Comments on: Surface Navy Eyes Hybrid War

By: BOOMER

BOOMER — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:27:58 +0000

Not the cyclone, the pegasus patrol boats (hydrafoils) they were mounted at a 45 degree angle like on the Iranian, china’s, India’s and a lot of other countries coastal patrol boats. But the Cyclones are plenty long enough to support cruise missles as well.

By: John King

John King — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:13:27 +0000

Bommer,
You mean they weren’t armed with missiles. Those missiles in their canister launchers were way too big for a Cyclone class Patrol Coastal.

By: daniel

daniel — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:21:13 +0000

wont be launching any fire scouts

By: BOOMER

BOOMER — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:17:01 +0000

By the way, the PC’s of the late 80’s and 90’s were armed with Harpoon and tomahawk missles. They were very fast but you got hammered to heck during high speed turns no matter how well you were strapped in.

By: BOOMER

BOOMER — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:38:47 +0000

To correct my earlier comment, The class of patrol boats I mentioned is the CYLONE class (the USS Huricane being one of them). They are very efficient and sea worthy. They also have more armamnet than the littorals. They could easily be upgraded for more firepower as well. Imagine if you start with one of these as the base platform and cross breed it with an Apache helicopter, Abrams tank, or powered Howitzer weapons system. Technoligy already in plcae and effective. using this platform and approach you could easily get 5 of them for the cost of one littoral craft. Personaly I feel its a bad ideal putting all your eggs in one basket going into a combat zone, so what if a littoral can do all of these things, it’s still just one ship and a sitting duck in the water, especialy if it tries to go inland any distance which is where I would set up and wait for it. Smaller heavier armed working in unit craft to support each other is the only way to go. I would much rather see a number of these and more SWCC patrol boats being deployed into an area than one littoral and a escort ship.

By: Aurora

Aurora — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:17:51 +0000

It can not credibly defend itself. I can posit a few scenarios where it would be as vulnerable to capture or sinking by a hybrid enemy such as Iran. PUEBLO wasn’t that long ago, but it seems the Navy leadership is willing to take the risk of another disaster. As for damage control, it lacks the manpower to take a serious hit and keep fighting with its one little gun.

For $400million+ we should expect a little more defense capability and resilience. DDG51s represent the best value for the money.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:26:12 +0000

I love how the detractors of a thing will only talk about an ability or lack there of in Isolation. “Makes more sense to buy x-many F-A boats because the LCS is too expensive to buy enough b/c Littorals are too big.”

What you NEGLECT to either mention or understand is that from 1LCS you can launch multiple INEXPENSIVE armed Unmanned Surface Vehicles as well as Unmanned Underwater Vehicles.

Also, when it comes to covering 100’s of Sq. Miles of Littoral area, MULTIPLE SQUADRONS of FA boats couldn’t cover the area that a few of the Firescout UAVs launched fr/ 1 LCS could cover in a FEW HOURS.

1 LCS can cover far more Area & Missions sets than any # of FA Sqdrns & I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the LCS’s total Missions List.

Is the LCS much more expensive than the Navy anticipated.. yes, its their own fault they made multiple changes midstream.

But does its Force Multiplier effect still make it the hands down best option & worth every penny…? YES!

By: William C.

William C. — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:15:54 +0000

The original 32 planned DDG-1000 were supposed to provide that shore bombardment and fire support and make up for the retirement of the Iowa class battleships. Unfortunately, we are only going to have three boats with that 155mm advanced gun system.

Back in the late 1970s we really should have continued the Mk.71 MCLWG which would have given us a modern 8 inch (203mm) gun that could have been fitted to various designs.

By: ETCPJ

ETCPJ — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:20:25 +0000

F451

That is not has not been, is not and never will be the mission of the LCS.

“shore bombardment” and “landing support” are two misions the Navy has not done in any seriouxs way in 50 years and IMO will not ever do again.

By: f451

f451 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:38:50 +0000

Any patrol boat that is going to be used for drug/pirate/traffic interdiction is stoill going to have to be a deep water capable hull. The patrol boats that were given to the Coast Guard were probably the right size but they are underarmed and can’t even begin to do anything for off shore bombardment or landing support.

By: ETCPJ

ETCPJ — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:11:52 +0000

THe Navy had the smaller “patrol boat platform” The PC’s built in the 90’s no sooner that they got done building them they pretty much abandoned the idea and gave some of them to the Coast Guard.

