"The U.S. Navy’s Expensive New Warships Are Breaking..." Topic

…Down at Sea.

"September was supposed to be a triumphant month for the Zumwalt, the U.S. Navy's high-tech new destroyer. The 600-foot-long, missile-armed stealth warship—its hull and superstructure sharply sloped to help it avoid radar-detection—was in Norfolk, Virginia, undergoing last-minute tests before its planned official commissioning on Oct. 15.

Once in service, the Zumwalt will be the Navy's most sophisticated destroyer. But only if it actually works.

On Sept. 19, the Zumwalt suffered what the Navy calls an "engineering casualty." In plain language, that means the $4 USD billion ship broke down. And it wasn't alone. Across the world's leading navy, new warships are breaking down at alarming rates…"
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Amicalement
Armand

They don't build ships like they used to.

I hope the USN brass sprung for extended warranties on these, or that they're covered under the "lemon laws", since if not, it will definitely be FUBAR.

' Where most warships top out at speeds just over 30 knots—around 35 miles per hour—the LCSs can easily make 40 knots.

Achieving that speed meant wrapping a lightweight vessel around a powerful propulsion system. When this reporter toured the Freedom in 2009, operations officer Tony Hyde proudly showed off diesel engines, gas turbines, gears, shafts, and other components that together ran nearly the whole length of the ship. "These are the largest marine gas turbines in the world—essentially the engines of a 777 jetliner," Hyde said. "The diesels we have [are] locomotive engines."'

Well, OK, but no excuse – see link – a French destroyer class capable of 45 knots in 1936.

There is a story (HMS Manxman? – which was a minelayer…) of an old WW2 British destroyer shadowing the brand new US Med fleet during the Suez Crisis. The fleet decided to up speed and leave the destroyer behind. It kept up. They went faster. So did RN ship. Finally RN ship went to max and sailed through the US fleet sirens blaring… it could do around 40 knots…

Well, OK, but no excuse – see link – a French destroyer class capable of 45 knots in 1936.

Hilariously that French destroyer packed far more firepower than the LCS too.

That speed you see in those old ships is the power of a high-pressure steam plant. Something that modern navies don't see to know anything about anymore…

The Fantasques were really neat looking and sounding vessels until you actually had to use them as a part of a functioning navy. Poor range, unreliable power plant,and relatively unmaneuverable with lousy AA and ASW abilities but good gunnery. The follow on Volta/Mogador were mechanical duds.

The moral of this is that with most new defense technology, even 80 years ago, bleeding edge means just that.

That speed you see in those old ships is the power of a high-pressure steam plant. Something that modern navies don't see to know anything about anymore…

Don't know about that. Considering all the nuke carriers are steam driven.

And as Mckinstry put it, when you're dealing with bleeding edge tech, the shake-out can take some time (just as it did back in the "good old days").

The Fantasques were really neat looking and sounding vessels until you actually had to use them as a part of a functioning navy. Poor range, unreliable power plant,and relatively unmaneuverable with lousy AA and ASW abilities but good gunnery

In a nutshell that's an LCS. It offers nothing to the navy in terms of combat capability. It's liability in the littoral (ie no survivability against AShMs or coastal submarines).

It is essentially a large warm weather coast guard cutter.

Don't know about that. Considering all the nuke carriers are steam driven.

A lot of the surface fleet used to be nuke driven. But all these were decommissioned save the carriers.

The problem with a steam plant is that it's unique to each class, if not each vessel. This means that you can't pull an engineman from a destroyer and put him on a cruiser and expect him to stand watches immediately.

Gas Turbines are the same engines, regardless of ship. You can take an engineman from an FFG7 and drop him into a brand-new Arleigh Burke and he will stand watches immediately. Reduces training overhead requirements.

Too true, Lion. The savings in training and logistics makes it worth the effort. (And the less said about the Navy's 1200lb steam systems of the past, the better).

