One down, and a bunch to go…
After less than five years in service, the littoral combat ship Sioux City was decommissioned Monday in a ceremony aboard Naval Station Mayport, Florida.
It was the latest early retirement for the costly and troubled Freedom-class ships, vessels conceived earlier this century that officials now admit stand little chance of surviving a conventional battle against China or another nation’s navy.
Full article, HERE from Navy Times.
Suffice to say, the problems are legion, and the one thing that ISN’T mentioned is how badly beat up the crews were, because they were so short handed…
Good riddance, and the sooner ALL of them are gone, the better!
Yes, gone, along with all the taxpayer’s billions of dollars. 🙁
The USN tried giving them to the Coasties, The Coast Guard laughed and said no thanks.
I defer to those with Navy experience. One question. Do any Navy professionals believe these ships have value?
Submarine Nuke MM here, and I’ve never heard a good word about the Little Crappy Ship concept from any source. They were expected to operate in a zero-threat environment, the structural design was garbage, the Mission Modules were pie-in-the-sky vaporware, and manning was never what it needed to be. It looks like it was a War College theoretical exercise that got into the wild and was going to put too much money in too many Congressional districts to kill.
The Navy needs to build (AND MAINTAIN!!!!) survivable combatants with teeth today, not these MBA pipedreams.
Flugel- Sigh… yep
Gerry- That they did
WSF- Nope! They were Vern Clark’s ‘pet project’ for a shallow water fleet… Guess what we haven’t needed in 50 years. And no legs, even going slow. No ‘modules’ that worked for their vaunted ‘adaptability’, etc.
So on behalf of the US government, the Navy is eliminating Freedom. That sounds about par for the course, these days.
(Yes, I know it is the ship class name, but…)
May I offer one of my favourite presenters, who has genuine professional expertise in this area. America is far from unique in this respect.
“How Procurement Destroys Armies”
https://youtu.be/bBQVR4epfBQ
Regards…. Peter
Bad procurement has being going on since the first supply officer ordered spears without heat-hardened points because they were quicker to make, compounded by the quartermaster who wouldn’t issue them because it would screw up his inventory.
Rick..
Having spent some time in Emergency Service, I have to agree.
“What you need is irrelevant. What you say you need is irrelevant. We know better and we are issuing you with…..”
“We don’t have the budget left to equip you to be Mission Capable”… probably because they spent it on DEI consultants.
Or, purchasing bought the wrong (cheaper) parts from a vendor who couldn’t sell the right ones. My tax dollars at play for that one..
Rick…
Far too much of it comes under the heading of, “It looks good in the media”,
For that money they could have brought a bunch of moth-balled ships from the reserve fleet. Hell, refitting museum ships would have been cheaper and provided more serviceable vessels.
Hey Old NFO;
The LCS were some ones “Good Idea Fairy” that escaped confinement.
Peter- I spent 12 years dealing with the ‘acquisition professionals’ who ignored operational testing, military utility assessments, and ‘other’ qualifiers… sigh… That’s why I have very little hair left.
Jim…. iunderstand, hence my comment to Rick.
But I think you’ll like the gentleman that I’m suggesting. He has just the right level of irony.
I spent enough time in the five sided puzzle palace to know that Procurement is where they send the complete screw-ups, so they don’t touch anything “important”.
I think the Littoral Combat Ship might possibly have been a good idea, compared to say, critical theory.
PRobably me just being pig ignorant, and hence knowing zip about what makes for a good or bad naval system.
Regarding the mindset of procurement types. The following story from the front lines of nuclear power is true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
First a little background. In a nuclear power plant, some equipment is considered important to safety i.e. essential to either preventing accidents or mitigating radiological release post-accident. Such equipment is identified a “Quality” or ‘Q’ class. This does not necessarily mean it is better made or made with different materials than “Off-The-Shelf” commercial equivalents. It usually means the performance has been evaluated, maybe “shake-and-bake” tested and everything documented.
As a systems engineer I had maintenance scheduled on a ‘Q’ class system that required changing a sub-component, also ‘Q’ class. About six months before the scheduled outage. I dutifully generated the maintenance request and put in a purchase requisition for the needed component. All was well, or so I thought. Two weeks before the scheduled outage, I checked to make sure the needed parts were in the warehouse, only to discover my purchase order had been canceled by Mr. Spurgle. When I asked him why, he stated that the component I had ordered was $500 and he could get the same component for $25 locally, and was proud that he had saved the company $475. He couldn’t comprehend that the extra money was for the documentation and inspection for a ‘Q’ class component.
Rather than arguing, I started chasing down the needed component. I found one in stock at another nuclear plant, where one of Mr. Spurgle’s relatives didn’t work. They agreed to ship the component and documentation direct to me and we would replace their unit. When one considered my time, the paperwork costs, the expedited shipping, and management and QA review, I figure we spent close to $5,000. That came out of engineering’s budget, not purchasing. A few months later Spurgle received a write-up in the company rag, touting his efforts to save the company money.
I’ve been trying to get LL to buy a couple for a few years now. Plan? Moor one on Lake Whitney as a fishing platform/”boutique” hotel and scuttle one on the Potomac as a tourist diver attraction.
Good plan, eh?
And the “Bonny Richard” catches fire in port (sabotage?) and is damaged so badly they turn it into scrap?
Critical thinking seems to be wanting.
Not a Navy guy, but I think what drove the decision to purchase the LCS fleet was “cheap ships”. Except that by size or combat power, they turned out very expensive.
It might be true that the US Navy needs shallow water capability – but not to defend OUR shallow waters. The Navy’s first job is to make sure the enemy never gets that close, and the last time they failed in keeping major enemy forces far away from the CONUS was 1815. These boats were too limited to be useful in shallow waters far from our shores.