LCS slowly falling apart!?

This is what is needed……..
http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/11/17/another-new-lcs-mission-bmd-picket/

The GD LCS model also as an international variant that includes an updated VLS weapons package.

Principal Characteristics
LOA: 127.6m
Beam: 31.6m
Draft: 4.4m
Displacement Full Load: 3120MT
Max. Speed (Light Load): >40 knots
Range: Cruise @16 knots: 4,500 nm
Sprint @ 36 knots: 1,500 nm
Mission Bay: 1,100 sqm (11,800 sqft)
Flight Deck: 1,030 sqm (11,100 sqft)
Accommodation: 110 personnel

Armament Options Include
32 Missile Vertical Launch System
1 57mm Gun (Forward)
8 Harpoon Missiles
2 Close-in Weapons systems
6 ASW Torpedoes

Propulsion and Electrical
Gas Turbines (2)
Diesels (2)
Waterjets (4) and Retractable Azi Thruster
Diesel Generators (4)

LCS Mission Modules Not Working As Intended

A recent Pentagon war game that ran the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship through simulated combat in the Gulf didn’t unfold quite as expected, according to participants. The LCS is custom built with the Gulf combat environment in mind: narrow and congested waters, a wide range of low-end threats from sea mines and swarms of fast attack craft to higher-end air-breathing submarines.

The key to the LCS performing as the Swiss Army knife of the battle fleet is the ship’s interchangeable mission modules. While the “plug-and-fight” mission modules sound like a good idea by providing a range of flexibility within a single hull, the simulated Gulf exercises revealed some real-world shortcomings with the LCS concept.

The war game featured the trouble-making Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps navy sending out swarms of fast-attack craft to muck it up with a half dozen LCSs. The LCSs, equipped with the surface warfare mission module which includes the ship’s integral 57mm cannon, a pair of 30mm rapid fire cannons, vertically launched missiles and armed helicopters, were able to beat back the Iranian small boat attack.

Seeing their small boat swarm shot-up, the Iranians dispatched a bunch of small, air-breathing submarines to attack the LCS flotilla. The LCSs were forced to steam down to Diego Garcia to switch out the surface warfare modules with the anti-submarine warfare packages. That scenario repeated itself every time the Iranians changed up their attack and wrong-footed the LCS flotilla.

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/09/01/lcs-mission-modules-not-working-as-intended/#more-8853#ixzz0yJAZ0Hca
Defense.org

More after the link
http://defensetech.org/2010/09/01/lcs-mission-modules-not-working-as-intended/#more-8853

Weren’t mission modules supposed to airtransportable? I.e. fly them in from Diego Garcia to locallly, rather than ships going the other way?

This is what is needed……..

http://militarytimes.com/blogs/scoopdeck/2009/11/17/another-new-lcs-mission-bmd-picket/

US navy has put in an order of roughly 3.6 billion on each of the two LCS contracters. Each ship is going to be about 440million.

~$5 billion to each builder.

http://www.peshtigotimes.net/?id=15412

The office of Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl reported that on Wednesday, Dec. 22, President Obama signed the appropriations bill to fund government operations through March 4, 2011. It also contained the LCS contracts for Marinette Marine and Austal USA to each build 10 ships.

The signing is an early Christmas present for the two shipbuilders.

As a result, Marinette Marine will be able to construct 10 LCS ships, something they have been waiting for since August.

The U.S. Congress on Tuesday, Dec. 21, passed a stopgap funding bill which includes a contract for Marinette Marine to construct 10 Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) of their design for about $5 billion and for Austal USA in Alabama to build 10 LCS of their design for about $5 billion. Each LCS is expected to cost between $440,000 to $480,000.

LCS-3 USS Fort Worth was launched 7 December 2010 in the Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin.

LCS-4 USS Coronado will be launched in 2011 and commissioned in 2012… sponsoring will be the daughter of the woman who sponsored the previous USS Coronado (LPD-11 {later AGF-11}) at her commissioning.
http://www.coronadonewsca.com/articles/2010/09/09/news/news01.txt

US navy has put in an order of roughly 3.6 billion on each of the two LCS contracters. Each ship is going to be about 440million.

