Results of New LCS Review is Departure from Original Vision
By: Sam LaGrone
September 8, 2016 7:43 PM • Updated: September 8, 2016 10:51 PM
https://news.usni.org/2016/09/08/results-new-lcs-review-departure-original-visio
I just love it! the Navee simply has no clue whatsoever how to operate these PILES OF SHIP
[B]U.S. Navy Moves to Simplify Littoral Ship Operations Amid Flaws[/B]
September 9, 2016 by Bloomberg
By Tony Capaccio
(Bloomberg) — Confronted with equipment breakdowns and harried crews, the U.S. Navy is moving to simply and stabilize operations of its troubled Littoral Combat Ship.
In its effort to revamp the $29 billion program, the service will use the first four ships for more extensive testing, reduce the rotation of crew members and de-emphasize the swapping of missions and equipment that was supposed to be a hallmark of the vessels.
“When I took a step back,” visited vessels and talked to sailors “I saw complexity, I saw instability” and saw commanders “pulled in 15 different directions,” Vice Admiral Tom Rowden, chief of Naval Surface Forces, said in an interview at the Pentagon after a briefing Thursday for reporters.
The ship, built in two versions by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd. and designed to operate in shallow coastal waters, has been criticized for its reliability flaws, limited combat power and uncertain ability to survive in combat.
Among steps Rowden announced:
[QUOTE]To improve esprit de corps, the Navy will reduce to two from three the number of 70-member crews that will be rotated on and off ships every four to five months so they will spend more time on a vessel. The ships will be organized under divisions focusing on just one of three major missions — mine detection, land attacks and submarine-hunting. The original concept for the Littoral Combat Ship was for equipment “modules” that could be swiftly switched out as needed, an idea that so far has looked better on the drawing board than in operation. Each sailor involved in engineering on board a ship will be tested and retrained.
“The Navy needs to do this because the LCS is different from previous classes of Navy surface combatants, and because the LCS program was initiated years ago under a rapid-acquisition strategy, which left little time back then to work these issues out,” Ronald O’Rourke, the naval forces analyst for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, said in an e-mail.
“As the class expands and matures, the Navy will continue to refine its concept for how to crew, operate, and maintain these ships,” O’Rourke said.
Rowden was directed in February to undertake the program review — at least the fifth since 2012 — partly because two of the first vessels experienced propulsion-system failures, in December with the USS Milwaukee and in January with the USS Fort Worth. The Fort Worth was sidelined in port in Singapore for eight months.
Two more vessels experienced failures in July and August.
Rowden said it was timely to review the program as deliveries of vessels are set to accelerate. Six of 28 ships now planned have been delivered.[/QUOTE]
how did such a once glorious service end up being run by such PHUCKING PHOOLS!
[QUOTE=c.captain;190114]how did such a once glorious service end up being run by such PHUCKING PHOOLS![/QUOTE]
By complying with the new national motto started in our schools: [U]Lower the Standards…[/U]
[QUOTE=Lee Shore;190116]By complying with the new national motto started in our schools: [U]Lower the Standards…[/U][/QUOTE]
ain’t that the sad truth…the most obscenely expensive military on the planet being run by IDIOTS! Gotta love our goobermint!
Stated cost of the Zumwalt so far: 4.4 BILLION!
Organizations filled with smart people do dumb things all the time. Off the top of my head some books about this are “The March of Folly”, “The Best and the Brightest”, “When Genius Fails”.
Probably had to jack up the price for separate berthing and showers for LGBT sailors. (And safe zones when someone gets offended by micro aggressions).
[QUOTE=salt’n steel;190123]Probably had to jack up the price for separate berthing and showers for LGBT sailors. (And safe zones when someone gets offended by micro aggressions).[/QUOTE]
Cleary. I always blame my design and maintenance problems on those fancy nancies. Saves me no end of trying to understand and solve problems. How can anyone keep their gear cool, clean, and well-lubricated with those kind of people in close proximity? How am I supposed to maintain my professionality when I’m terrified that someone of my own gender might be glancing at my butt?
[QUOTE=c.captain;190114]I just love it! the Navee simply has no clue whatsoever how to operate these PILES OF SHIP
how did such a once glorious service end up being run by such PHUCKING PHOOLS![/QUOTE]
Now I didn’t fact check this, but during a podcast I listened to the other day it was said that we have as many admirals/generals in the combined services today, as we did right before the end of world war two. That even know with the small ground force left in iraq there were half a dozen or more generals on the ground.
Overhead kills, in any venture.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;190122]Organizations filled with smart people do dumb things all the time. Off the top of my head some books about this are “The March of Folly”, “The Best and the Brightest”, “When Genius Fails”.[/QUOTE]
Murphy’s third law says; "In any large organization everybody will eventually be promoted at least ONE step above their ability"
This does not apply to Governments, however, where there are no upper limits.
