In the early 2000’s the Littoral Combat Ship looked like the future for the US Navy: small, relatively inexpensive, and designed for ‘brown-water’ operations close to shore. But it soon became ever more apparent that the LCS was not able to survive in the modern naval environment, and so in the face of a growing Chinese navy the USN has decided to retire some three dozen of what many of their crews referred to as the Little Crappy Ships. Their replacement, while little, does not seem to be very crappy at all.
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30 replies on “Say Goodbye to the Crappy Little Ships”
I know next to nothing about the abilities of large ships to defend themselves against missiles, EMPs, etc. To me they look like fish in a barrel, but I hope I’m wrong. I’m saying this because I don’t want our country caught fighting the last war but the next. I’m concerned that the next war will be primarily control of satellites and electronical capabilities followed by drones. I pray that tactical nukes will still be a bridge too far. We’ve gone a long time between major conflicts, thanks to an America that has Judeo-Christian values and imposes them on the sea lanes. (This is why an assault on these values is so very dangerous.)
This is sad news. If the Navy is short handed where are the other four branches of the armed services? Is it time to reintroduce the draft?
I believe they have each mentioned they are short on bodies and as Bill closed, the bodies they do have are not all up to snuff. That reason is half of why I think we will never implement a draft again. We would get too many people that are not physically qualified. The other half is we would get a bunch of Corporal Klingers that would be willing to do more than just put on a dress… deliberate sabotage would be the least of our worries.
In a draft situation there are always more unfit than fit bodies. There’s a way to fix that. It hurts but it works.
It would nice to see them repurposed vs mothballs or scrap. IMHO
Are the new “frigates” the counterpart to a destroyer escort or “picket” destroyer from the old Carrier Task Force scheme???
Seems to me the Coast Guard might be able to use these. But maybe they are too big for their needs.
The Coast Guard was my first thought for repurposing them.
Sell me one of those trimarans cheap. I’ll refit it as a kick-ass yacht.
Replace the 2″ gun emplacement and armory with a hot-tub and scuba pool, keep the helo pad, launch jet-ski’s from the well deck!
A few other upgrades belowdecks, and Boom! Awesomeness of the Seas!
{Now, where’s that winning lottery ticket?…}
Phil, if you do this, stay away from the South China Sea. Don’t want you misidentified.
No worries, mate! When I’m finished, it will have a suitably gaudy exterior paint job. Bright colors, scantily clad Pirate chicks, dolphins, mermaids, etc.
Besides, I’d stay away from the South China Sea on general principle. Unless I was transiting to AUS. Then it would be full speed ahead, daylight passage.
Armaments? This thing has no armaments! That’s just a Really Big Retractable T-shirt Cannon! {A 2″ rapid fire T-shirt cannon…}
It’ll fire alternating HEI shells and shirts that read: I got my ass kicked by a US Privateer, and all I got was this lousy shirt!”
How about stripping them of weaponry and gifting them to the Coast Guard. Let them use them for whatever after they refit them for their own purpose. The US is a strange critter sometimes. The big services – Army and Navy – get the big bucks, invest in what sounds good, then dump it when it doesn’t work. Navy gives Coasties old ships, Coasties rework them to their own needs and they work fine. Army does the same and passes it on to Marines. The Coast Guard and the Marines having so little to say when funding time comes around and being at the bottom of the funding totem have little option but to make things work.
Didn’t see your post before adding mine. But yes, CG should get these.
Decommission but don’t mothball. Boston, New York, Ocean Beach MD, VB Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Pensacola, Galveston, Newport Beach CA, Marina Del Ray, (skip San Francisco altogether…Portland too) ….maybe Seattle? How about Honolulu?
