The Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) seeks to obtain market research information from sources (hereafter "vendors") capable of fully satisfying information contained herein. NSWCDD seeks a vendor to provide a surface to surface missile system that can be integrated into the Medium Range Surface to Surface Missile Module (MRSSMM).I'm still looking for good news WRT LCS. Still not there.
Questions regarding this Sources Sought Synopsis must be received on or before 4 June 2010. Sources capable of fully satisfying the above requirements should submit capability statements/expressions of interest providing the Government the necessary information to determine actual capability in accordance with the information requested in Information Requested From Vendors section of this Sources Sought. Vendors that respond to this Sources Sought are expected to provide information including, but not limited to, the technology and missile options they offer for satisfying Navy requirements outlined in this Sources Sought.
Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Navy punts on NLOS ... Sal owed more beer
LCS - the gift that keeps on giving!
Sooo...
ReplyDeleteTheres a billion or so of scarce $$$$ tied up in two hulls that can't do much anything but go fast and , "look AWESOME!!!".
And the USN has no plan to build low end combatants except one of these two fragile fuel hog designs.
And nobody is fired.
What a travesty.
of course the predictable missive above is from me....
ReplyDeleteWe may not have diverse weapon systems, but I assure you the Navy is spending time and money to count the number of different skin colors and sexual parts (and soon, coming to a ship hear you) preferred usage of sexual parts.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I no longer speak highly of the Navy, no longer steer young adults to the Naval profession or share any faith in the upper levels of Naval power. The business-best practices and diversity driven racism has led to a lost Navy. I fear after lives have been lost, hulls are on the bottom of the ocean and the political will to fight has escaped us, we will look back at this decade or so and say, "That is where the Navy was lost."
Frack
ReplyDeleteMaybe the CG needs Buoy Tenders?
Thus is the fate of a system that demands experimental or unproven technology as a basic requirement. Half a billion dollars each for a low-survival, lightly-armed, skeleton-crewed, "stealthy" 3000-ton speedcraft that makes a wake that can be seen from space.
ReplyDeleteSo what are the Navy's priorities?
Diversity quotas and women on submarines.
Sal you and others who regulary post here know much more about LCS than I, so I hope this is answerable.
ReplyDeleteWhy does the Navy need a new missile? What is wrong with using Hellfire, Penguin, Harpoon, or SLAM (Harpoon variant) for arming the LCS? I mean other than the fact that all are cheap, durable, combat proven, and already exist.
Warrant...Those proven missiles are not transformational enough for the LCS.
ReplyDeleteLCS doesn't have the ability to provide guidance to missiles...
ReplyDeleteToo fragile for a tender...
ReplyDeleteMore government waste. We should cancel the entire program. I'll write my Senators today.
ReplyDeleteWe're semi-screwed already: FFG-8 is being de-com'd and given to the Pakistanis, more to follow. If they kill LCS (which they should have done over a year ago) then we'd have options till a viable system could be produced or license built.
ReplyDeleteOn the bright side, somewhere trapped in the bowels of NavSea, some poor devil is trying to find some weapons, any weapons, which can be used as armament for these pathetically underarmed vessels in the foreseeable future. So somebody is trying to make the best of a bad job. Doomed, poor bastard, but admirable, to a degree.
ReplyDeleteNow if we can just get bonehead senior officers to quit believing corporate sales pitches and chasing fads in what has been filling the gaping absence of engineering judgement and strategic thought...
Harpoon would require guidance from LCS? =-X
ReplyDeleteI would say a lot more than half a billion dollars for FRE.
ReplyDeleteIt would to tell it where to go :)
ReplyDeleteThink positive load some helos on them armed with Hellfires and/or Penguins... or brit Sea Skuas... that would give them firepower and standoff capability. Maybe even make UAV helo in future.
ReplyDeleteDust off Polyphymus or E-FogM. It might be possible to work Penguin or Gabriel in though those are too big for the Netfires pack.
ReplyDeleteOf course the ideal thing to do with LCs would be to KILL IT WITH FIRE!1!!
However, given procurement realities and the aluminum hull, our enemies are likely to be the ones doing that.
As long Pitch/Roll and Winds are within limits.
ReplyDeleteURR, the fun has not even begun, the DDG-1000 has 10 major systems that are all developmental, Power Plant, Combat System, Radar, etc and so on look up the CRS report, Such a thing is totally unprecedented in the history of warship innovation. Almost all of the USS Monitors primary systems were mature. Ericsson just brough it all together.
ReplyDeleteIf you think LCS went over budget you have not seen anything yet.
Well, it isn't like both contractor teams haven't thought about the issues of putting Harpoon on LCS. They both have varient designs with it on board. As well as torps, Mk41s, more guns, better systems, etc. Not that any of that really "solves" the LCS problem.
ReplyDeleteLast year, I visited LCS 1 with some folks from the program office. We were standing in the mission module bay, looking up at the removable plate in the helo deck. I absentmindedly commented that if the mission module thing didn't work out, they could toss them and the helo and just fit a big ole' Mk 41 VLS and some illuminators instead. Then it would be a new FFG class. Hey, us Aegis guys only think in terms of how many cells can fit on a ship!
