This is just sad to read. Really - sad to read.
Critics say ... the ship will be limited to doing only one thing at a time.No sir, actually you can't. That is all theory and unfunded promises.
That’s not the way Roughead looks at it. He sees more of a quick-change operation. The Navy can stock spare modules at strategic ports, or airlift them in via large C-17 cargo planes.
“Within 24 hours, I can shift from a very good mine countermeasures ship to a very good anti-submarine ship,” he said. “I submit I can change the capabilities in a region faster than if I have to sail in other capabilities.”
I submit that our ships will be put in harms way without the ability to produce effects needed by the combatant commander due to their inability to sail with the kit that is needed, and unable to effectively and efficiently "transform" in to a different mission set without abandoning another. Sailors will have to do with a sub-optimal platform with static mission systems that cannot respond to the one constant at sea - change. They enemy won't wait while you depart to change clothes - you will fight as are are dressed.
The 24-hrs just doesn't stand the follow-on question test. Maybe in VACAPES, but ...
1. How many places will you have all these "spare" mission modules and fully qualified crews on a "ready 1" status? Do you have enough that a LCS in the South China Sea or Horn of Africa can realize - "Shoot, there are submarines here. Bad guys, stay right there I'll be right back." - then transit to a location having those mission modules and fully qualified crews (NB: more than one you know, LCS will not be going solo) - take the old mission modules off, put the new ones on, gas-go and return onstation to pick up where they were? Oh, and now that they are looking for submarines now - what about the mines they were looking for before?
2. Where is the funding coming from to enable this 24-hr turn around time from South America, to Africa, to Southern Asia, to Europe, to the Yellow Sea? Stationing agreements, BA/NMP, spare airlift, storage and maintenance facilities, all funded - right?
3. Has the USAF signed an agreement for priority lift WRT the number of C-17 sorties that will be needed? Do we have the equipment and personnel in place to move and support these personnel and equipment from the airhead to port?
The CNO repeats the most easily debunked spin of LCS - I guess he has never read the debunking over the years, or Naval history for that matter. Wait, scratch that - perhaps he doesn't think anyone else has? I don't know - but this stale spin is some weak cheese. This never stands up to the light of day.
The 24-hrs just doesn't stand the follow-on question test. Maybe in VACAPES, but ...
1. How many places will you have all these "spare" mission modules and fully qualified crews on a "ready 1" status? Do you have enough that a LCS in the South China Sea or Horn of Africa can realize - "Shoot, there are submarines here. Bad guys, stay right there I'll be right back." - then transit to a location having those mission modules and fully qualified crews (NB: more than one you know, LCS will not be going solo) - take the old mission modules off, put the new ones on, gas-go and return onstation to pick up where they were? Oh, and now that they are looking for submarines now - what about the mines they were looking for before?
2. Where is the funding coming from to enable this 24-hr turn around time from South America, to Africa, to Southern Asia, to Europe, to the Yellow Sea? Stationing agreements, BA/NMP, spare airlift, storage and maintenance facilities, all funded - right?
3. Has the USAF signed an agreement for priority lift WRT the number of C-17 sorties that will be needed? Do we have the equipment and personnel in place to move and support these personnel and equipment from the airhead to port?
The CNO repeats the most easily debunked spin of LCS - I guess he has never read the debunking over the years, or Naval history for that matter. Wait, scratch that - perhaps he doesn't think anyone else has? I don't know - but this stale spin is some weak cheese. This never stands up to the light of day.
“The LCS will afford us opportunities to operate in places we haven’t been able to go because of its draft and speed,” he said. “With the numbers we are able to buy, at the cost we are buying them, we couldn’t do it with any other ship class.”Even a 5-minute review of surface ship actions in Vietnam, The Falklands, to the invasion of Iraq shows the inaccuracy of this statement. It insults the intelligence of all who reads it.
Almost as insulting as this excuse.
Roughead said that the littorals have fewer growing pains than some of the Navy’s past ships.I am confused. With the "I" and "me" is he talking about his tenure as CNO - or is he using the Royal "I" and "me?" If he is talking about his tenure as CNO - then he may have a point. LPD-17 and DDG-1000 have quite the record, I guess.
“I have introduced several classes of ships in my career, and we had far bigger problems than that,” said the admiral, who retires next month.
