships (LCS).

The first LCS vessels are to be homeported at Mayport beginning in 2016, Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said during a military construction hearing on Capitol Hill.

The ships, of which two are now in service, are initially being based at San Diego.

Here is the fun part I have yet to see discussed. When the down-select takes place - where will the loser ships be based?

Oh, speaking of hard questions. This is why so many people owe me beer. When LCS becomes what it was sold as not being - then I win.

"We see it as a replacement for the FFG class (frigates)," Roughead told the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee.

The LCS cannot do what a Frigate is supposed to do. Not even close. It is a large, expensive, low endurance, under-armed Corvette. -1 for the CNO .... but +1 for this.

Roughead also touched on the other good news Mayport has heard recently: that the base will serve as homeport for a nuclear aircraft carrier.

He told the subcommittee the decision, which wasn't taken lightly, was in the best interest of national security.

Exactly the right call CNO. Roughead, Harvey, and Salamander all in full alignment. Mark your calendars.

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UPDATE: Oh, as usual, when it comes to the changing story on LCS - the funny stuff just keeps on coming.

First, the Navy began exploring what it would take to equip an LCS with a towed sonar array — which would be the ship’s first on-board underwater sensor and could usher in a new set of tactics for the fleet to hunt for submarines.

Second, new Pentagon documents cast doubt on the future of the Army’s Non-Line-Of-Sight missile planned for use aboard LCS, raising questions about whether the ships’ tactics for surface combat — predicated upon it wielding a short-range surface-to-surface missile — would also have to change.

Taken together, the Navy’s request for proposals about an LCS sonar and the Army’s internal deliberations about NLOS showed that even as the Navy prepares to decide this summer which of the two competing LCS designs it will put into full production, basic assumptions about the whole LCS concept remain in flux.

In Philip Ewing's dead-tree story, he describes one of the ASW vignettes. What a howler. Sprint & drift ASW in an open ocean with a CSG/ESG. The engineering and weight issues alone are one thing - but the sea keeping and sustainment issues leave me ROFLMAO.

As LCS continues to expose its internal failures for all to see - and the LCS Cult attempts to respond to each exposure - you know what the ever evolving LCS spin reminds me of? This.



Hey - I like that metaphor. Bloggers and other opponents of LCS are the barking dogs --- the dogs that run away are those on active duty whose are PCS'n out away from the program before the stink gets on their FITREPs --- the dogs caught are those on active duty who try to speak out about LCS's record and/or just took over from the dogs leaving .... you could go on and on ... Hey, any way you look at it - it's ugly.