ReplyDeleteI got punched.
The missile shop at IWS would probably rather kill the thing with fire than try to shoehorn any of the Navy's existing missiles into that thing. It would be stupidly expensive at this point, since the whole thing is CFE.
E-FOGM already exists. They call it "Spike" :)
ReplyDeleteAnd, frankly, Spike (heck, buy them from the EuroSpike consortium, that gives you plausible deniability like it does for Europe) is a darn good fit for this kind of mission. They even have a NLOS version now, with a 25km range. I *think* it lacks the fully-autonomous IR detection/classification/attack of PAM, but we know Spike's man-in-the-loop with autonomous-terminal-attack actually works (and the fiber-optic variants have been tested in combat).
So, yeah. EuroSpike (ER and/or NLOS) would be my fallback recommendation for speedboat-poppers or light ground support. For FACs or above, I still want to see VLS with ESSM and ASCM, or at least for now put a darn quad-pack of harpoons up there.
Sorry, that was me...
ReplyDeleteOur army here in Poland is mighty content with (shorter ranged) MR Spikes, I guess Israelis have put a lot of combat experience into their designs...
ReplyDeleteI agree. I have a number of freinds at BIW, and they are happy that they got the contract, but admit that there is no way the thing gets built just yet.
ReplyDeleteI call it a "frankenship", and have had many a heated argument at happy hour with BIW folks regarding the actual NEED for this vessel. I don't want it built. They could care less about whether it actually workks as advertised or whether the Navy really needs it. They just see it as a guarenteed paycheck and a few more years of employment..
That's the idea that needs to stop, and right the frick now.
If we need something fast to mess about in the littorals, why not buy SKJOLD class patrol hovercraft from Norway? It's faster, and better armed than an LCS, the one the USN leased had a 76mm on it, and could carry Harpoons. It cost less, has a smaller crew, and would be mostly immune to mines. You could probably put an entire PATHOVRON together for less than the cost of one LCS.
ReplyDeleteHoly cow, Spade, I just spent a year messing about with old PGGs that would be lovely to have new, especially if you can cram Scan Eagle on the weatherdeck and I bet you could. A lot of power in that quick little beast.
ReplyDeleteUpgun it from the twin 3"50s....and have to find lots of J-79 parts....not much draft, small radar signature...what's not to like?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but LCS looks so cool in all the graphics from Lockheed. How can it not save the world and provide freedom and democracy to all peoples by using its ability to go fast and look gucci? Say it ain't so. Here's a possible easy fix to this problem - light the plans and contracting documents for LCS on fire and dance around them naked as they burn THEN build a beefy FFG7 with AEGIS (Spanish FFG style) or JMSDF FC3, throw VLS up forward, keep 76mm, tail and the two bird barn. Now you have AAW, SUW (helos with hellfire) and ASW for a fraction of what LCS costs on a proven hull and plant. Plus you have decent sea keeping capability (when fins work). Light little LCS is going to get its @ss handed to it in open ocean transits when it encounters any heavy weather.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised the Aegis bandwagon hasn't jumped on that idea. Think of the posibilities - another BMD hull!
ReplyDeleteHey, how bad could it be to squeeze 12 SEALs in a connex box? LCS can haul a few boxes full of kick-@$$, real fast!
ReplyDeleteABS rules for Naval Vessel Rules were added to the LCS-1 program well after construction had begun. NVR added requirements is one of the main reasons that LCS-1 tripled her expected costs. Ever wonder what NVR bought the Navy ? We broke alot of common sense "rules" to put LCS-1 to sea: tiny crew, no endurance, pitiful offensive and defensive weapons, etc. So why add NVR ? If NAVSEA really was serious about a revolutionary change to surface combants, then why stradle this new program with NVR (and do so 2 years too late !!). NVR increased cost of LCS-1, LCS-3, and all subsequent "warships". Why not build them to lesser requirements ? Original spec's were for LCS-1 class to have an endurance of 5 days in a row !! Of course they cannot meet even that "endurance" for fuel. NAVSEA should have kept this new class revolutionary: build it cheaply, and then build lots of them, all networked together and mutually supporting each other in the litorals. A decent concept because at some point, sheer quantity itself becomes a capability. But LCS got "sunk" by too many requirement, too many bells and whistles (like full AEGIS CND complete with all those wonderful Doctrine statements for a RAM missile and a 57mm gun). NAVSEA HQ has sunk this interesting LCS experiment by strangling it, stifling it, smothering it, suffocating it. Littorals all over the World will never be covered with adequate numbers of USN LCS type corvettes. Suggestion: fire everyone in NAVSEA HQ, Washington DC and make them reapply for their old jobs. Hiring Authority will be whoever has been successfully running the T-AKE ship program.
ReplyDeleteThat's been said here for several years now. I talked to a NAVSEA program managerer associated with the FFG-7 modernization plan and told him that LCS is corporate welfare. Several of my co-workers looked at my like I'd just grown an extra head, right up until the NAVSEA rep started laughing and told me, "I was wondering if anyone would figure it out".
ReplyDelete