US Navy - Problems with Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ships

[NavyShooter]

So has "Sub Brief".

Personal thought - the Navy should make the Sub Brief videos available to all SONAR Ops to watch...make it part of their QSP at the DP2/QL5 level.

 

[KevinB]

This little gem needs mass distribution amongst all services of all of NATO…

 

[Kirkhill]

CDR Salamander has been ringing the bell on the LCS shortcomings for years.

LCS's Long, Sad, and Early Goodbye

...we can still celebrate and gloat though...

cdrsalamander.substack.com

Marinette Marine's Freedom's was to Austal's Independence as Avis was to Hertz.

Austal impressed the Marines with their West Pac and the Army liked it too. That resulted in the Joint High Speed Vessel, now known as the Spearhead class Expeditionary Fast Transport.

The EPF program combines the Army's Theater Support Vessel (TSV) program (dating from 2004) with the Navy and Marine Corps High Speed Connector (HSC) (requirement dating from 2004).[35][36] The EPF program received Milestone A approval in May 2006. The Navy awarded Phase One preliminary design contracts in early 2008, and a detail design and construction contract in the 4th Quarter of FY08.

Planning for a class of smaller, agile, multipurpose warships to operate in the littoral zone began in the early 2000s. In July 2003, a proposal by General Dynamics (partnering with Austal USA, the American subsidiary of Australian shipbuilder Austal) was approved by the Navy, with a contract for two vessels.[24] These would then be compared to two ships built by Lockheed Martin to determine which design would be taken up by the Navy for a production run of up to 55 ships.

The first ship, Independence was laid down at the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, on 19 January 2006.

The Freedom class was proposed by a consortium formed by Lockheed Martin as "prime contractor" and by Fincantieri (project) through the subsidiary Marinette Marine (manufacturer) as a contender for a fleet of small, multipurpose warships to operate in the littoral zone.

Despite plans in 2004 to only accept two each of the Freedom and Independence variants, in December 2010 the U.S. Navy announced plans to order up to 10 additional ships of each class, for a total 12 ships per class

As far as I'm concerned the issue is that the Navy wanted Blue Water ships and these strange Australian boats were not real ships. On the other hand the Wisconsin boat looked like a real boat with its single hull and it could go really fast.


The Australian boats that were born on the First Island Chain and are in regular commercial service there will probably serve the USMC and the US Army well enough in the region. Even if there is no crew on board at all..

Navy deploys autonomous ship designed to run without humans

Maybe one day war will just be machines fighting machines

www.theregister.com

 

[dimsum]

So has "Sub Brief".

Personal thought - the Navy should make the Sub Brief videos available to all SONAR Ops to watch...make it part of their QSP at the DP2/QL5 level.

Is he the guy who puts ASW in layman’s terms? If so, it should be part of AES Op, TACCO, and MH / LRP Pilots’ QSPs too.

 

[NavyShooter]

 

[Kirkhill]

Give them to the Independence fleet to the Marines or to MSC then. Let them use them as armed transports. Or maybe give them to USVDIV-1 for field experimentation.

Unmanned Surface Vessel Division One (USVDIV-1)

Just keep them away from the real navy.