“If you look at how long we spent in development of previous ships classes -- the (destroyer) DDG-51, and say the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, they were in development for 12 to 14 years,” he said. “So that means you are paying money into developing that ship for that period of time. We did LCS in about five.”
Hmmm .... let's see. If he is using the Royal "I" and "we" then let's look closer at that statement.
Let's start with the largest crime of the Lost Decade - the decommissioning of all the SPRUANCE Class. I will even be generous with the timeline.
SPRU
- The study that outlined the need; 1967 (or 1965).
- Ordered; 1970.
- Laid down; 1972.
- Commissioned; 1975.
- First Operational Deployment; 1979.
- Timeline in years: 5, 7, 10, 14.
OHP
- The study that outlined the need: ~1971 (hard to tie down).
- Ordered; 1973.
- Laid Down; 1975.
- Commissioned; 1977.
- First Operational Deployment; 1981 (Great Lakes in 1979 doesn't count).
- Timeline in years: 2, 4, 6, 10.
TICO
- The study that outlined the need; 1973-75 depending on your call.
- Ordered; 1978.
- Laid down; 1980.
- Commissioned; 1983.
- First Operational Deployment; 1984.
- Timeline in years: 5, 7, 10, 11.
BURKE
- The study that outlined the need: ~1982.
- Ordered; 1985.
- Laid down; 1988.
- Commissioned; 1991.
- First Operational Deployment; 1993.
- Timeline in years: 3, 6, 9, 11.
LCS
- The study that outlined the need: ~2001.
- Ordered; 2004.
- Laid down; 2005.
- Commissioned; 2008.
- First Operational Deployment; TBD.
- Timeline in years: 3, 4, 7, TBD.
It is the first operational deployment that is the key. Until then, all you are is an funding sponge. The Caribbean cruise on the way to San Diego doesn't count.
When will they be ready? Even if LCS made an operational deployment today - that would be 10 years, in line with OHP. When will LCS be able to deploy for ASW, MIW, ASUW? 2013 at earliest maybe? That makes first deployment at .... wait for it ... 12 years. More than TICO, OHP, and BURKE. Only two years better than the SPRU. Grab you bag of pixie dust and make it next year? Congrats, you are worse than OHP and tied with BURKE and TICO.
I can hear some people now - "Your timeline is wrong!" OK - we can all pick a start date of our choosing which will impact the timeline. I think I have been more than fair and consistent. If you have ligit corrections or other dates - post them in comments and we can adjust if needed. I could have been rougher. As a matter of fact - and I think VADM Cebrowski would agree - that the concept for LCS pre-dates 2000. In that case - LCS is plodding along worse than even SPRU.
Let's look at the CNO's comment again.
“If you look at how long we spent in development of previous ships classes -- the (destroyer) DDG-51, and say the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, they were in development for 12 to 14 years,” he said. “So that means you are paying money into developing that ship for that period of time. We did LCS in about five.”Someone help me out here - I just don't see it. Where is he getting his numbers? I don't see an appreciable delta even with the most pro-LCS spin to justify the hype. There are better reasons to show support for LCS - but timeline from concept to being of use to the Fleet? No. Fail.
As we have mentioned before, many people have too much invested emotionally and career wise in LCS. As a result, they see nothing but rainbows and unicorns - or their command climate is such that their Staff only produces reports of rainbows or unicorns. Either way, its embarrassing.
Hey, I have always said that if you are willing to throw enough money at LCS and move your timeline to the right - in the end you will have something the Fleet can use. Sub-optimal, but useful in some narrow, defined ways. We need to have fact based discussions if we are going to make it work. We have more work to go there.
One reason I have little patience with the Church of the LCS is the fact that few are willing to even discuss actual facts on the ground. If you even get close to that point, they go in to wish-land, or speak as if just because something is on a PPT - that means that it will be.
I don't live in that land. I live in the land of "is." In my world, you see, Unicorns don't actually ride on rainbows and shi'ite Skittles. No, they ride on the backs of Sailors and consume funding lines.
The fleet is waiting and the coal bunker is getting low. Call for more coal when there isn't doesn't mean it is there.
