{"id":96661,"date":"2020-03-07T10:59:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T15:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=96661"},"modified":"2020-03-08T09:05:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T13:05:31","slug":"fixing-first-four-littoral-combat-ships-not-worth-it-us-navy-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=96661","title":{"rendered":"Fixing first four littoral combat ships not worth it, US Navy says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nThe littoral combat ship Coronado, only six years in service, is on the chopping block to be decommissioned, the U.S. Navy announced. (U.S. Navy)<\/em><\/p>\n

Mason sends us this, in my opinion, completely unsurprising and long overdue recommendation. I always thought these ships were a solution in search of a problem, and they certainly did highlight a lot of issues- insufficient testing, counting on technology that wasn’t ready, and relying on automation instead of humans to name but a few. So good call by Rear Adm. Randy Crites. Stop throwing good money after bad.<\/p>\n

By: David B. Larter <\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 The cost of upgrading and repairing the first four littoral combat ships<\/a> is too high and it\u2019s better just to decommission them, the U.S. Navy\u2019s budget director said during the service\u2019s budget roll-out.<\/p>\n

Following a string of engineering casualties, mishaps at seas and leadership problems, a 2016 reorganization of the littoral combat ship program designated the first four ships \u2013 Freedom, Independence, Fort Worth and Coronado \u2013 test vessels to be used to figure out how to fix the LCS fleet.<\/p>\n

The hulls have accrued between six and 12 years of service but their usefulness as test vessels is waning and they\u2019re no longer worth a deeper financial investment, according to Rear Adm. Randy Crites, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose four test ships were instrumental to wringing out the crewing, the maintenance and all the other things we needed to learn from them,\u201d Crites told reporters during the Feb. 10 budget roll out. \u201cBut they\u2019re not configured like the other LCS in the fleet, and they need significant upgrades. Everything from combat [systems], to structural, you name it. They\u2019re expensive to upgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Split between two variants \u2014 a line of traditional steel monohull warships and another featuring an aluminum trimaran design \u2014 the LCS was intended to serve as a fast and nimble warship, capable of morphing into a minesweeper, antisubmarine vessel or ship killer.<\/p>\n

But Crites said the first four ships had become less relevant for \u201cgreat power competition\u201d and money could be spent on better options.<\/p>\n

“They\u2019ve played an important role and we\u2019ve certainly ramped up our employment [of the LCS],\u201d Crites said. \u201cThat\u2019s a good thing. But when we looked at our return on investment and the cost of bringing those ships up to speed, they\u2019re important, but in the context of great power competition they were less important. So, we took those savings and applied it to other areas.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nice spin and wordsmithing, Admiral. These ships had “Not ready for prime time” written all over them. Read the rest here: Defense News<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks, Mason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The littoral combat ship Coronado, only six years in service, is on the chopping block to … Fixing first four littoral combat ships not worth it, US Navy says<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,406,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-guest-link","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96775,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96661\/revisions\/96775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}