[QUOTE=ombugge;190143]Murphy’s third law says; "In any large organization everybody will eventually be promoted at least ONE step above their ability"
This does not apply to Governments, however, where there are no upper limits.[/QUOTE]
There’s only one Murphy’s Law. What you are referring to is the Peter Principle. There’s even a book written about it. Predictably, the title is “The Peter Principle”.
“The Peter principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter and published in 1969. The theory is that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence”.”
[QUOTE=ombugge;190143]…This does not apply to Governments, however, where there are no upper limits.[/QUOTE]
A maritime sample of the Peter Principle: An excellent mate may, but must not become an excellent captain.
No upper limits of what?
The responsible of a person’s promotion to his incompetence will certainly not admit an error; the person will be promoted again, to a place where he could do no harm. Generally, administrations have plenty of jobs for this.
One of my old Chiefs used to say that to do troubleshooting one has to look for what’s changed. For example someone would say a piece of equipment failed because of vibration.
Vibration is not something that has changed however as it has been present for the entire life of the ship. So to say the part failed because of vibration is not a complete answer.
A better answer is that vibration over a period of time may have changed the characteristics of the failed part in some way, for example metal fatigue.
In this case the Peter Principle doesn’t shed any light on the subject as it has always been present. There was an effort to reform military procurement in the past. James Fallows wrote about it in the Atlantic. Google military reform and “James Fallows”
“As the class expands and matures, the Navy will continue to refine its concept for how to crew, operate, and maintain these ships,”
Time to man them with civilian mariners so they can at least make it back to the States. Put the engine jobs on the board at a MEBA hall.
Then shitcan the program. Sell the first ones for scrap and shitcan every admiral who signed off on any part of the things.
They have been training these kids to be button mashers, and now the chickens have come home to roost.
We get the button mashers on our ships. They run balls to the wall to be the first to silence the alarm without looking to see what it was and then I have to dig into the alarm history. Idiots
Oh lookee here, another spectacular LCS failure-
“On Sept. 13, the littoral combat ship USS Montgomery (LCS 8) experienced two unrelated casualties within a 24-hour period while transiting from Mobile, Alabama to her homeport of San Diego, Calif.”
““The first casualty happened when the crew detected a seawater leak in the hydraulic cooling system. Later that day, Montgomery experienced a casualty to one of its gas turbine engines,” the SURFPAC statement continued.”
Well, at least someone in the crew put down their cell phone long enough to “detect” something, I’ll give them that but
[B]WHAT in the FRESH HELL is going on, NAVY?[/B]
is there any hope that this utterly wasteful program might be killed? doubtful but at least it is heartening to read that someone in the Congress sees it
[B]U.S. Senators McCain, Reed Target $29 Billion Littoral Ship for More Changes
[/B]
September 19, 2016 by Tony Capaccio
(Bloomberg) — The Senate’s two top defense policy lawmakers want the U.S. Navy to make additional major changes to the service’s troubled $29 billion Littoral Combat Ship program or risk losing their support for future purchases.
“Until these actions are taken, we will have significant concerns about supporting the procurement of additional LCSs,” Senators Republican John McCain and Jack Reed, the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote Navy officials on Sept. 15 in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
The letter didn’t specify whether the senators were referring to support for the basic littoral ship, successor “frigates,” or both. Current plans call for 12 LCS vessels or frigates to be procured from 2018 through 2025. The Senate committee and its House counterpart have already approved the two requested for fiscal 2017; congressional appropriators added a third. Eight vessels in a total 40-vessel program have been delivered.
The ship, built in two versions by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd. and designed to operate in shallow coastal waters, has been criticized for its reliability flaws, limited combat power, and uncertain ability to survive in combat. The vessels this month suffered their fifth major reliability or maintenance failure in less than a year.
‘Major Deficiencies’
The Navy announced Sept. 8 it was altering training and crew rotation, de-emphasizing the swapping of missions and equipment “modules” that was supposed to be a hallmark of the vessels. The changes came after the latest of several Navy reviews since 2012 questioning basic program assumptions and propulsion system failures.
“We applaud your initiative in attempting to correct major deficiencies” and “urge you to take” additional “long overdue actions,” the senators wrote. In buying the vessels, the Navy “has deviated from many aspects of a normal acquisition program, including deploying the ship before any significant testing had been conducted,” the senators wrote to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson.
Commander Chris Servello, Richardson’s spokesman, said via e-mail that the service “appreciates the ongoing support of the Congress — we are united in our focus on improving the performance for the LCS class. Each issue raised in the letter has been identified by Navy reviews, and is either covered in the recent LCS review or in other actions.”
Implementing Changes
During the latest review, “wholesale changes to the crewing, deployment, mission module, training and testing concepts were identified to provide more ownership and stability, while also allowing for more forward presence. Those changes are in the process of being implemented,” Servello said.
“We will continue to keep Congress and the American people informed on how we will work to keep this important program on track,” Servello said.
The biggest additional change McCain and Reed suggested was reducing the days the vessels deploy overseas to a level that won’t burn out the crew or increase the chances of major reliability failures. That would require deploying them for less than 50 percent of their projected 25-year service life; destroyers are deployed at less than 25 percent of their life, for example.