In a lean civilian work force if you employ highly trained people you do not want them to waste time doing cleaning, you need them to do the multiple jobs they are asigned and you contract in cheaper labour to deal with the mundane. Why would you want to spend £39/hour labour on mopping floors

A few reasons. Firstly, on board ship, they aren’t £39/hour. They work whatever hours are necessary, to do whatever is necessary, & they don’t get paid for overtime.

Secondly, pay is only one part of the cost of maintaining a ships crew. The cost of space on board is considerable, & if using skilled people in menial jobs enables you to dispense with extra crew, you’re probably saving money. If all someone can do is push mops around, they’re a waste of space, food, drinking water etc. on board a warship.

Also, even a warship with lean manning will have redundancy in crewing. You don’t want to put the ship out of action because someone has an accident, or falls ill, so you have some slack for normal peacetime operations. You use some of that slack for the menial stuff that’s nice to do but that you won’t bother doing during action.

Ask yourself what your low-paid, unskilled cleaners would do in a battle?

This is a difficult and emotive point to answer, i only have a question which is how clean is clean?

and this is where my ignorance of ship operations will definately show, what does a normal ship do? If you need 70 people to run the ship do you add 3-4 people just to clean the ship? If not and you use some of the 70 people to do the cleaning then arent you diluting the effectiveness of the crew anyway?

In a lean civilian work force if you employ highly trained people you do not want them to waste time doing cleaning, you need them to do the multiple jobs they are asigned and you contract in cheaper labour to deal with the mundane. Why would you want to spend £39/hour labour on mopping floors

Underway the people you have on board is all you have, your radar tech who spent 2 years in school learning about electronics is also a cleaner and a fire fighter everyone has multiple jobs (he may also be on a boarding party and member of various in-port security teams among other collateral duties). No one put on board just to clean (at least not in the USN).
A military is not a civillian work force and can’t be run like one.

If the Navy wants a 316 fleet in the current climate and economic situation it maybe the only way it can do this. No point in having a large navy when your country can be held hostage economically by its biggest competitor.

Nothing wrong with economising on routine monthly or bi-monthly routines or preventive works if it means you can keep an effective number of ships.

Plus you have to remember this is going to go on over a large number of years which means that if this does not work and proves that your seeming disgust at the thought proves valid they can always change it. But the Navy have to try and take the risks it feels needed otherwise it will never grow or learn it will remain stagnent and become irrelevent and redudent.

Contractors are not cheap and using them instead of sailors won’t save you any money and a contractor won’t be on the ship when the radar breaks and the one tech they have on board has been up for 20+ hours due to watch and other ship evolutions.
There are not enough crew for damage control, if that ship takes a decent hit it is screwed.
The example of cleaning was just to make a point, it isn’t a matter of how clean the ship is (well it is from a sanitary standpoint and damage control standpoint) but if the crew can’t concentrate on the little things like that and basic PMS then the concept is wrong.

Deferring maintenance will always cost more in the end than if you just did the PMS on schedule. When I visited LCS-1 when it was in Norfolk several pieces of equipment was severly corroded and needed some TLC, I asked the crew about it and they just shrugged and said it wasn’t their job, a BAD attitude for a sailor to have.

I am all for a cheap and cheerful frigate but it needs to be able to pass standard shock testing (LCS-1 and 2 can’t) it needs to be able to do basic damage control (LCS can’t) it needs to have enough crew that everyone isn’t running around with no sleep (LCS can’t). I’m all for having modular mission bays, I’m all for an experimental ship but for mass production LCS makes no damned sense.

If you can’t even keep the place clean, how are you supposed to keep it going if it gets a couple of artillery shells put through the side, or even a couple of RPG’s?

This is a difficult and emotive point to answer, i only have a question which is how clean is clean?

and this is where my ignorance of ship operations will definately show, what does a normal ship do? If you need 70 people to run the ship do you add 3-4 people just to clean the ship? If not and you use some of the 70 people to do the cleaning then arent you diluting the effectiveness of the crew anyway?

In a lean civilian work force if you employ highly trained people you do not want them to waste time doing cleaning, you need them to do the multiple jobs they are asigned and you contract in cheaper labour to deal with the mundane. Why would you want to spend £39/hour labour on mopping floors

If you can’t even keep the place clean, how are you supposed to keep it going if it gets a couple of artillery shells put through the side, or even a couple of RPG’s?

