In reality, the LCS was well on the way to becoming one of the worst boondoggles in the military’s long history of buying overpriced and underperforming weapons systems. Two of the $500 million ships had suffered embarrassing breakdowns in previous months.
Good article - didn’t read the whole thing, it’s long. Story unfolds in a predicable way but interesting to read the details.
44 minutes! Geez that’s a book.
The article doesn’t mention that the leaking hole in Freedom’s engine that the sailor plugged was actually a pump bearing weep hole, and that plugging it forced seawater from the cooling system into the lubrication system which ran at a lower pressure.
I met the engine mfg tech rep who was involved in fixing that mess. The engine was destroyed necessitateing cutting a hull penetration to remove the trashed engine and replace with a new one.
A combination of poor training, ineptness and laziness to avoid removing a perhaps heavy and awkward salt water pump and replacing a relatively inexpensive mechanical seal cost millions of dollars. Depending primarily on outside contractors to do the most of the corrective maintenance on this added to this travesty.
No doubt some lost their jobs and rank on FREEDOM over this. But nothing happens to the heavy hitters who signed off on this program.
This is waste, fraud and abuse on steroids.
$100B down the drain that could have been better spent.
It was not a shipbuilding failure for General Dynamics and Lockheed. They made a lot of money. That’s the point of most of these projects.
You are correct. Also the elected officials of the districts and states who benefited immensely.
No effort to improve the product. No effort to turn off the funding.
It’s the service mentality and the lack of oversight. The USCG is no different I got a tour of the USCG Bertholf (WMSC 750) after its launch and home port and alameda California. One of the blank owners told me that a finite element analysis was never done on the design. when sea trialed they had substantial hull and frame damage due to hull stressing. Instead of correcting the problem and admitting there were problems in the design, they put strain gauges in the high stress areas so they new when to slow down. (Ridicukes)
since this was hull number one, it was a retrofit. other hulls in the series were also not corrected structurally and the solution was to install strain gauges during construction…Members of SNAME in attendance commented on the pour welding especial along the seams. their comment was this is typical of gulf coast and Northrop work.
For anyone who wasn’t around when we had the thread about the Freedom’s engine casualty, here’s the navy’s investigation report again. It’s a wild read, and if you’re an engineer I’d advise blocking out a few hours to be appalled by it.
I read this as a cautionary tale against pursuing fixed ideas. The idea of a modular combat vessel still makes sense, just not in this context. Checks, balances and responsive project development makes all the difference. In a way it shows why the Navy is such a conservative organization, and why it seems to fight innovation at every instance. The trick is to figure out if you have a Billy Mitchell, a Charles Parsons or a Ray Mabus on your hands.
One thing stuck out:
What an interesting statement. I gotta wonder why he would say such a thing?
One thing is the veracity of the statement itself. Did he really not smell a systemic issue at this stage? The rest of the world was cottoning on by then, so in that case, what were they “looking at”?
Another thing is the credibility damage from signalling such an absolute absence of judgement. That can’t have done his political position any favors. I guess you could argue that the only thing the LCS program ever sunk was Ray Mabus’ career, which at this stage was already on fire, taking on water and showing a catastrophic lack of compartmentalization. Could such a public display of denial make it any worse?
At least now we know how the rot was allowed to spread.
‘Blank’ cheques to the Navy and a dysfunctional Congress, a losing combination!
But aluminium for a fighting ship? Did the USN learn nothing from the Royal Navy’s experience during the Falklands campaign in 1982?
Disposable, like the fast ferries.