Although the latest review adjusted crew levels and roles to simplify operations “it did not change the employment concept of having one LCS continuously deployed for every two ships,” they wrote.
‘Unsustainable’ Tempo
“The significant challenges” with reliability and system failures “that surfaced during the first three LCS deployments” of the USS Freedom, USS Fort Worth and USS Coronado “provide strong evidence that this tempo is likely unsustainable,” McCain and Reed wrote.
The duo also urged the Navy to start planning now to conduct a deep review of manning requirements and start developing a successor “small surface combatant’’ vessel to address the capability and survivability shortfalls of the LCS, beyond the better-armored “frigates” the service intends to purchase.
The bipartisan letter comes amid increased scrutiny of the program but also of Navy ship numbers overall. The service is close to completing a new ‘‘Force Structure Assessment” that’s reviewing whether the Navy’s 308-ship inventory goal needs to increase.
Ship numbers have also factored in the defense spending position of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Trump’s Navy
Trump’s campaign said he “will build a Navy approaching 350 surface ships and submarines.” One of Trump’s top national security advisers is armed services panel member Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who’s been a strong supporter of the LCS program. The Austal version is built in Mobile, Alabama.
Two days before the Senators’ letter warning of additional maintenance failures, the Austal-made USS Montgomery became the fifth LCS in less than a year to experience major glitches.
The vessel was hit on Sept. 13 with two unrelated casualties within a 24-hour period in the hydraulic cooling system and a gas turbine engine after leaving Mobile bound for her home port of San Diego, Lieutenant Rebecca Haggard, a Naval Surface Forces spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. The ship will sail to Mayport, Florida, for repairs before continuing to San Diego, she said
and
By MarEx 2016-09-19
Late last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) reiterated its demand for a thorough review of the Navy’s troubled Littoral Combat Ship program and called for the service to prepare an “LCS replacement” design as soon as possible.
In a letter undersigned by Senators John McCain and Jack Reed, the committee’s chairman and ranking member, the SASC called for the Navy to “start planning now to procure and begin deliveries of a new small surface combatant as soon as possible in the 2020s . . . we believe it is [important] to proceed aggressively with defining the requirements, setting the acquisition strategy and fielding the LCS replacement.”
The committee said that the replacement should have over-the-horizon surface attack missiles, air defense and missile defense capability, long-duration escort/patrol endurance and robust survivability – characteristics more in line with an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer than with the current LCS design.
In addition, the committee called for the Navy to reduce planned LCS operational availability from 50 to 25 percent, set up a test site on land for propulsion systems and review manning arrangements.
The Navy has already conducted an internal review and altered manning and ship rotation plans, including a move restricting the first two ships of each class to “testing” without deployment on an indefinite basis. In addition, one out of every four vessels will be kept near home port for use as “training ships.” The vessels’ flexible mission packages have also been deemphasized, and new four-ship divisions will each focus on a single warfare area – “surface warfare, mine warfare or anti-submarine warfare.”
However, the Navy has not scaled back its intended acquisition numbers, which would see the construction of a total of 52 littoral combat ships.
The two LCS classes have been troubled for some time, and over the span of the last year both types have suffered from serious propulsion casualties. The equipment failures are still under investigation to determine whether crew error or design flaws are to blame.
Separately, sources within the Navy told DefenseNews on Monday that the new carrier Gerald R. Ford, the first of its class, is facing delays in starting sea trials due to serious problems with voltage regulators on its four Main Turbine Generators. One regulator reportedly malfunctioned badly enough to damage the number two turbine’s rotors, and the turbine will have to undergo a major overhaul.
Naval Sea Systems Command emphasized that the problems were in no way related with the vessel’s nuclear plant.
The turbine problems will probably push back delivery until 2017.
The carrier has had reliability problems with a number of systems, notably its launch and recovery gear, which have yet to attain the uptime performance that the Navy says is required for high-tempo warfare operations. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus attributed the developmental problems due to the use of a large number of new technologies within one platform, and has ordered an independent review into the carrier’s construction.
not in love with John McCain by any means but I am glad that there is one voice of reason where this insane nonsense is concerned
.
Un-freaking believable! This falls right inline with the Navy doing mandatory training on transgender integration. Where is the emphasis on warfare and building proper warships?
[QUOTE=salt’n steel;190591]Un-freaking believable! This falls right inline with the Navy doing mandatory training on transgender integration. Where is the emphasis on warfare and building proper warships?[/QUOTE]
I simply cannot believe what the modern US Navee has become! A bigger bunch of useless, self serving, fiefdom protecting, politically correct, button loving weenies they are today!
GOD HELP THIS NATION IF WE EVER ARE FORCED TO CALL UPON THESE BLOATED STUFFED SHIRTS TO ACTUALLY FIGHT! OUR ADVERSARIES ARE GOING TO MOP THE FLOOR WITH EM!
^^^ Halsey, Nimitz, Rickover, McCain(Sr.) would no doubt be saying the same thing.