Thursday, July 31, 2014

LCS: the Walmart Shopper of Warships

Let's see; she can't seem to do any job right. She has an inflated self-image of not just her abilities, but her attractiveness to others, and ... she seems to be muffintop'n over those low-waisted jeans of hers;
Moving from the construction phase into testing, it turns out the littoral combat ship has gotten too heavy, and that has slowed it down, according to the Government Accountability Office.
...
“Outstanding weight management and concurrency risks related to buying ships while key concepts and performance are still being tested continue to complicate LCS acquisitions,” the report summary states. “Initial LCS seaframes face capability limitations resulting from weight growth during construction. This weight growth has resulted in the first two ships not meeting performance requirements for sprint speed and/or endurance, as well as potentially complicating existing plans to make additional changes to each seaframe design.”
...
“The Navy has not received accurate or complete weight reports from the seaframe prime contractors, and the Navy’s lengthy review process has hindered a timely resolution of the Navy’s concerns,” the report states. “Additionally, a number of significant test events, including rough water, shock and total ship survivability trials, will not be completed in time to inform upcoming acquisition decisions—including future contract decisions.”
One of our top-shelf concerns about LCS going back a decade was its arrogantly exquisite design did not leave much room for the traditional growth, weight gain, and future requirements that get bolted on. That growth in ship weight has always been true - but with so much else that was rolled in to the original sin of LCS - all that corporate knowledge and best practices were thrown away in a flush of transformational hormones, ego, and just bad leadership.

I also hearing some additional interesting things are going with maintenance reliability - but my spies have asked me to say no more ... except to say, "We told you so."

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