Not so fast that reduced crew is going to lead to trouble.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2010/September/Pages/DutyAboardtheLittoralCombatShip%E2%80%98GruelingbutManageable%E2%80%99.aspx

Also ALL of the maintenance that is not daily or weekly PMS is farmed out to contractors when it hits port, when on deployment those contractors are flown out to a port to do that PMS as well. Hell there are not enough sailors on board to properly clean the ship, that is contracted out as well.

Pathetic.

If the Navy wants a 316 fleet in the current climate and economic situation it maybe the only way it can do this. No point in having a large navy when your country can be held hostage economically by its biggest competitor.

Nothing wrong with economising on routine monthly or bi-monthly routines or preventive works if it means you can keep an effective number of ships.

Plus you have to remember this is going to go on over a large number of years which means that if this does not work and proves that your seeming disgust at the thought proves valid they can always change it. But the Navy have to try and take the risks it feels needed otherwise it will never grow or learn it will remain stagnent and become irrelevent and redudent.

In that case the LCS is a bargain! When you include labour costs. LCS is projected to have 50-60% of the labour required for an aegis class. Also remember lcs is not intended to replace the aegis its in between. For the same sailor force USN gets more ships to be present in more areas. And also distributed force which is harder to knock out via asbm, can go into shallow waters. For ASW this is key for the Asia pacific region where there is a arms race for diesel subs at the moment. Include straights off of Iran and suddenly you can’t do any better than the LCS. I also think this ship should be marketted to top tier regional allies.

Not so fast that reduced crew is going to lead to trouble.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2010/September/Pages/DutyAboardtheLittoralCombatShip%E2%80%98GruelingbutManageable%E2%80%99.aspx

Also ALL of the maintenance that is not daily or weekly PMS is farmed out to contractors when it hits port, when on deployment those contractors are flown out to a port to do that PMS as well. Hell there are not enough sailors on board to properly clean the ship, that is contracted out as well.

Pathetic.

[QUOTE=matt;1637090]Thanks Jonesy, would you have any details on the failures?

======================================================

Credit: Aviation Week

Challenges Ahead For NLOS-LS

Feb 26, 2010

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The failure of four of six shots from the U.S. Army’s Non Line-of-Sight Launch System (NLOS-LS) during recent testing could spell trouble for the Raytheon-built vertical launcher, which also is supposed to be fielded aboard the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS).

Results from a Limited User Test (LUT) of the system, which ran from Jan. 26 to Feb. 5 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., are currently under evaluation. The NLOS-LS’s surprisingly poor performance — attributed to a combination of operator error and technical failures — will be the primary topic of discussion during an interim Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) meeting in March. The DAB was slated to review Increment 1 capabilities of the Brigade Combat Team Modernization (BCTM) program, of which NLOS-LS is an integral part.

Raytheon issued an official statement, that read in part, “Of the six LUT flights, two were direct hits, two were misses with root cause known and corrective action implemented, and two were misses with root cause currently under investigation.”

The company noted that over the course of the program, the Precision Attack Missile (PAM) has fired 23 missiles with 14 direct hits. “NLOS-LS is in the system design and development phase,” Raytheon said. “We test in order to identify issues and quickly resolve them.”

The Army has three choices, according to BCTM spokesperson Paul Mehney: “Keep [NLOS-LS] going, modify it or cancel it.” The Army’s big concern is that NLOS-LS fills an important capability gap. “We don’t have an easily deployable guided missile system,” Mehney said. “The operational factors of NLOS-LS are still necessary. The Army needs to determine the best path forward to work out any technical solutions that may come out as a result of the LUT.”

====================================================================

On top of the missile/seeker issues the USN encountered launcher problems when test firing from the LCS resulting in at least 2 failed launches. Whether these are included in the above ’14 hits for 23 launches’ figure or whether they are only counting the valid launches I couldn’t say I’m afraid.

NLOS was cancelled due to the simple expedient that it didnt work!. There was a similar, though much shorter ranged, Israeli system (IAI’s Jumper) that was being considered as a replacement, last I heard, to keep the surface warfare module viable.

