"LCS Is No Little Crappy Ship" Topic

"Two months after the USS Coronado (LCS-4) returned to San Diego from her maiden overseas deployment, I was invited by the Coronado Council of the Navy League of the United States to deliver a presentation to their members detailing the highlights of our deployment. During the question and answer session that followed my remarks, a member of the audience asked a blunt question: "Commander, with all due respect, how do you reconcile the fact that you've staked your professional reputation on something that many have come to refer to as a ‘Little Crappy Ship.'"

Suppressing my surprise, I answered politely and perhaps a little defensively before moving on to the next question. Now with the benefit of time, separation and a clearer perspective since having relinquished command of the Coronado , I am in a position to articulate a more well-formed response…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Then why are they all tied very closely to their home bases, due to ALL their serviceability issues, and last I read, the plan is only to use them for training, since they can't defend themselves in a fight?

Perhaps they should really be called, "Overly Expensive, Little Crappy Ships, That Are Death Traps To Their Sailors".

"last I read". Source please.

Dave

We … transited restricted and densely-trafficked choke-points—evolutions that may be considered "routine" on more established platforms but which carried a unique risk profile on a new class of ship with many first-in-class systems that had yet to be put through the rigors of extended deployed operations.

Translation: We sailed from point A to point B without colliding with anything. Yea for us! Seriously? This is getting embarrassing.

Simply put, a warship exists to sail in harm's way and put ordnance on target. An LCS lacks significant armament, is not built to take damage and doesn't carry enough crew to repair battle damage it does take. Too many officers have their carreers tied to these things so that no one will call the LCS's out for what they are…

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

Translation: We sailed from point A to point B without colliding with anything. Yea for us! Seriously? This is getting embarrassing.

Further translation: 'This was significant because all the systems were flakey and could have stopped working at any moment.'

hoo. rah.

Not where I originally read/heard about it (the nightly news perhaps, as well as Yahoo News, I suspect), but it draws the same conclusion:

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"After 16 years and billions of dollars, the Navy may have finally acknowledged that its Littoral Combat Ship program looks like a miserable failure.

The service "may not" deploy any of the dozen small surface combatants this year despite officials' previous plans to deploy several to join the 7th and 5th Fleets in Singapore and Bahrain respectively, the U.S. Naval Institute first reported on April 11.

Given the embarrassing cost overruns and frequent mechanical failures that have plagued the program, the exquisitely-detailed report suggests that the Navy has run out of patience for the disappointment mill that is the Littoral Combat Ship, once the backbone of the future fleet that could have 355 ships".

"Will 2018 be the last gasp for the troubled LCS program? Knowing the DOD, probably not — but the USNI News report on the lack of LCS deployments only solidifies one truth about the vessel: LCS, as The War Zone put it, almost definitely stands for ‘Little Crappy Ship.'

PDF link

From page 12 of the PDF report provided above:

"LCS Deployments in 2018

Another potential oversight issue for Congress for the LCS program concerns the number of LCSs that will be deployed in 2018. An April 11, 2018, press report states:
The Navy may not deploy any of its Littoral Combat Ships this year despite previous plans to deploy one to the Middle East and two to Singapore in 2018, due to a confluence of maintenance availabilities that has most of the LCS fleet sidelined this year".

The reason they're being "home-ported" is due to all of the embarrassing breakdowns and design flaws uncovered during them, including rusting holes in their brand new hulls, metal bits left in their power systems from manufacturing, etc., etc..

They want them home, and tied closely to their bases, so they can be rescued quickly and repaired, when incidents occur. The above incidents have done a lot to damage their reputation with congress, and the general public.

Even one of the guys directly involved in the program has chimed in here on TMP about the embarrassment of errors on this failed program.

It's really unfortunate. They had the potential to be really good. But the 'minimal manpower' got way too much traction, to the point that LCS crews are more overworked than submarine crews (which is saying something!). A LCS only has enough crew to do one evolution at a time. Even a submarine can do two.

It doesn't help that we never did get all the mission modules the program advertised. Worse, we didn't use the STANFLEX module architecture, so we couldn't borrow some from the Danes.

The Independence-class is actually pretty useful for showing the flag and humanitarian operations. Big enough helo deck to support an Osprey or CH53, plus a Roll-on-roll-off cargo deck big enough to haul an entire Marine company.