Last decade, we castrated our FFG-7 Class frigates and then complained they had nothing to contribute to the fight. We let them rot - then sold the best and sink the rest.
So many contrary opinions poo-poo'd away, and spin sold as truth. Well facts speak for themselves.
We've covered what the Australians did with their OHP's before - and here is another chance.
Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Port Hueneme in Port Hueneme, Calif., announced July 14, it has successfully designed and integrated a fire control system upgrade aboard Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Sydney.What makes the US Navy look worse - a SM-2 on a fully functional and maintainable MK-13, or the VLS cluster forward?
The system upgrade completes a four-year effort by the Royal Australian Navy to launch standard missiles from Adelaide-class ships.
NSWC Port Hueneme personnel were responsible for the design, development, integration and test of the software upgrade to the weapons control processor of the Mk 92 Fire Control System, which is a key element in the system that provides the new capability to launch SM-2 missiles from a Royal Australian Navy frigate Mk 13 launcher.
Too late now - but still worth reminding "them" that is was a moment of failure not to join the Australians, and probably other OHP users that would have joined a US move, in giving a solid ship a new lease on life.
Oh, and before someone chirps about cost - review economies of scale and then sit down and ponder. Yes, the program had some problems - but they worked out just fine as the evolutionary usually does.
Let's say in an alternative universe that we decided to join the Australian effort back in the late-90s. HMAS SYDNEY was commissioned in 1983. Even though we just transferred the MCINERNEY (commissioned in 1979) to Pakistan - let us assume that somewhere in the past decade, sanity compromised with the Transformationalists and agreed to buy time by joining in our version of the FFG Upgrade.
Just so no one can claim we're messing with "unrealistic numbers," let's say we decided to convert all OHP Class frigates built after 1984 to the FFG Upgrade standard.
What would that gain us? My quick counting would give us ~18 Frigates able to launch SM-2 and Harpoon through the MK-13. ESSM through the MK-41 VLS 8-pack and other updated systems as well.
Assume a 30-yr average life - that would keep that superior warfighting capability in the fleet from 2014-2019. By then perhaps someone with enough pixie dust would have found a way to make LCS useful. Maybe. Instead - we have what we have now.
No, you can't change bad decisions of the past, but you can use the example of those mistakes to inform future decisions.
Hat tip Mike.
... and you could make money selling "SM-2 upgrade kits" to all the navies that have second-hand OHP class ships, including my country's own...
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to submit that if the USN had attempted to manage an FFG upgrade program the cost would have spiraled wildly out of control and then it would have been cancelled before any ships actually received the upgrade. And then the people in charge of the failed program would have been promoted to VADM.
ReplyDeletePity. Which pretty much covers the stewardship of the USN by the folks promoted to Flag from, say, 1990 to date. Pity...
ReplyDeleteHere's an AUSSIE old FFG that has not been neutered by NAVSEA WASHINGTON DC
ReplyDeletehttp://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/110620-O-ZZ999-001.jpg
20 June 2011 photo of STANDARD Missile being fired by Australian FFG:
http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=104082
range of this FFG SAM is approximately 7 or 8 times the LCS so-called SAM.
RN,
ReplyDeleteDude. You really should read the post and follow the links befor commenting. Just saying Shipmate. :)
Oh, please. Seriously? Come on, that's not entirely true at all and you know it.
ReplyDeleteSome of those people in charge would've gone to work for the contractors involved.
A vision / premonition came over me a few nights ago as I was writing a response to a commentary over on Galrahn's Information Dissemination forum.
ReplyDeleteThe premonition goes like this:
For FY 2012 and beyond, the Navy's shipbuilding budget will be frozen to current levels; and other components of Navy funding will be reduced, including funding for operations, readiness, and maintenance.
As things stand today, roughly half of the FFGs are still in service with the USN, twenty-seven of them if I remember correctly.
An easy way to quickly reduce costs for US Navy operations, readiness, and maintenance would be to greatly accelerate the scheduled retirements of the remaining FFGs, maybe even pulling a Spruance-like series of mass decommissionings over two years, including mass FFG sinkings to foreclose any possibility of reversing the decision.
It'll be Deja Vu all over again as we sweep ever onward towards a 200 ship Navy by 2020, or thereabouts.
And don't base opinions soley upon what the aussies were able to do... check out what the Turks have done here (http://turkishnavy.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/shm31.jpg). The upgrade was a Ratheon collaboration called Genesis (no, I'm not a contractor). A friend who was on a tour with Navy reps from all the nations that own frigates said the Turks giggled when they walked into the CIC of a Mayport frigate... embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteByron inbound in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...
