The LCS is a modern imperial gunboat designed to pacify the natives and as such I take no small pleasure in the fact that it seems to be falling flat on its face. But this talk of using it as a ‘real’ warship is something else.

… if the LCS detects and reacts to the torpedo launch instantly, already has the torpedo astern, and accelerates instantly to 40kts, sure…

I’m not trying to be a smartarse: what are some realistic numbers/assumptions to plug in here and how greatly do they affect the scenario you’ve outlined?

Not the LCS Rii…as Bager says that has a separate function and imperial gunboat its not…the closest analogy to that would be a Burke class!. The nearest fit for LCS, from what I can see, is the French fregate de surveillance concept…very expensive Floreals to be sure!. Mainly what LCS is is an enabling platform for others to find good uses for…you look at things like the Cartercopters Tern concept that could step off from LCS and UUV’s like the bigger REMUS units, BAE’s Talisman concept etc and I’ve got to say I’m quietly optimistic about what LCS could open the door to for the rest of us!. So much potential there. Anyway, unless I’m mistaken, the debate had turned to US frigate designs and the need for a frigate in support of the LCS. My point was rather that the LCS had frigate-like qualities that could be leveraged into a more capable combatant.

… if the LCS detects and reacts to the torpedo launch instantly, already has the torpedo astern, and accelerates instantly to 40kts, sure…I’m not trying to be a smartarse: what are some realistic numbers/assumptions to plug in here and how greatly do they affect the scenario you’ve outlined?

Again its the virtual attrition thats the key here. Hostile sub commander…lets call him Ahmed…has a nice shiny Kilo class sub at his command and tubes menacingly loaded with UGST torpedoes good, for round figures, for 20km at 50knots. Again rounding up (as public source details on torpedoes are given to be somewhat fanciful) that makes about a 15min run at 50knts. Going by what you can see on Youtube of the GD LCS manoeverability (deliberately going by the less manoeverable hull) the ship can do a cruising speed 180 turn in about 50-60 seconds. Cpt Ahmed knows he cant fire from range as the UGSTs screw noise is far higher and more distinct than his submarines…so he has to get in close to achieve any kind of surprise…the water impulse of his torpedoes ejecting though will give the game away unless the target ship doesnt have a sonar watch set!. Something you may hope for, but, not depend on for a successful attack!.

Plugging some numbers in then. Target ship is cruising at 14knts. Cpt Ahmed is sat in the middle of the Hormuz straight and the surface ship is sailing right at him. He fires his torpedo at time 0. At 1 minute the trimaran is on a reciprocal bearing accelerating to 20knts out of the turn. She takes another 3 minutes (assumption) to get from 20knts to 40. So we’re at 4 minutes since the torpedo was fired…it has covered about 3 nautical miles (50knts=0.8 naut. mile per min) as it had to get to speed also. In the same 4 minutes LCS-frigate has turned and averaged 30knts for 3 minutes. So 1.5nm away from its position at torpedo release. The torpedo has 11 minutes of its run left in which to catch the ship. In 11 mins the ship, now at 40knts, will cover just over 7nm.

So in total, from the detect of the Kilo’s weapon release, the ship has turned and made it 8.5-9nm downrange by the end of the torpedoes 50knt run. The torpedoes run will be about 11nm in total maybe a bit more. So to stand a chance of hitting the target Cpt Ahmed has to fire from about 3 miles range and that is with the advantage of being in the right place to have the target ship come right at him!. Lets say my assumption of the 3 minute acceleration 20-40knts is off and double it. Its still a rough average of 30knts over 6 minutes…plus the 1 in the turn then 8 minutes at 40knts so the difference is only effectively (10knts*3 mins) about half a mile.

Either way you see the point that Capt Ahmed is going to have to get very close indeed….with a pretty good torpedo….to have a chance at hitting an alert 40knt ship.

But obviously the LCSs replace FFGs 😉 In addition probably also Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships.

The LCS are not really different from normal frigates. The main differences is the much higher speed (no idea, why it is necessary in the age of aircraft and missiles), the weak hulls (not really warship like, a consequence of the high speed), the modules (which are heavily criticised, because the LCS are not true multi-purpose ships), not very sophisticated sensors (i.e. dependence on other sources for detection) and the very weak armament. The big capacity for helicopters and drones is not that different from modern European frigates.

The speed will eliminate all but the most capable HW torpedoes as a threat Leon and will force even shooters of even some of the high end HWTs to get a lot closer than they may like to get a solid targeting solution. Even fairly current eels like the German DM2A4 are ‘only’ good for 50knts top end according to open source material. If the LCS can sustain 40knts on the same bearing the torpedo has only a 10knt overtake. So, if its fired from 10 miles away it’ll take an hour (and 50 miles running) to close the gap…and not many can do 50knts for a 60 minute run!. Realistically then the submarine commander attacking an LCS knows he has to fire at very close range, exposing himself to counter detection, or have very advanced torpedoes or, basically, forget it and go shoot something slow.

I certainly think that LCS, mostly thinking about the trimaran here, has some qualities that do make it interesting as a ‘proper’ escort. That sprint speed allied to a CAPTAS 4 active array (being bought for LCS already?) plus a good hull mount set could offer a lot for fleet ASW. Its not subtle and its not likely ever to be brilliant for blue water ‘cold war’ long-range passive work….but there is always SSN and SURTASS support for that. As a short-medium range platform though, coupled with its impressive aviation capability and torpedo ‘insurance’ I think it could offer something useful. Add in the Aussie lightweight active array at masthead, STRALES forward, a couple of strike length modules for VLA and the new JASSM-based antiship job and some ESSM squirreled away somewhere…and you’ve got a good capability package without having to innovate too much.