Rip all the very deadly and very high tech out of these things, leave a control room, engine and rudder. World’s most expensive tourist party ships evah! Come on Bezos, or Branson. Amazon or Virgin Party Ships in all the “cool people” cities! (Well, maybe not Jacksonville…)
The LCS debacle is very reminiscent of the Jefferson administrations “Gun Boat Navy” that was based on a series of horribly flawed assumptions that in retrospect were simply not even close to tenable! The only thing that made an appreciable contribution to the Navy’s efforts in the War of 1812 (and the Mediterranean battles against Barbary Pirates), were the “Six Frigates” created under executive urgings, by an act of Congress in 1793 and signed into law by President George Washington in 1794. It was the War of 1812 that showed the shortcomings of the supposed “advantages” of the Gun Boat Navy concept, but it took far longer to substantially recover from those lost material advancement, opportunities and years!
I would have liked to have suggested that these LCS craft be repurposed to the USCG, as it seems they are more aligned with the Littoral Duties concept, and perhaps they could provide us with a “Sea Wall” to defend against the illegal invasions that we are suffering as a Nation. However, this discussion seems to have made it clear that they are not even suited for that deployment, and that their maintenance problems and expenses would be just as bad if so deployed.
The Trip to Abilene Paradox by Jerry Harvey. I saw his presentation in person back in the ’90’s. I’ve personally seen that paradox played out numerous times in my career. And our military, of all branches, is still guilty of it, often times because Congress has political games they play instead of thinking critically about our national defense needs. Incidentally, what is the opposite of “pro”? It’s “con”. So what is the opposite of “progress”?
My niece served on one a few years ago, she is true navy and always tries to find a good thing to say- the best she could find is that these were” concept ships”. she spent most of her tour in port as the ship always needed maintenance and the crew could not perform any- only the contractor crew could. sigh- it took too long to get rid of this boondoggle…
I used to call them “Literally Can’t Sail.” Any student of Naval Science could tell these things were doomed – from the aluminum hull (hello, Falkland War…) to the gee-whiz modularization, there were too many bad ideas crammed into one hull.
Unfortunately, these things have a lot of collateral damage – including delaying the MQ-8 program, and probably the shuttering of HSC-22. Good riddance.
That said, you can tell the lifetime of a program – someone got a FITREP bullet for building it, now someone is getting a FITREP bullet for killing it. And it’s replacement looks amazing. The OHP was ugly but capable, but this is a work of art.
Do have to push back on Steve, though – the idea of fighting in the littorals is not a problem. Every blue-water Navy needs a brown-water component. The Navy handles everything from the rivers to the shores to the open seas to the skies and depths. The littorals are a link in the chain, and if we break that link, we break the entire chain. But he’s right about our depot-level capacity.
I don’t know enough about the first part of your comment to intelligently address that stuff but I agree on your push back on littoral warfare.
If we have to mix it up with China there will be serious shallow water engagement because the Chinese will or have put missiles and other systems/combat units on various islands.
The Marines are training for island combat operations right now. Which as someone who served in the Marine Corps is something I’m glad to see happening. It’s a mistake to mix up Army and Marine Corps roles so I’m glad to see the Marines getting back to doing what they do best.
That said, in shallow water island warfare, littoral operations both offensive and in support of Marines may well be one of the most vital segments of our military efforts.
While it’s good to have a potent strategic Navy, tactical superiority is just as vital unless you’re willing to let tactical devolve and escalate to strategic.
Instead of redesigning the wheel w/ the LCS, Navy should have bought Legend class cutters.
We need large cruisers for carrier escort. Ideally nuke powered.
At the end of WWII, Navy decommission the 4 South Dakota battleships after only 5yrs of service.
Navy tried to upgrade the LCS to FFG standard. But that didn’t work.
AFAIK, the Navy cut its order of LCS ships by more than half. It was the minimum number we could buy w/o it costing more to not buy them due to broken contract penalties and such.
The Freedom’s don’t look like PT boats. They look like low end super yachts w/ an ugly paint job.
Is there a reason this is only watchable here, and not at all on either Rumble channel? Or am I just way too early to the release of it?
I was watching on Rumble but came over here to comment.
Yeah, around the time I left my first comment, it was only here. The Rumble link in the player led to a “private video” page. But before I got to around 5 minutes or so, I checked again, and it was there. So I just finished watching there. So it would get the direct view and the like.
Asked and answered…I guess I just happened along at the very moment of posting…lol.