80 comments:
So, let's get this straight, you want to transit through predictable choke points to change the mission module? So, what if you had to go in there to get your MIW module because you were out there with your SUW module? BTW, what the hell is their SUW module? A pop gun up forward? This logistically sounds silly, mission capability sounds silly, and oh yeah, when the eff are we going to see this mythical modules, anyway? Silly talk from on high and he is about to retire. I wonder for whom he will work after the Navy?
Oh yeah - just ask Skippy-san about his experiences getting AMC to support navy priority missions...you'll see the Oakland Raiders as Super Bowl champs before that happens :-P
w/r, SJS
Yet more proof that the current system of OPNAV is in need of radical organizational change.
After the band plays, I'm sure we'll see some sharp course change to Greeenert's pet follies...Back up with bogus certitute and pretty .ppt's.
It will take decades to reover from the damages inflicted by Vern, Mike, & Gary.
<span>Church of the LCS ... hillarious. And wholly accurate.</span>
Thank God we can call "Training Time Outs" in combat, else the whole CONOPS for LCS would be shot to $hit.
Bet that module swap operation out would look hilarious on a DRT trace.
oscret
REALITY CHECK: Note that LCS-1 has never yet "deployed" really. You know, with a "FULL" load. Full loadout of Helo's, 3 UAV RQ-8, with an actual 480 metric ton "mission module" loaded inside the large spaces set aside for them. Just imagine a fully loaded LCS-1,3,5. They light off the Mine or ASW, or SUW "warfare module" and are underway somewhere in the world. The 4 very small electrical generators now need to run 24/7 to provide power for the added Mission Module ( eg. Mine Warfare conex boxes) which come with their added electrical load requirements, not to mention much added weight and ship riders. Now, the clincher, actually put a full load of fuel onto these corvettes. Really fill up every single fuel tank (diesel, JP-5, and 100 tons of lube oil). Put fuel into every single tank that was designed by Gibbs and Cox originally. And get underway. Also, do like subs do and cram FOOD everywhere ! Right now, LCS carries, and this is stretching it, 10 to 12 days of food onboard given a tiny crew of 40 plus 35.
Now, see how fast LCS-5,3,1 will go. Just on diesels ? perhaps 14.5 knots wide open. Ever run your main diesels wide open for 24/7 ? How about at 90 percent of max rating ? Max speed at full load ? Perhaps 14 knots barely. So, kick in those huge British gas turbines and then you're running 8 engines onboard this corvette: 2 main diesels, 4 diesel generators, and 2 gas turbines. With a core crew of 40 (half of which are in the Pilot House and CIC). Max speed fully loaded with every single fuel tank at capacity ? Maybe 38 knots, which is based upon the very unlikely assumption that this 3,150 ton corvette could actually plane up about 6 degrees and start to ride above some of the seas as it needs to do, if max speed is desired. Otherwise this heavy and overloaded LCS will not be a semi-planing hull and go faster than a DDG-51. So, max speed is in flat, glassy seas only. Forget going into most of the world's water where the seas are not always smooth and no long range swells are hitting this corvette every 85 seconds and shaking it to death.
LCS World: where all the seas are calm, the winds are low, and the enemies are friendly. Just like Garrison Keiller's Lake Wobegon.
Wowee! Cool! I was wondering how they'd get the Little Coffin Ship through they big stormy waters without it sinking. They're gonna fly it around! The transformers that it clicks on sound way cool. I guess it won't rust in the plane. Right?
Why didn't Nayv think of flying boats before? (*Waving my bathtub boats around making zoom zoom noises with my lips)
Sorry not enough caffeine to spell correctly here.
Now here's an idea. What better way to comprise a "super crew" of 75 or so sailors than to have the entire LCS crewed by Flag Officers? We seem to have an excess anyway. Make it the first two LCS. That is 150 Flag Officers. Leaving a scant 200 left to do the Navy's business....
So, when Admiral Roughead talks about how I can do this, that, or the other magical and as yet unproven thing in the face of a capable enemy, what are we really risking? Then, when he finds that all the presentation software capabilities are somewhat harder when seven or eight fast craft are circling you and pouring cannon fire into you, and maybe slam you with a C802, and the dead and wounded filling the spaces and covering the deck are all decades-long friends of his, he will have his epiphany.
