"Get on with the LCS Upgrades" Topic

The USS Sioux City (LCS-11) was decommissioned on 14 August 2023 after only five years of service and having just completed a historic and successful deployment to Fifth and Sixth Fleets, according to Navy press releases. Rather than discarding the littoral combat ships (LCSs), the Navy should install the lethality and survivability upgrades that have been proposed for the class. These upgrades would create viable warships, employable in any theater…

USNI/Proceedings: link

I would say that should be a priority, especially with all that is going currently in the world. Much of which are self-inflicted wounds !

Of course, after global warming, taking care of the millions of illegal aliens, paying off student loans, etc., etc., etc. … 😎

The LCS are a lost cause. They do not carry enough weapons to be useful in any meaningful way, and suffer from a myriad of mechanical issues which prevent them from deploying. Operating costs are only slightly less than the much bigger and much more heavily armed Burke class DDGs. The Navy would be miles ahead to stop building the LCS, decommission the pier queens already in service, and reassign the crews. Nobody in the Navy wants them, but the designers had the foresight to distribute the contracting dollars to enough Congressional districts that the Congressmen keep authorizing them.

Yes, this is a total Congressional @#$&*(. This design was shot through with mechanical issues on a major scale. Had to be towed into port after gear breakdowns. Expensive. Designed for small crews that could not reasonably handle all the expected functions. The vision was a ship that could do it all. Known in the Navy as the Little Crappy Ships. But it leads a charmed life thanks to Congress and the ship building industry. If the Navy does not want it, that should be good enough.

It's not the number of hulls, it the quality of ships and crews. Congress only gets simple math. Especially when it flow to their districts with a dollar sign, and they make friends in the industry.

Nobody in the Navy wants them, but the designers had the foresight to distribute the contracting dollars to enough Congressional districts that the Congressmen keep authorizing them.

That is SOP in DC & the WH. How do you think many of our elected and appointed officials/leaders are multi-millionaires, own 4 houses, etc., etc. …

The LCS are a lost cause.

So what should replace them ? Newer vessels ? I did not realize they were such poor designs etc.

And yes again, building up our military should be a priority … Looks like the PRC/CCP is building up their military. And well … the US is spending $ on … never mind …

Always remember this.
Politics, n. From the Greek, "poly" meaning "many", and "ticks", meaning "blood sucking insects".
In this case, the ticks have large naval builders in their districts. They're important and vital ships, because they provide JOBS.
So, they aren't Little Crappy Ships. They're IVS.

Hopefully, Chinese ships are worse than ours. 🙄

I thought the next upgrade was to decommission them out of service?

Hopefully, Chinese ships are worse than ours.

Intel says they are … but there is a whole bunch of them !

There is a saying that quantity is a quality of it's own.

Yes Sir, numbers can be telling regardless of their loses in battle in many cases. The Chinese know how to fight a war of attrition. As they are 20% of the world's population. High losses mean little to them …

It's not the number of hulls, it the quality of ships and crews.

Quantity is also important. You can't commit more ships to an event or conflict than you have -- so without sufficient numbers of ships and crews, you must change strategy and deployments. Since the overt embrace of DEI policies in 2021, the US Navy, like other military branches, has suffered serious recruitment and retention issues and has shrunk by 21,000 personnel. The USN has mothballed x17 logistics ships, and the decommissioning of the LCS ships is probably designed to avoid decomissioning more valuable warships.

The history of the issues with these ships is horrendous. They were a massive waste of money. Their mission was never clear, the design had various flaws. We have covered this many times. The only thing that saved them for so long was sleezy members of Congress keeping their constituent dockyards magnates awash in tax dollars. We have covered this too.

The ships have nothing to do with DEI. Every major democratic force in the world has recruiting problems as part of a generational demographic and cultural shift about more fundamental issues. Surveys in the US show that DEI has literally almost nothing to do with it. I don't like DEI either, but the real recruiting issues are far more basic, according to the data.

Go back and read about these ships being towed back to port following gear breakdowns. Repeatedly. We do not send our people to sea in crappy ships if we can help it. The Navy has been trying for years to ditch the program. Instead Congress runs the show, using the numbers game to get us to buy it.

China has two carrier groups, still with no experienced air groups or just fitting out, and maybe 60 destroyers, 90 corvettes, at a rough guess. We have 11 carriers, about 75 destroyers. We still have 12 cruisers, China has none. In most cases, our ships are higher quality, and the Chinese are years behind us in naval aviation. Adding up all the Chinese naval and Coast Guard vessels gets you to over a thousand.