ReplyDeleteNothing new under the sun... I've said all this before after I talked to the RAN exchange officer off FFG Neversail who told me all the neat things they did with a Perry. And the best we could come up with after three years? A foundation built OVER the old Mk13 with a 20mm remotely fired autocannon...freakin' 20 mm.!
ReplyDeleteJesus and Nimitz wept.
200 ship navy...
ReplyDeleteWith what?
Thirty percent or better "sub-optimal"...aka BATTLE LOSING...non warship LCS's?
I hear those NAVSEA Port Hueneme engineers are the best!
ReplyDeleteYeah, but would it have looked even one half as cool on a Powerpoint slide as the LCS and its mission modules?
ReplyDeleteSeriously, if we're looking at the lessons from the FFG-7 to apply to current/future decisions, look at manning. These ships were originally designed to be manned by significantly fewer Sailors and supported by shore establishment. Sound familar?
It didn't work and they ended up expanding the crew size significantly.
Hey, that's a whole 20mm more. Add that to the CIWS and the 76mm and you've got a whole 4.5 inches total of guns which almost, but not quite kinda sorta if you ignore projectile weight gets you equal to the forward mount on a WW2 Destroyer Escort.
ReplyDeleteImprovement is improvement, as they say.
sad but probably true... ask Russians for their experiences with navy falling under 100 ships from cold war levels... all the while PLAN builds up their slow but steady surface/sub force designed to keep USN out of their perceived sphere of influence...
ReplyDeleteYes, where most of us contractors live or die by the bid/firm fixed price contracts we get. Only way out is if a) there is growth work and b) if the government wants to pony up for it vice defering.
ReplyDeleteIt ain't all wine, roses and big expense accounts here on the civilian side, bubba.
The USN path to upgrade the FFGs with a very nice mod to the SPS-49, upgraded missile FCS, and SM-2 was blocked largely because . . . wait for it . . . a successfull FFG program with a bettere AAW program would be a low-cost threat to . . . DDG-51. Check the timing. All the building blocks were available, including the SPY mod to deliver an Aegis FFG around 1990.
ReplyDeletePerry is correct about the low-balled minimum manning for the FFGs, but we made the same manning errors with the DD-963s. If we could generate a CAD design with some nice new and survivable networking, and build in fan rooms that didn't turn to rust buckets, and use some decent long-life coatings here and there, plus a little bit of thought about lower RCS . . . . and remember to include the fin stabilizers and RAST so you can launch and recover in bad weather. An upgraded and/or modified FFG should be a serious option to replace the hopeless LCS designs. I would not want my kid on one of those unarmed hunks of very expensive junk.
ReplyDeleteNice to think, but I wonder if it might be power limited. Hopefully there was a generator upgrade coming, along with a replacement for the 400Hz SFCs. We could run the full combat systems load with 2-1/2 SSDGs. Lose one to mx and you are left with one in reserve (barely). Woe betide if you have a propulsion casualty and had to resort to APUs.
ReplyDeleteMaybe not for the journeymen, but I betcha those retired admirals are doing pretty well. Especially the ones that push little crappy systems on the military.
ReplyDeleteOps, don't forget an expansion joint like the one that BIW told the Navy the Figs needed. The 1 mil it would have cost per ship is cheap considering what the Navy has paid out over the years, starting with the Morisson way back when.
ReplyDeleteOdd facts: The Navy knew it needed the extra length on the stern step for RAST and the rest, and it also knew that it needed the fin stabilizers. Problem was that if they'd added those into the program then it would have caused problems with getting it approved with Congress. There was always a hole in AUX 1 wherethe stabilizers went, where nothing was installed, just a big gap filled full of lead bars. I know this, because on four different Figs I helped remove these bars then helped with the fin stabilizer installs. Just some budget bullsh!t bingo, as it were.
Would a pair of GTGs have worked? Just asking, don' know the comparison in Kw output of the two. Not sure if the footprint would have worked in AUX 1 or 3, but 2 where SSDG 2 and 3 are, there's more room.
ReplyDeleteWell, if you don't mind me tooting my own horn, I blogged about my own thoughts on the LCS vs. OHP.
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, swap the Mk13 for a 5-inch gun.
ReplyDeleteFLASH TRAFFIC! FLASH TRAFFIC!
ReplyDeleteUS NAVY PLANS TO DECOM 3 MORE FFGS AT MAYPORT NS EARLY NEXT YEAR: STEVEN GROVES, JOHN HALL AND BOONE. THAT LEAVES ROBERTS, HALYBURTON, TAYLOR, KLAKRING, SIMPSON AND FOUR EACH DDG AND CG
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/07/navy-decommissioned-ships-frigate-lpd-071811w/
Bastards couldn't wait till I retire before they put us out of work, will they? FFGS have been our bread and butter for a long time now. So you guys can forget all your plans for the Perrys, just put them in a pipe and smoke them for all the good it will do. And no, we dont' get any LCS and if they do, Lockmart and Austal will be doing all the work to keep it out of the press.