And if we lose both LCS and all their crews to enemy action? Well, we have some budget savings right there for the Navy. And maybe, as they settle, hissing and burning into the deep, those LCS will take with them the nonsense of Diversity Uber Alles, and the Global Force for Good. Which is where they belong.
75 of our best Sailors thrown into a completely indefensible ferry with only a small gun to defend itself, and perhaps 1 mission module to provide you exceedingly limited capability.
75 of our best Sailors. Non-survivable ship.
We just witnessed what happens when you stick your best SEALs in 1 helicopter only. how easy is it to replace 75 of your best Sailors? Now multiply that if we build as many of these as we are supposed to.
There's gotta be a joke in there somewhere, URR.
What do you call an LCS sunk to the bottom of the sea with 75 admirals aboard?
But Sid, aren't you also enthralled with that "magic carpet approach" to ship movement? The little coffin ships don't even have to be in the water hardly at all!
Radical organizational change? aka "rearranging the deck chairs on the LCS"....
If he really means to swap mission packages in 24 hours, how come the threshold requirement is 96?
The one time that a swap was attempted, removing the two 30 mm (all that exists for the SUW MP) from LCS 1 and embarking the MCM MP, they met the threshold. And in order to remain within acceptable list limits, they had to empty a port side JP-5 tank, and park a connex box with weight equal to an H-60 on the starboard side. What happens when the helo takes off? Won't happen, since you don't have enough JP-5 to fly it.
"Cost effective"? "Poetic justice"? "I told you so"?
"What do you call an LCS sunk to the bottom of the sea with 75 admirals aboard?"
Optimal Manning.
Anyone who make or believes these ridiculous claims about LCS capabilities, usefulness, cost or combat value is either delusional, gullible, or lying.
If this program is not killed outright, the funding it absorbs and thereby denies to others which may produce a ship class with some actual combat value will eventually be seen as the evil deed which doomed our Navy to failure.
We continue on this course at great peril.
Surfcaster has a winner!
I was going to go with "A good start" but Surfcaster wins.
I was going to go with "A good start" but Surfcaster wins.
I had not heard that. I am not surprised, but man oh man, these data need to get out.
I think it is like the old lawyer joke...a start.
Actually, that's a very good example. Before we had SSGNs we had DDS boats. Just to take a SDV not on the ship from one port to another took three star involvement--and that thing's a feather compared to the dry deck shelter. They envisioned the DDS to be modular, and it was, given a big crane and a day in port and 50 guys supporting in various capacities. "Modular" wound up meaning it stayed on certain boats pretty much forever...
Chap.
Greetings:
So, bringing a knife to a gun fight is okay because you can get a gun within 24 hours ???
So...
Even after the swap out, there's no need to calibrate and recertify the new combat systems components on board? Train the team to work together? Maybe run a few drills just to make sure everyone can find his or her rack and the way to the messdeck?
This system just reeks of stupidity.
Not to mention that even if you have these modules sitting around unused (i.e. waiting to be either be cancelled or sold off), you have to have operators sitting around. Not bloody likely at $100K/year per sailor.
I can see a modular design. MEKO has done well with modularity. But plug-and-play is an order of magnitude harder. And why the Navy did not make the operator berthing part of the basic LCS design totally escapes me.
Not to mention that even if you have these modules sitting around unused (i.e. waiting to be either be cancelled or sold off), you have to have operators sitting around. Not bloody likely at $100K/year per sailor.
I can see a modular design. MEKO has done well with modularity. But plug-and-play is an order of magnitude harder. And why the Navy did not make the operator berthing part of the basic LCS design totally escapes me.
Trying to bring a little humor into what is not a very funny expenditure, in lives or treasure. My Snarkiness being inversely proportional to my layman's faith in current shipbuilding.
What would it cost to do a deep sea salvage of a sunken Spruance can? I bet we can raise one for less money that building an LCS.
Crime of the decade is right. It still turns my stomach to think about it. There was still room for expansion on the Spruance class destroyers.
Wow...my first deployment BG contained USS SPRUANCE...mighty impressive at breakaway time, as I lusted from the AOR-2's STBD Bridge Wing...telling my CO I would go to one of those....
But...to the topic: It all sounds good until the USAF bean counters cut the C-17 fleet to save money and other airlift priorities come first....kinda like minimum manning FFG7s, and equipping the SIMAs, until you needed the money....then...ask Bryon....