Thanks Jonesy, would you have any details on the failures?

with regards to labour costs I am comparing to other US ships, which makes perfect sense as we are talking of the survival of the LCS within the USN and then thereafter the purchase of LCS by other navies.

matt
Satyameva jayate Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 4,118

I do not understand the link between the heading the news reported. Also if gates was really interested in making the US NAVY lean you would think he would go for something like the LCS and all it tries to offer in terms of man power reduction.

What is a standard crew of a destroyer? What are the overheads? If you use 246 as the number of people x 60 dollars an hour (for over head) x 356 days x 8 hours a day you end up with $31,527360 per year.

Assuming the overheads in running a ship with the level of technology a destroyer has is very high.

Or you could do it the other way around, which would be lets assume a sailor would get something similar to a graduate engineer which would be somewhere around £25,000 or $25,000 x 246 which is the complement of the ship 6,150000 not considering the other over heads.

Times either figure by 50 and you start talking scary numbers.

Does the US Navy publish figures as to how much it costs to operate and sail a destroyer or submarine?

It is better that the LCS carry on with its reduced crew and be used as a new wave and model to restructure the US NAVY.

I am suprised that lean has not been taken up by the NAVY.

After thought, just because the NAVY kills of the LCS does not mean that littoral combat itself is redundant or not required.
__________________
Wrinkles wrinkles my kingdom fallen to a wrinkle

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Last edited by matt; 19th May 2010 at 07:01.

I have done a simple costs of these ships in labour terms over a term of 30 years. please see below. i need information for MEKO A100 and A200 (significant manning difference apparently between 96 people and 120 people). Does anyone have the capital cost of those ships?

I did a capex comparison and over a 100 ships you are all correct MEKO’s come out cheaper, soon as you spend the money on the ships you have to right it off. as you cant sell the ships to make the money back. Obviously you are not going to get the 100 ships in one year so you are looking at manufacturing improvements which would offset inflation and also at those numbers of ships you could look at some kind of positive effect due to the high rates of production required.

One thing that is very very difficult to do in a balanced manner is to put a cost/price on the benifits of having a faster ship and the cost associated with lost of life if one of those ships is lost as apposed to a MEKO A200.

Things also become difficult if you assume that all of the LCS have the same setup that Israel wanted (reported cost of $600m).

Also the shipyards that are building the MEKO are now owned by UAE arent they?

Out of all the modules you would want to cancel why would you cancel Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System? I presume this was putting something like ATACM Block A onto an LCS so that it can be effective in fire support from the “littoral” combat ships?

NLOS was cancelled due to the simple expedient that it didnt work!. There was a similar, though much shorter ranged, Israeli system (IAI’s Jumper) that was being considered as a replacement, last I heard, to keep the surface warfare module viable.

It’s by far the most expensive warship, per ton, in its class. Bargain?

One could buy a couple of MEKO A200, with the same sensors & more weapons, for the same price. They’d be superior in almost every respect except top speed, & you’d have two of ’em not one, so over twice the capacity for the price. Bargain?

Please be careful with manpower computation.

US ships have much higher crewing requirements than similar European vessels, the LCS bringing it more in line with the competition does not mean the US could not procure different ships with the same reduced crew.

In that case the LCS is a bargain! When you include labour costs. LCS is projected to have 50-60% of the labour required for an aegis class. Also remember lcs is not intended to replace the aegis its in between. For the same sailor force USN gets more ships to be present in more areas. And also distributed force which is harder to knock out via asbm, can go into shallow waters. For ASW this is key for the Asia pacific region where there is a arms race for diesel subs at the moment. Include straights off of Iran and suddenly you can’t do any better than the LCS. I also think this ship should be marketted to top tier regional allies.

What is the projected production cost of the LCS hull and then thereafter the individual module costs?

We don’t know. From memory the projected cost was $300 Million, but a redesign mid construction made the R & D vessels more expensive.

Once 3 & 4 hit the water we’ll probably have a better idea how much they cost.

For reference though, a Full Aegis System was quoted as $700 Million in the FMS documentation for Australia’s AWD systems.

The biggest downside of the LCS. Is the cost of the platform, especially given how basic it is without Mission modules fitted.

Because the modules are not exactly cheap either.

What is the projected production cost of the LCS hull and then thereafter the individual module costs?

Everyone keeps saying it is very expensive but I have only seen the costs of the original R&D vessels…Along with a comment in the same reports which say that the LCS is key to the USN getting a 316 fleet navy in the future.