The LCS programs big problem is the powerplant. CODAG isn't new (far from it). But the power levels are at a level never tried before. And face it, the USN doesn't have that much experience with CODAG plants.

Well, that, and they are virtually unarmed, even compared to WWII fast attack craft.

Other than that, and the holes and rust on them, before they were even turned over to the USN, I'm sure those LCS' are really nice. I suspect our enemies appreciate their "qualities and features" too.

A lot of the surface fleet used to be nuke driven.

Um, I think a grand total of 9 surface nukes weren't carriers…Long Beach, Bainbridge, Truxtun, California class (2) and Virginia class (4), doesn't make "a lot".

As compared to 46 Knox class, 23 Adams class, 9 Leahy class, and 9 Belnap class, (steam plants) and 71 Perry class, 31 Spruance class, 62+ Burke class, and 22 Ticonderoga class (gas turbines). For over 273 ships not counting classes containing less than 9 ships in their class.

I think one problem is that we're in a similar situation to the Powers in the last quarter of the 19th C – lots of new technology and rapid developments mean noone really knows what to produce and things are always either experimental or obsolete.

Well, that, and they are virtually unarmed, even compared to WWII fast attack craft.

Looks like that's about to change. The Navy is currently looking at arming the LCS with an over-the-horizon anti-ship missile and is currently testing the options (everything from Harpoons to next-gen missiles). One thing that everybody harps on is the "puny" 57mm gun it mounts; the truth is against the likely threats (air, AShM, small craft), the 57mm performed BETTER than larger guns. So at least they have a plan in hand to make the best of what they got.

True, the 57mm does throw greater weight of shell per minute than anything short of a 5" gun, and is the equal of a 5" in that regard. Lots less range, though.

The real problem is that it looks like the current threat to surface ships is the small boat kamikaze swarm, which requires a significant number of rapid-firing medium-caliber guns to deal with. Kinda like 1890s torpedo boats did, before the navies of the world moved the rapid-firing guns onto torpedo boat destroyers.

So you need to install probably 4x 25+mm chain guns per LCS, and more like 8-10 per larger ship. This adds to your crew requirements, and also means you need remote turrets if you don't want to leave crew exposed to close-aboard explosions. Something like the Mk38 Mod 2 or Mod 3 ( link ), DS30M Mark 2 ( link ) or a Millennium 35mm Gun ( link ). And these guns are in addition to the CIWS systems needed for antimissile protection.

Charlie 12,

Still doesn't change the fact that they're undergunned even with an OTH AShM.

These ships are extremely vulnerable to air attack. Their defences are point defences only – the 57mm gun and an infra red homing extremely short range (9 km) RIM-116 missile launcher (basically a glorified MANPADS).

They're basically last line of defence.

AA guns are virtually useless these days – even in Falklands the vast majority of kills were via missile. This was against an opponent using antiquated tactics – ie very short range dumb bomb drops by A-4 Skyhawks. The Argies did well here given problems with bomb fusing and riskiness of tactics – 4 ships sunk plus others damaged.

The Argies did far better at stand off range with Exocet ship missiles (two ships sunk, 1 damaged for no aircraft losses).

Now extrapolate that to a modern scenario with modern anti ship missiles.

And then assume a ship that's built to civilian standrds. Exocets were proven to be able to cripple or sink US and UK warships built to military standards.

And the LCS are meant to operate in the littoral which the most dangerous territory for a surface ship – in range of land based aircraft, fast attack missile boats, small coastal submarines and in some instances land based AShM launchers.

The LCS are mince meat for anyone operating modern anti-ship missiles.

You could of course provide an Arleigh Burke or two for A2A protection but then what purpose does the LCS have.

Indeed that is the whole question about LCS ships – given most of the modules have been slashed, what is their exact role in a fleet?!?

Yes – nuke carriers are steam ships too – but, the Navy (and not just the US Navy) has stopped training engineers to handle high-pressure steam outside of nuclear power plants.

The last true steam ships in the US Navy – as far as I know – were the Iowa class battleships.