Tuesday, November 09, 2010

LPD-17; “not effective, suitable and not survivable in a combat situation,”

Duh ...

The whole world owes me LOTS of beer ... we were warning about this Tiffany China Doll since before she was even commissioned.

Northrop Grumman Corp.’s $1.68 billion amphibious warship, designed to transport Marines close to shore, wouldn’t be effective in combat and couldn’t operate reliably after being hit by enemy fire, according to the Department of Defense’s top testing official.

The San Antonio-class vessel’s critical systems, such as electrical distribution, ship-wide fiber optics and voice- communications networks, aren’t reliable, according to Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation. The ship’s armaments can’t effectively defend against the most modern anti-ship weapons, Gilmore said.

The ship is capable of operating “in a benign environment,” Gilmore said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News outlining the unclassified summary of a classified report sent to Congress in June. The vessel is “not effective, suitable and not survivable in a combat situation,” he said.
The epic fail of a "stealth" Amphib with titanium fire mains is a poster child for the results when non-warfare accountants designing warships instead of warfighters.

Why can't we get our Amphibs near shore? Simple - we are more focused on programatics and PPT and non-warfare metrics. We get an Amphib Fleet fine for peace, but ill-suited for war.

The math works this way; if you have many ships taking fewer per-ship Marines in harm's way, you can sustain a few combat losses - losses that always occur - and still get enough Marines and materiel ashore to make mission.

Sure, it can take a little more money to maintain more, smaller ships in peace - but we don't make ships for peace, do we?

Problem is - if you decide, which we have, to build fewer ships to carry many more Marines and material per-ship because it makes peace-time green eye-shade types happy, then you simply cannot afford ANY combat losses as one ship sunk means you cannot make mission.

To mitigate that risk, you move them further and further away from danger. Shore is danger. You force the Marines to make the trip across more and more water. 20nm or more and by the time your Marines make it ashore - what kind of shape will they be in? What additional dangers will they be in?

When you mitigate one cost - you increase another. To protect the Tiffany Amphibs, you need larger and faster transport to shore - read the EFV and MV-22. Add it up. Go through a few more cycles and before you know it - you literally cannot afford the mission.

Second and Third Order Effects - we pound it into heads when teaching the Operational Art - yet we forget to do it when we design our fleets. Spreadsheets are not good for 2nd and 3rd Order Effects. Those cost slides are either deleted or put into back-up slide areas. If you don't have warfighters pounding the tables, then you get what you get.

War is messy. I will say it again; DDG-1000, LCS, LPD-17; the Tiffany Navy we cannot afford. Designed for peace and concept papers, not war. Theorists and developmental engineers love them - future graveyards for Sailors. The poster children for the lost decade - one we will eventually have to deal with as an institution more seriously than just re-opening the DDG-51 line.