If you need more hulls in the water for show the flag and low-rent escort….like what the Perry’s are doing now…build a couple of dozen of Ingalls patrol frigate designs in a high/lo mix with the trimarans and again the capability is there off-the-shelf…rinse and repeat.

If I was a US tax payer I would ask myself why should my money be spent basing men and equipment on a contintent whose nations have savagedly cut their armed forces. The UK who consider themselves a major player on the world stage have no maritime aircraft, will have only 6 x fast jet squadron, only 19 destroyers and frigates and an army of only 82000 troops etc etc.
The majority of other European nations proportionally contribute less than the UK so no one can be surprised at the shutting of RAF Lakenheath.

I think the answer would come back A4 that if you cant see the reason why an interventionist nation like the US wants to have forward basing in politically reliable and secure allied countries then you probably shouldnt be asking the question. Perhaps stick with the more manageable ones like ‘what does that window taste like’.

That is honestly not a list that gives much of an impression that accidents are particularly widespread…

Agreed.

Viktor,

The Sindhughosh grounding you list was the incident I described above. Its a bad call nothing more nothing less…that sort of thing can happen to anyone…and I’m not just saying that because it nearly happened to me….albeit in much smaller and more manoeuvrable boat!.

Other than that vessels in close proximity occasionally bang into each other. India’s coastal waters are known to be a touch….erm….challenging….and contain a proliferation of smaller craft that, put politely, demonstrate the full range of seamanship, embarked navigation and safety equipment from the very rudimentary to, doubtless, the very professional. If I got away with that without sounding intentionally racist you have to accept that the greater the ‘complexity’ of the maritime environment the greater the chances of, even a well handled ship, clobbering someone.

The small mistake in watchkeeping that lets a Dutch frigate get onto a converging course with a motor-sailer gets picked up as the yacht has AIS…the same mistake see’s an Indian frigate ramming a dhow because it doesnt. Not a level playing field. Certainly given the listing there you’d not say they were really any different to any other first rate naval service.

Edit: With admirable timing my former service step up to help validate my point with a demonstration – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-26577109 :stupid:

Indeed. Despite the salivating of some here, almost nobody outside the United States has any interest in getting involved in Ukraine/Crimea. And even the American interest isn’t actually about Ukraine, but rather about America’s owned bruised ego. The realist school of international relations is rightfully congratulating itself regarding recent events in Ukraine, but there are other factors at work also that don’t fit so well into the realist framework, chief among those being the sheer petulance that certain nations are capable of displaying when they find out that they don’t, in fact, run the world.

Of course, as many nations from Cuba to Iran have discovered in the past, the petulance of an overgrown child-nation can be dangerous even (or especially) when completely ridiculous. Fortunately for Russia it is strong enough to weather and probably continue to thrive amongst any storm that might be conjured against it.

Rii,

Not quite sure where that was triggered from in the responses that precede it?. I dont see any salivation. Essentially kilo noted that pushing warships into confined waters was a decidedly shaky proposition…he was quite right…it is. He further suggested that the Russians may hold all the high cards in this scenario.

All thats been attempted since is to point out, in strictly tactical terms, that a fleet of capable, well-handled, small SSK’s can dominate exactly those kind of waters…especially if faced by, at best, modest ASW forces. Such a fleet is deployed in theatre by the Turkish Navy. Whether they would involve themselves directly or allow themselves to be drawn in through the wider NATO context is irrelevant. The contention was that those SSK’s could contest Russian domination of the Black Sea nothing more….nothing less.

Seems to me that the Black sea is a Russian lake. Not a healthy place to operate from if anything starts.

Given the strength of the Turkish SSK flotilla in the Black Sea I’d not give you much for the Russian’s chances of keeping any of its surface units on the surface if anything starts…and the Turks do seem to be dispatching extra fleet units north!. The Meko frigate Yavuz was pictured following the Ukranian Krivak through the Dardanelles!.

Of course Russian shore batteries and airpower would make NATO/Ukrainian surface units lives rather exciting if a line was crossed and, clearly, you could only consider it the highest threat environment…I’d suggest though that the Russians ownership of the lake could come at a fairly steep price.

Worth re-iterating the old joke about Phalanx at this point….the fact that the acronym CIWS doesnt mean “Close In Weapons System” as is commonly thought. It actually stands for ‘Captain, It Wont Shoot’.

Joking aside there is nothing really odd about the Phalanx not engaging. The mount uses closed-loop tracking…there is a finite time span required for the mount to pick up the inbound….develop a track…open fire and then converge the tracks. If the crew have only released the CIWS mount at the last moment it may have had time to fire, but, not complete the track-converge sequence. You’d need to know more about the specific status of the weapon to know whether there was blame to attach there.

Interesting thing to me is the location of the impact point. Perhaps just a coincidence but its right at the point of the hull where the RF signature climbs owing to the bridge superstructure construction. if memory serves the Stark was hit in a very similar section of the hull. I would have taken a guess that the object that made this hole was following an active RF seeker in.

You see Jonesy, that’s assault. Or maybe, ahem, a-salt.

A salt and batter-y quite!. We can only hope this is the end of the story and her roach wont exceed her means next time eh?.