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| US Navy orders another LCS ship |
| 2009-05-04 |
| WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - General Dynamics Corp won its second U.S. Navy contract for a shore-hugging Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), scheduled to be delivered in May 2012, the Defense Department said Friday. Intended to operate in coastal areas, the LCS ships are designed for mine detection and elimination; anti-submarine warfare; and combat against small surface craft. General Dynamics is in competition with Lockheed Martin to build more of the hulls, known as LCS. The Navy plans to buy as many as 55, including three more in fiscal 2010, which starts Oct. 1. Lockheed Martin received a contract to build its second LCS on March 23. The first General Dynamics-built LCS, also featuring a trimaran hull, is in the final stages of construction and testing in preparation for sea trials. The value of the contract was being withheld because it is "linked to the ongoing competition" for the three ships due to be built in 2010, said Lt. Cmdr. Victor Chen, a Navy spokesman. The deal followed long negotiations with the Navy over a fixed price for the ships. Congress has imposed a $460 million-per-ship cost cap on the LCS program, effective in the coming fiscal year. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #13 By the above, China's anti-Soviet war tactics would essentially follow its tactics agz JAPAN in mid-1930's thru 1945 [WW2 = WAR IN CHINA], except for use of nukulaar weapons and Chin's Cold War willingness to intentionally destroy sections of Chin territory to defeat the tech-superior Soviet armies. FYI, CHINA > NO MATTER THE MAGNITUDE OF CHINESE CASUALTIES OR NUCLEAR COMBAT/UTILITY, CHINA'S PLAN WAS TO NEVER SURRENDER TO THE USSR [ extinction = mutual destruction]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-05-04 20:22 |
| #12 SAME > IIUC COLD WAR CHINESE ANTI-SOVIET WAR STRATEGY: PRESUMING INITIAL SOVIET SUPERIORITY, CHIN WOULD ALLOW SOVIET FORCES TO INVADE, WITHDRAW PLA FORCES AND CIVILIANS FROM THE COMBAT AREAS AMAP, AND THEN STRIKE AT THE NOW-ISOLATED SOVIET FORCES AND REAR AREA "FRONT" TARGETS WITH "FIRST STRIKE" DEFENSIVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS. "SECOND STRIKE" OR FOLLOW-ON WOULD ESCALATE AND TARGET MAJOR SOVIET MILITARY AND CIVILIAN TARGETS. * SOVIET ANTI-CHIN STRATEGY {Chinese view]: INVADE AND ISOLATE THE WHOLE OF CHINA'S NORTHEAST REGIONS FROM BEIJING. RUSSIA WOULD MANIPULATE AND QUICKLY FORCE CHINA TO ACCEPT A NEGOTIATED TACTICAL DEFEAT IN ORDER TO AVOID ALL-OUT SINO-SOVIET NUCLEAR WAR [which only the US-NATO would benefit or survive vee later involvement]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-05-04 20:17 |
| #11 SAME > IIUC COLD WAR SECRET: IN EARLY 1980'S THE USSR TESTED CHINA'S RESOLVE BY SENDING THREE MOTORIZED INFANTRY REGIMENTS [disguised a "immigration escort" troops] TO INVADE CHINA TO A DEPTH OF 80 KMS. RECOGNIZING THEN-SOVIET MIL SUPERIORITY AND DESIRING TO AVOID SINO-SOVIET NUCLEAR WAR, CHINA INDUCED THE SOVIET UNITS TO WITHDRAW BY PUBLICLY ANNOUNCING IT WOULD HOLD A MAJOR THERMONUCLEAR/HYDROGEN BOMB(S) TESTS IN THE SAME REGION. THE SOVIET UNITS WITHDREW. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-05-04 20:06 |
| #10 ION WORLD MIL FORUM > OKINAWA: US-JAPAN NAVEX HUNTS FOR CHINESE SUBMARINES; + CHINA'S PLAN REACHES ITS SPRING [various NavDev Projects]. D *** NG IT, IN SPRING A YOUNG CHINESE PLAN SAILOR'S FANCY TURNS TO AIRCRAFT CARRIERS, ZANG ZHYI BIKINI BABE CALENDARS, EMPIRE, AND BLOWING AWAY THE USN = USA IN WAR. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-05-04 19:56 |
| #9 Uh, if its big enough to land a chopper on, is it big enough to land a Harrier? I think the US military did not put enough into the Harrier program which is a very interesting foreward area deployment ground support system. |
| Posted by: James Carville 2009-05-04 18:52 |
| #8 OS: I was more concerned with the apparent lack of _quality_ fire control on the autocannon. Look, take the Nansen class Frigate as a starting point. ADD 50 million dollars to the cost (Say you want to add a RAM launcher, and maybe another small gun, and a couple more VLS cells. That should cover a lot). Then you'll have a nice Aegis-equipped DE for about 3/2 the price of an LCS. And I don't think the LCS will provide you 2/3 the ship of a Nansen. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-05-04 15:50 |
| #7 ■ Six ships - one cruiser, two destroyers, two small-deck amphibs and one attack submarine - were ruled "unfit" in 2008, and could not get underway for demonstrations. Before this report came out, only two ships were publicly known to have been deemed unfit in 2008. ■ Inspectors found that 27 ships had problems with the Halon systems that help fight fires in the main enginerooms, and 21 had problems with the aqueous fire fighting foam systems, designed to put out aviation fires. ■ Of the nine classes of ships inspected, seven had problems with their high-frequency radio systems because sailors didn't know how to maintain them. ■ None of the four dock landing ships scheduled for material inspections in 2008 could meet them on time, and two of the four still hadn't been inspected when the report was prepared. Two of three material inspections for mine countermeasures ships had to be rescheduled. A retired submarine skipper said the report showed problems he'd have expected from the old Soviet Navy, which he said fielded good ships and then permitted th em to rust and fail for lack of funding. A retired cruiser commander said that nothing in the report surprised him, and that it reminded him of the "penny-wise, pound-foolish" mentality he spent years dealing with. "The experts blamed smaller crews, shrinking budgets and less real-life training for a generation of sailors often too overworked to care properly for their ships." And the LCS is looking to be WAY undermanned and flawed in operational and maintenance concepts. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-05-04 15:47 |
| #6 Basic operational coincept of the ship is flawed, per the very well informed comments at the link Snowy posted: The maintenance concept for this ship escapes us. Lets see, these ships are going to be maintained by the core crew, who is going to be busy as hell concentrating on the core systems requirements, but it will also be maintained by a shore based maintenance crew. That crew will feel no ownership of the ship as it will be just one of several ships it services, you know, because all ships of the same class are the same. Then these ships are going to have crews that change with mission packages, meaning they really don't have ownership of the platform either. Finally, the shore based crew is ashore, but there will be no tenders forward deployed to insure the ships are maintained properly while on deployment. The ships complex internal design, which includes a crane for moving modules and vehicles and multiple doors that open out to sea, will need high levels of attention. All of that stuff requires constant maintenance by an onboard crew, no matter how the Navy decides to set up the shore-support network. Kellogg Brown and Root, or whoever gets the contract, isn't going to drop out of the sky and oil the door. They'll start adding sailors, quietly ... because they started to figure out how to cram more people on the Austal design. People don't seem to be in a hurry to commit publicly on how much rack space could be added in a design that's already severely overweight... Couple that with the report in Defense News: U.S. Navy Readiness Flaws Exposed On Ships and Subs, Problems Included Corrosion, Broken Radios. (next msg) |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-05-04 15:45 |
| #5 Both LCS have enough speed to outrun torpedoes, mostly to negating one of the highest threats. The GD LCS looks esp interesting w/ it's big helipad. Though I think a bigger heli deck for 4 Seahawks or 6 Cobra/UAV types would be ideal, keeping one in the air continuously for antisub, anti-missile boat and to hand off targeting info to the big boys. Unfortunately it is not designed for the other big threat, air defense. Aircraft will be able to fire at will outside the range of its RAM missiles and LCS will have to operate under Aegis or air cover. As far as "Littoral Combat", at $4-500M, I don't think the Navy will be too keen to operate within line of sight of any defended coasts. Since the Navy is primarily dealing w/ primitive barbarians, small, heavily armed patrol boats should be a priority. Numerous, cheap, low manpower and deadly. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-05-04 13:24 |
| #4 Y'all might want to check out this thread at "Information Dissemination" with information about problems with both lcs boat's fire control systems: link. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-05-04 13:22 |
| #3 I'm not sure what is meant by 'last war' in this instance. The LCS does fill a gap; it's just been a too-expensive program. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2009-05-04 13:06 |
| #2 Dunno about that OS. Those could come in real handy around Tiawan against Chinese diesels. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-05-04 12:42 |
| #1 Getting ready to fight the last war. That's how we always do it here in the USA. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-05-04 10:41 |