No doubt that the 24-hour threshold was theoretically met in a drill with months of advance notice and preliminary steps made in advance. Reminds me of the "CIWS drills" where similar advance notice was given to achieve a barely 50% success rate.
I'm going out on a limb here but I'm pretty certain that the LCS's adversaries will not provide us with months of advance notice. I have zero confidence that the swap out will be done in less than a week in a real world, OUTCONUS environment.
No doubt that the 24-hour threshold was theoretically met in a drill with months of advance notice and preliminary steps made in advance. Reminds me of the "CIWS drills" where similar advance notice was given to achieve a barely 50% success rate.
I'm going out on a limb here but I'm pretty certain that the LCS's adversaries will not provide us with months of advance notice. I have zero confidence that the swap out will be done in less than a week in a real world, OUTCONUS environment.
Surfcaster, that's why I'm so amazed by all of this. If I as a stupid civvy (and a girl too!) can see a photo of this and do a little reading and see that the emperor has no clothes (unless they're aluminum) then why are people who should darn know better pushing this like it's the holy grail? Lives will be lost with this magical flying coffin ship transformer module. That's the sons, brothers, husbands and fathers of people like me.
It's NO EXCUSES, SIR! that should be the answer to this idiocy. Take 'em out to the gray water and let sailors on real ships play target practice at them with pistols to get marksmanship qualified. At least they'd be good for something.
Back durring the early days of GW2 they said you fight with the army you have not the one you want. I think it will be the same with LCS they will have to fight whatever shows up with whtat they nave not what they wish they had onboard. I think even if they get everything they want it wil be a LONG time before they get it all. I feel for the poor captain of a LCS. He will have to worry the whole time he os at sea what if I run into this. We took a simple concept of a corvette and turned it into a monster that isn't as good as a corvette. SAD
@DB, Miz Bravo, I was going to say the same thing, but Surfer Boy has it cold!
Amazing! I had no idea that Gary Roughead was the most capable person in the history of the United States Navy! I mean, WOW! He can personally do all of these things?! Why has he been holding back on us! Forget crewing LCS with 75 of our best and brightest, we can eliminate that manpower and just have him crew it! OPNAV Staff? Kill it! N00 Actual is on the case! 30 year shipbuilding team? Not any longer! Admiral Roughead has the conn!
This is a great day. We can become the Navy of One!
We shift a lot of RORO gear/boats/hab vans on and off our ships. Let me tell you how bad the equipment is if just left in an OCONUS warehouse. So, that said, there will have to be some PMS on the gear on the pier as well. This may not be the savings they were hoping for.
Scares the peas out of me. I take my kid onto the USS Constitution 2 weeks ago and he loves it and thinks being in the Navy might be cool when he grows up. I smile, 'lil pride bubbling up, then think "Oh Shite! He might be on a LCS! some day" and it don't look so hot. I feel we have more of a Brewster Buffalo here than an A model P51. A generally outclassed rough which in rare instance may have diamond like qualities -v- a diamond in the rough.
Without beating the old drum me thinks Brewster Aircraft Co had an early beta copy of PowerPoint.
Love the idea of homeporting all LCS warships on Lake Wobegon.
Besides the fresh water lake, this is where
"All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average".
With an apology to Garrison Keillor. Might propose a slight change to Lake Wobegon's motto as the new Naval Station Wobegon:
where all the ships are fast, all the equipments never fail, and all the hybrid sailors are above average.
Ahh, but Lake Woebegone isn't nearly racially diverse enough. Roughead would never allow it.
<span>Lake Wobegon, MN can't be too far from Marinette, WI, right?</span>
<span>"All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, all the children are above average, and you can have your ships built from Ice Out to Ice Over." Another mark of genius.
</span>
Fresh water in LAKE WOBEGON is so pure that no LCS will ever corrode or rust ! And the thirsty gas turbines refuel themselves automatically.
At night, of course.
How did this happen? Story's been told many times before; but to simplify it: Follow the money. :-$
All this chat about the deficiencies of the craft does get a bit boring. Take a break from the technical stuff and consider how it might play out for the legions of uniforms and House politcos who were the true sponsors of this abberation. The Navy will be broke. The vultures will be looking for a few scapls and bones. Someone earlier suggested that the Big Business guys had a hand in the faulty design. Too bad they will be safely isolated in their retirement homes. Betcha some poor sailor slobs are going to catch hell.