I have said for a long time that the LCS is a ship in search of a mission, for decades the Navy could not have given two sh-ts about “the litorals” but then in the late 90’s when they, the Navy was in search of a mission and blue water CV and amphib ops seemed to have less of a future the litoral were al the suddent his impotant do or die mission.

By: f451

f451 — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:06:24 +0000

I personally like this ship concept but I agree that it is way underarmed to be operating independently. How about this:
Two more twin rapid fire cannon mounts on the stern corners plus a rapid fire twin mount forward, two twin GAU 30MM mounts, one for each side and several (6–10) dual 50 or mini-gun mounts around in strategic areas. Put a small surface to air /surface to surface missile cell in somewhere for protection against capital ships or large aircraft formations.
This weapons package would be radar/electro optical guided with as a backup but usually used in a manual fire configuration, bringing back the true guners mate sailor.
The deck guns are good for support and suppresive fire, the 30MM woiuld be a great direct suppression wepon and the smaller calibres are great for boat –to-boat work. The dual mounts on the cannons may be a little over kill but the Light weapon mounts should be either mini-guns or twin 50’s.
This would make a great litoral, anti-piracy platform.

By: WarScientist

WarScientist — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:38:22 +0000

A massive ship with 1 tiny gun? Sorry but if you want to fight numerous enemies coming from all directions you are going to need at least 2 more 57mm guns (near the aft one on each side). At the moment all it takes is a single RPG round to the front gun and the LCS is essentially defenceless.

Assuming your opponent is gonna be coming at you in 20+ small, fast craft each with 2–3 RPG gunners on them, combined with a couple of suicide ram-boats an LCS (or 2) are not going to be able to deal with that many targets without suffering major damage.

At the very least they should bolt on a few gatling guns on the flanks to help defend against small targets (one on each corner of the deck at the rear for instance)

By: William C.

William C. — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:43:47 +0000

One of the main reasons for the cost of LCS has been the very high speed of the ships. A design that sized with a speed greater than 45 knots is naturally going to be rather costly. The FFG-7 class only had a speed of roughly 30 knots.

I think it is good to have a few high speed Littoral Combat Ships, but when it comes to numbers, perhaps we need something a bit slower and less costly. A higher level of firepower than a single 57mm gun might be nice too.

By: Aurora

Aurora — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:27:31 +0000

LCS=PUEBLO II. It is undermanned and under gunned. The small crew size won’t allow for proper damage control. Unless you’ve been there, you can’t imagine the fatigue that sets in during a deployment. Our adversaries know this. What would happen when one of these things is on a lone patrol near the Iranian or North Korean coast and is surrounded by suicide/homicide/patrol boats? The LCS will have air cover you say? OK, then why do we need a large surface combatant that costs half a billion that can’t operate independently?

We are courting disaster with these things. Buy more Burkes.

By: BOOMER

BOOMER — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:09:06 +0000

The littorals are too big for what they were intended for period, but they are what the brass wanted. Slightly smaller versions of the hurricane class would be useful for coastlines, Reinventing the WW2 PT boats would be a major step foward as they could provide fire support ashore (close proximity) or take out large ships utilizing torpedos. Increasing the number of SWIFT boat units would also be very helpful. But they also have to increase the number of personnel trained to fight in coastal areas which means the ARMY needs to be included in this area of operation. And we most definately need smaller disel electric submarines to be able to operate in closer and shallower undetected. (the nucs need a lot of water under them to submerge and dont turn like a sports car either). But smaller ships and boats means lower ranking officers and senior enlisted to run them vice the 05’s and above now in play, so chances of doing the right thing go out the window because the brass is more interested in keeping the higher ups employed full time.

By: Byron Skinner

Byron Skinner — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:12:29 +0000

Good Afternoon Folks,

A couple of problems here first is the LCS. The Navy will buy the LCS but the quantity will be determined by the price, at the current $450 million I would think no more the 25 hauls.

The US does need a “modest haul” in the 1,200 to 2,000 ton range, Corvette or Frigate Class and a fast attack boat to deal with situations like pyracy. The AIP Submarines forget it, we have the best nucs in the world, we don’t need a second tier submarine.

One tech issue to remember with China, they have yet to manage to build a marine gas turbine engine and must buy this critical product for the EU. The Chinese are lacking in the ability to build anything that would be remotely competitive with the LCS or the DD51 and some naval experts are saying that China is at least 50 years behind the US right now.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner