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| Science & Technology |
| Update on Littoral Combat Ship |
| 2006-06-12 |
| BATH, Maine (AP) - Sailor, these are not your father's warships. The first of a new breed of Navy ship - faster and easier to maneuver - is expected to launch later this year to meet threats including modern-day pirates and terrorists who turn speedboats into suicide weapons. The Littoral Combat Ship is powered by steerable waterjets, so it doesn't need propellers or rudders. It's designed to go more than 50 mph; traditional destroyers have had the same top speed - about 35 mph - since World War II. The LCS has a shallow draft and its waterjets let the ship zoom close to shore without getting stuck and to turn on a dime, allowing it to chase smaller boats. The name itself is taken from the coastal ``littoral'' waters in which the ship will operate. The LCS will be more lightly armored than bigger ships, but its speed will give it a tactical advantage in combat, said Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton, program executive officer for ships, who's overseeing the project from Washington. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 Still too expensive. Optimally, I would hope the modular ships would be priced at about $20M a unit. The Navy wants its ships to be all things to all people at all times. But just like the PT boats of WWII, there are times when you just need sheer numbers of boats in the water. The fewer ships you have, total, the fewer places they can be. But if you need coverage, and badly, quality just gets in the way. Certainly you want them better than most of what the enemy has in their class, but you do not want irreplaceable ships. The bottom line is that if you are planning for a conventional war, that you would really, truly prefer to not go nuclear, you need lots of conventional alternatives. You do not want to put all of your eggs in one bucket. If necessary, you need to be able to engage in a war of naval attrition. Your sailors duking it out with their sailors, in a manner of speaking. The other problem is that *if* something bad happens to our fantastically expensive, irreplaceable ships, it takes years to build another one. Years you do not have in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight. I trust the US Navy to work wonders with quality; but they must also have quantity, or they might price themselves out of the market. For $1B, to get 50 fast boats like the Pegasus class, it is well worth the deal. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-06-12 18:34 |
| #5 The U.S. Navy officially took possession of the first of a new class of ships; a Littoral Surface Craft (LSC) called “Sea Fighter” (FSF-1) Here's the original class of Littoral Combat ships in the US inventory. |
| Posted by: Fleaper Speater7122 2006-06-12 15:21 |
| #4 Seems like the LCS is fairly modular with the different packages that are loaded. You wouldn't change packages from day to day, but you'd deploy a small flotilla of LCS with the right package(s) and let them work. That plus the FSF-1 (thanks RWV, Rantburg U at its best) seem to be the way to handle the brown water issues, at least from this non-mil landlubber's PoV. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-06-12 12:44 |
| #3 Sorry about that: http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/articles/military_photos_20057201.asp |
| Posted by: RWV 2006-06-12 12:41 |
| #2 Anonymoose, take a look at this: The U.S. Navy officially took possession of the first of a new class of ships; a Littoral Surface Craft (LSC) called “Sea Fighter” (FSF-1). This ship was originally intended as an experimental ship, to test out a number of new technologies. But the sea trials were so successful, that pressure is building to put this class into mass production. That won’t be hard to do. Sea Fighter took only twenty months to build, and cost only $50 million. Ships like this are meant for a new force, the "brown water (coastal) navy." The “brown water sailors,” who are agitating for more emphasis on small ships, and operations in coastal waters, are no longer considered a fringe group. This is mainly because a larger brown water force would get the navy more involved with the war on terror. The navy has largely been left out of the war on terror, because of their emphasis on carriers and nuclear subs. Despite the usefulness of carrier aviation in Afghanistan, the navy hasn’t had a lot to do since September 11, 2001. The army is getting most of the work, and a growing proportion of the defense budget. With the cost of traditional warships skyrocketing, the LCS (3,000 ton, $250 million Littoral Combat Ship) and the LSC look a lot more attractive. New destroyers will cost $2.5 billion each. That gets you ten LCSs, or fifty LSCs. New carriers cost over $8 billion each, which could built a fleet of brown water ships More at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/x-craft.htm |
| Posted by: RWV 2006-06-12 12:40 |
| #1 I would like to see modular littoral craft that can be forward deployed and assembled in just a few hours, similar to Zumwalt's Pegasus class hydrofoils. They would be like Strykers, but for green water zones. They were superb in their day for interdiction missions. Today, if assembled from composite materials as multi-purpose platform boats, they would be faster, with longer range, heavier mixed armaments, and the composite might even be better light armor. One small boat could control a large air lane with SAMs, mount a small, high volume deck gun, have ribbon charges to clear coastal minefields, or run recce missions. Teams of such craft could dominate a sea lane, blockade a port, raid coastal defenses, and police large numbers of civilian craft. They would be a complement to other Navy ships, be very low cost, and most importantly be able to provide sheer numbers in a quantity, not quality, conflict. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-06-12 12:15 |