The circus can't leave town soon enough...
Just in time for the Snake Oil salesman to roll in from the other direction.
Capn I don't buy big business as root cause. The Navy did that by botching the design concept and then over-doing the specs. That having been said, I repeat my experience over 27 yrs of ship acquisition management, Every new build or major construction project has had congressional influence laid on it, either for the good or bad.
Since the winds have shifted on Capitol Hill, I suspect the critters are in the ship cutting mood. So the Navy will get less than the want and maybe less than 24, don't know about the last?
the Navy has completely botched the logistics plan for LCS IMHO~ All the way from inadeqate mission deck arrangement to lack of an onboard crane to no tender for forward support, with lots of other mistakes inbetween.
and we all know that the Navy has this data, but sure ain't publishing it. Classified like INSRUV?
He is the best fitted of the best fitted. Well, except for one, or didn't he just retire?
Who's going to break the bad news to Byron ?
Perhaps Byron will want to move up to Minnesota since all the future LCS's are going to be based at NAVSTA Wobegon.
Guessing Mayport will close down without any of those maintenance-hungry corvettes to be homeported in Florida !
It'll really be a cold day in hell (and that's pretty close to what Minnesota is like 8 months of the year) before this old shipfitter moves to the frozen northern woods...
Lee, you're wrong. I've seen first hand how powerful companies and their Congressmen can push the Navy into getting what they want. Doing the same to get a multi-billion dollar weapons program through is a trivial excercise for them.
<span>"With the numbers we are able to buy, at the cost we are buying them..."</span>
<span></span>
<span>Which is about the cost of a heavily armed multirole frigate, as other nations are building them.</span>
Here
http://turkishnavy.net/2011/03/19/first-turkish-perry-with-mk-41-vls-on/
you can see the Turkish alternative. It's remarkable that they retain the one armed bandit and SM-1 capability, the VLS is an addition, not a replacement.
Byron, I disagree. The business interests have an interest in building ships, of course, but they don't have any particular interest in building bad ships in preference to good ones.
there are days when I am truly sad about the prospect of leaving active service.
then I read shit like this and my end of obligated service can't come fast enough.
With all due respect, that is a naive statement. The only thing that "big business" cares about, the first thing even in the best of all worlds, is their profit and lost, and most particularly, the executive bonuses. If what you say was true there would be no need for lobbyists, would there?
I'm going to agree with Byron here. It's not everyone in Big Business, there are quite a few retired types with their hearts in the right place. But then again there are quite a few snake oil salesmen who Pied Piper scrupleless Admirals into buying crap like the LCS for a future signing bonus.
Two words: Lockheed Martin.
Byron and Salty - the Navy definitely made its own bed with the LCS. To try and shift blame to a faceless, evil "corporation" is the same as the lefty Brits trying to shift blame for the riots to corporate marketing and government cuts (ie the "culture of greed").
The USN got what it wanted - unfortunately, what the flags wanted a useless bathtub toy. Do you think if they had asked for a re-made Fletcher or Gearing that Lockheed would have refused to build it?
The first-fault in this fiasco lies with the USN and the requirements that they came up with. No requirements, no design and no build.
By the way, I like many, many others have a significant amount of money in the stock market. I make money from these "evil corporations". Does that make me evil too?
Aubrey, such an abortion and deathtrap could not have been built simply by US Navy ineptness, as strange as that might sound. Believe me when I tell you there's a lot of executives, including retired senior Naval officers who have made a hell of a lot of money off a program that should have been stillborn 7 years ago. The Navy had to have help in this disaster, and that help came from the primary contractors with congress urging them on.
Byron et al... that's the beauty of it all... when everybody is to blame, nobody is to blame.
Aubrey, the Navy sets the requirements and oversees the program. The contractor builds the ship. And when the ship fails and everyone knows it, it takes a special kind of snake oil salesman to convince the morons and manipulate the scrupleless into mortgaging the future of the Navy to further a bottom line.
So yes, there is more than enough blame to go around. We must be equal parts courageous in not only outing our beloved Navy and its Admiralty for sucking , but also outing our industry partners.
No requirements, no design and no build.