Maybe. Stock SSDGs were rated at 1000KW each. Probably could fit GTGs in each of the modules, though might be an issue in Aux 1 as there's interference from the stbd fin. The question becomes uptakes and air supply. Not sure the existing ducting would be sufficient. Interesting problem to contemplate, but I never had GTGs under my care so all would be a guess.
ReplyDeleteBryon, if I was going to do it I'd try to give the nextgen FFG a wider beam and include the right-sized flight deck. I am willing to assume (which could be a terrible mistake) that computer aided design and improved understanding of stress mechanics and lessons learned from the FFG hull issues can be worked during the design process. I don't think we need to crank out the exact same design, but take the ideas that worked and update them. The OHPs were so tight on topside weight that there was very little room for add-ons. A design with a bit more room for growth, a more capable combat system, room for 2 60-class helos or a mix of helos and UAVs, the aviation data link, an Aegis-light. . . . I was also a plank owner on one of the Spruance class. When delivered, all we had were 2 5" guns, torpedo tubes and an ASROC launcher. There was enough room in the design to add everything, up to and including an AAW DDG capability, and then the design morphed into CG-47. I don't think we need an FFG design that is overbuilt enough to handle that much expansion.
ReplyDeleteThey will get probably a LCS there soon, and you will have workplace secured for the rest of your life... and for the next generation of shipfitters :P
ReplyDeleteByron sounds like the same problem LCS is having - improvements need to made but congress by capping the hull cost stopped USN from big buck change orders?
ReplyDeleteFrozen? Hell I think the SCN budget will be cut big time? That will be even tougher to handle
ReplyDeleteMass decomming creates even more block obsolescence down the road. You are right Deja Vu....
And as an even wilder idea to follow above, the Navy finally realizes the LCS-1 design is too far overweight to fix even with a strech. They cancel the Flight 3 and in order to make the congressional critters happy (jobs you know), they allow MMC to build a convential corvette designed by Fincantieri, like the one below (ok ok we can argue about which would cost less upgrading the OHPs or buying new corvette?) but at least we would get less LCS and more new warships?~
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fincantieri.it/CMS/Data/prodotti/000469.aspx?cms640909ff=4cff658ab6c64b1e97855d13bb0c34de&menu_key=7fca13e5&CMSKEY_categoria=VESSEL&CMSKEY_tipo=Corvette&CMSKEY_armatore=&CMSKEY_anno=&CMSKEY_sottotitolo=
Knowing Obama. He'll give those ships to Egypt & pay you & your friends to make them nice targets for Israel.
ReplyDeleteThe article says that two of them are going to "foreign sales".
ReplyDeleteEgypt or Pakistan to reward it for sheltering Osama B.L. ... both made sense in the cold war to offset Soviet allies/proxies but now?
ReplyDeleteIt ain't all wine, roses, etc. if you're on the bottom. I figure those top level guys don't get hurt much when the people below them get the axe.
ReplyDeleteB:
ReplyDeletethe early fin stabalizers on those beasts had some problems with corrosion. the fins had a "trim tab" which was supposed to either take the place of or supplant the hydraulic mechanism that moved the fin. it was made of steel as was the hinge pin, and the bearing areas both in the fin and tab (there was a semi "piano hinge" arrangement in place on the early ones).
Problems, as in freezing up solid, trim tab and fin mech itself.
then there was a design/supplier change and we installed a half dozen sets in ships that were not built with them. and the problem seemd to go away.
C
i believe that the australians have the ffg7 as a single autocad file. if somebody needed one for a jump start on a new design.
ReplyDeleteC
we put gas turbine ships service generators in one of the spruances, ships force really liked them (they were about 20% more power). never heard of a repeat.
ReplyDeleteC
that 14 kt most economical cruising speed will kill it for USN.
ReplyDeleteC
No, Lee, everything that was done after new construction (and a fair amount of the flight 2 boats got everything out of the yard before commissioning) was a known entity and planned for...just couldn't slide it by. The only true big mistake was not having an expansion joint like BIW told them they'd need.
ReplyDeleteLee, no offense, but there is no freakin' comparison to be made between the FFGs and the Little Crappy Ship. Especially that floating turd the all aluminum super dooper beer can, LCS-2
If they ran the intake aft into the MER, they could piggy-back the existing runs...uptakes, not so sure of, I think those are a good bit wider.
ReplyDeleteBryon ease off a bit, I was not comparing the ships I was comparing ship acquistion contracts. FFG apparrently worked, LCS is not working. All ship buys are affected in one way or another by congressional action.
ReplyDelete