"Warship "Survivability" " Topic

"Much of the recent discussion of the current Littoral Combatant Ship (LCS) program and the proposed new frigate FF(G)X involves the "survivability" of both classes. Numerous senior civilian and uniformed officials have called for the FF(G)X to be "more survivable" than the current LCS. Casual observers may not know how much information goes into determining this feature of a warship design. Before the Second World War and for some time after, "survivability" was primarily concerned with how many "hits" of a certain size projectile a warship could sustain and still be mission capable. In the postwar era, the concept of survivability changed based on a new ethos in surface combatant design, the advent of nuclear weapons, and advances in detection, communication, weapons, and countermeasure technologies. In fact, a warship's active and passive defenses against attack from aircraft, cruise missiles and underwater weapons have effectively replaced armor and other elements of physical resistance to damage, making a warship's "survivability" more akin to a combat aircraft than past combatants.

The current Navy "survivability" instruction promulgated in 2012 is relatively effective in measuring this new concept of "survivability", but other so-called X factors can play significant roles. The geography of a theater of combat and the weather there can change the perception of a warship's relative "survivability. Today's reasonably "survivable" surface combatant can equally be tomorrow's "iron coffin" if it sustains damage in a remote location or in a worsening sea state. Before moving forward with a design for a "survivable" successor to LCS, senior civilian and uniformed officers should specifically determine exactly what that concept means both for present classes of surface combatant, the projected FF(G)X and those designs that follow. The November 2012 instruction is a step in the right direction, but more must be done to accurately measure the survivability of current combatants. A first step would be upgrading the current Ship Self Defense Test Ship (currently the ex USS Paul F. Foster) to one of the current or former CG-47 class cruisers and conducting realistic weapon testing against its active and passive defensive systems. They are the heart of real warship survivability and ought to be rigorously evaluated against actual weapons…"
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Amicalement
Armand

While true as far as it goes, there's also the issue of how many defenses you pack.

Any ship going into the littorals either needs to be able to swat an obscene number of missiles and artillery shells, or be cheap enough that you can afford to lose it with all hands. And the US cannot politically afford to lose the crew of a ship, which forces us into needing a Littoral combatant with something close to an Aegis system!

Agree with you my friend.

Amicalement
Armand