"Paint The Side The Admiral Sees" requirements in this case...And the Primes were quite happy to deliver the resulting junk unquestioningly...For A sweet profit.
<span>about the modules:
consider the following scenario.
lcs1 is in the Bay of timbukto and is loaded up for ASW and AAC modules. a mine blows a fishing boat to flinders. so they make a fast run to the "module loader"and find that the mine sweeping module is not at hand.
investigation reveals that 10 of the modules were contracted for. 10 were delivered, or at least large red boxes were. 6 were actually used (two lost in the inadvertant sinkings of lcs 4&6) but the 10th was "canabalized" for CASREP repair parts. three others are at SPCC waiting for parts. one cannot be found (it later comes to light that it was sold as scrap because the tin tag identifying it was "smeared off" by a forklift and became "unidentifiable material" in the supply department's eyes.) another was found at riveriera pier at subic bay filled with hazardous waste.
of the ones in operation all have been declared "critical material" by the local FLEET COMs (the closest of which is 11,000 miles away from timbukto).
timbukto has no airport of any kind.
</span>
<span>as a result i can see the PPT bunch in a forced draft developing a cargo hauling SEAPLANE capable of C-17 loads to meet this need. however the patomic palaces will not realize that the aircraft plus its support systems and organizaions will not be ready for service until 25 years after the last LCS sinks (at the current rate of one loss every 1.6 yrs,)
C </span>
my pipline into navsea told me for years (in the work place) that there was this new project called the littoral compat ship in the works. it was supposed to be the beall endall. he retired in 93.
so whats this about a study that outlined the need. is it a procedural step that combines feelings and wants into a reasonable request?????
C
sometimes there is a feeling and observation of a total fiasco. sometimes it is planned by behind the scenes types.
example: there was an SSN refueling in one of the san francisco area activities during the viet nam era. a total goat f......
in the afterlife most of the lines of ineptetude were found to lead across one desk in the planning & estimating/typedesk office.
C
training while steaming towards the engagement.
not in this day and age navy.
not enough power to run the system besides all of the additional team is having a team meeting on the fantail or what amounts to it. most of them are feeding the fish cause they haven't been out in quite a while........
C
gee I thought I said that? Big shipyards have CAN have their impact, but Congress ALWAYS does
Ok I will lay the Mitt Romney reply on you: Where do all those profits go? To people be it share holders, corporate officers or other investors.
Shipyards are in business to make money, not just because they like to build ships.
Yes SG that about sums it up.
BTW let me add, it takes a good naval leader to bring these programs to fruition. The USN is set up such that NO naval officer leads, manages, directs a ship acquisition from initial approval through OT&E. That time period is just too long for one to serve in. Really the program should be led from rqmts to IOC, but that is even longer.
There have been instances in the past when wise and enduring naval leaders led a program Rickover being primary example, but those men are far too few.
this is something I think Sal has pointed out before.
Ahh wait a minute. The MPS ship have cargo loads that remain intact for up to five years. That gear is maintained by MCMC contractors who live onboard and keep the gear ready to be used when discharged. Obviously the preparation of cargo for storage (Army term COSIS) and the type of maitenance actions done onboard vary with type of gear. Vehicles need more that MREs etc
This is the United States of America. A corporation has the same rights as an individual, except a corporation can't vote in an election. But it can contribute campaign money. With great power comes great responsibility, Peter Parker. As Americans, we assume that responsibility. Whether Congress should know better than to listen to your corporate drivel or not is immateriel. There is a moral imperative to both the Congressman AND TO THE CORPORATION to do the right thing. Simply being a corporation doesn't provide you protection from sucking. That's like the Congress saying "we passed this shitty bill but didn't actually expect the President to sign it! I mean, come on! That's why we have separation of powers!"
Sounds similar to a brief I went to a few years ago right when Airspeed started becoming the buzzword in naval aviation. Some idiot E-8 desk jockey with ZERO sea time tried to tell us that ships supply holds will go away from the carriers. When asked how we would get parts fixed for our planes he said carrier supply would be like Wal Mart....Restocked at night. And we would have our RFI boxes and consumables within 2 hours. When I asked how could I could a part repaired when the jet went down on a launch, he said they would be fixed on the spot. I guess he's never heard of CASS.......
I'm no math major but things just didn't add up.
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