The US has maybe 275 combat vessels, with 250 smaller vessels in the CG. Plans are in place to double the number of ships over the next 20 years.

nothing to do with DEI. Every major democratic force in the world has recruiting problems as part of a generational demographic and cultural shift about more fundamental issues

Sure, tell yourself that when the evidence is pretty clear that after the US Military rolled out DEI initiatives and indoctrination that recruiting and retention have sucked.

SB – Here's one of the DOD surveys in abbreviated form. I seem to recall that woke training was near the bottom in a more comprehensive list. Don't forget, we have had record low unemployment for several years also.

I don't know if the rollout of woke training was concurrent with recruiting issues. But if it was, it is not evidence. Its two things happening around the same time. I do not believe in this type of training. If military law is properly applied, everything should be equal and merit-based as I understand it. But to date there is no evidence that connects woke to low recruiting that I know of. Please correct me if I am wrong. If woke is a reason, it needs to be documented and addressed.

Top 10 reasons selected by surveyed youth when asked, "What would be the main reason(s) why you would not consider joining the U.S. Military?"

Possibility of physical injury/death
70%
Possibility of PTSD or other emotional/psychological issues
65%
Leaving family and friends
58%
Other career interests
46%
Dislike of military lifestyle
40%
Too long of a commitment
36%
Possibility of interference with college education
35%
Required to live in places I don't want to live in
35%
Don't believe I would qualify
33%
Possibility of sexual harassment/assault
33%
Youth ages 16–21. Respondents could select multiple reasons.

Bunch'a Candy As !

Exactly!

The LCS Class of vessels were to be a "one size fits all" Littoral Combat Ship with different "Mission Packages" of all sorts of interesting weapons that could be placed aboard the vessel in a shipping container type of package that was never followed through with. They look cool, don't have enough crew to fight off boarders, are aluminum and fragile, should have been of only one design except that the loser of the competition whined so much that their sorry-ass design was also produced to the detriment of the American taxpayer and we have continued to produce these POS'S when we could have been launching warships or support ships that we truly needed. What a friggin waste of taxpayer dollars – perhaps the greatest in history… Heads should have rolled, programs should have been cancelled.

Cloudy +many 1's. This was an historic mess.

SB - Here's one of the DOD surveys in abbreviated form. I seem to recall that woke training was near the bottom in a more comprehensive list. Don't forget, we have had record low unemployment for several years also.

I'm sure that telling your core recruitment demographic that they are oppressors, and even going so far as USAF did, to say that the military has too many officers and pilots of this demographic and will restrict their chances for advancement, has had no impact on that demographic's interest in joining the military.

Well, as I said it should be about merit and the military already has regs to support equality. I have no knowledge about how this has been going, not aware that any training identifies any group as oppressors, but DEI could be seen as implying this, I suppose. I don't know the actual content or extent of DEI curriculum. I only know one current Marine, who did not know what I was talking about when I asked him about woke training. I should have asked him about pronouns, the craziest of all woke impacts, IMO.

What about the demographic whose young people see almost nobody of their race as pilots or brigade commanders? Do they see a career track or a bad deal if they join? We need to attract the best from every demographic.

"Hopefully, Chinese ships are worse than ours."

I've heard they are a bunch of "Junks".

LOL !!!!! 🤩

I have been wanting to say that for ages but did not dare!

I have been intimately involved in the Navy since 1991. First as a Sailor and now as a souless DOD bureaucrat. That's 33 years of ZERO DEI or woke training.

When Congress changed the Don't Ask Don't Tell laws we did have a single mandatory session on it's the legal implications. We also have regular training on Active Shooter, Workplace Violence, Anti-terrorism, Counter-Intelligence, Protecting PPI, the new CUI markings, Derivative Classification, the Constitution, Sexual Violence, and Sexual Harrassment. None of this relates to LCS.

LCS was the victim of ever changing requirements in terms of mission and basic naval engineering standards (USCG commercial or Navy based requirements), over optimism on crew size, and a host of bad engineering decisions due to innovation requirements to meet draft, speed, etc.

What LCS does save that our DDGs lack is high rate of fire deck gun for engaging swarms of small boats at range (Mk 110 57mm Bofors), 10 vertically launched Hellfire Longbow missiles for engaging Swarms, and the state of the art Naval Strike Missile for long range, over the horizon ships. So she is not defenseless and can and fight places our other ships cannot operate (i.e. the littorals). [Just FYI I have worked on each of these weapon systems, so I am biased.]

Not defending the class, but to decommission them all makes little sense when we need more hulls, not fewer.

+1 Lost Pict and thank you for your service and expertise. As an outside amateur following naval history and development, I thought in the early days of this program that the ships had too many defects and unreasonable expectations to keep the program going. At this point, with so much money already spent, if you say we should keep some, I am good with that, at least getting something out of it.

That's 33 years of ZERO DEI or woke training.

Good to know !

Lost Pict +1

I like to hear from those who were/are there.