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Nebakenezzer posted:So why do modern warship designs favor obelisks instead of sensor masts? Purely a guess, but probably less prone to incidental damage? Could also better allow for possible upgrades in the future.
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Jan 12, 2020 16:30
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What is the current opinion of the LCS program and the two different classes? In college I worked on the Independence in the summers and even my 19yr old self could tell it/the shipyard was a clusterfuck. Have they gotten better and do they actually do the things they are designed to do (I never actually understood what that was)? The Independence class at least has the benefit of looking like a Star Wars ship? They are sure building them in a hurry.     The Freedom class is pretty handsome imo, especially with this cool camo scheme  
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Jan 12, 2020 16:32
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It's not great. Congress has ordered more LCS ships than the Navy asked for. Simultaneously, a mix of developmental issues and congressional cuts mean that there are serious cuts/delays and/or cancellation of the sensors/systems that could make the LCS more useful. So potentially, we could end up with more LCS craft than the Navy wants, but also with less capability than the Navy wants. The Navy is developing a frigate that would still be smaller than DDGs, but more lethal and useful than the LCS. That's the FFG(X) program.
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Jan 12, 2020 16:37
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The LCS is a clusterfuck and a joke at this point.
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Jan 12, 2020 16:52
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Cyrano4747 posted:The LCS is a clusterfuck and a joke at this point. Why do they keep building them? The running joke in the yard was that you could shoot a .30-06 in one side of the boat and it would come out the other because the aluminum hull plate was so thin.
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Jan 12, 2020 17:00
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Why do they keep building them? The running joke in the yard was that you could shoot a .30-06 in one side of the boat and it would come out the other because the aluminum hull plate was so thin. Something something congress something keep yards open something pork.
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Jan 12, 2020 17:02
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Why do they keep building them? The running joke in the yard was that you could shoot a .30-06 in one side of the boat and it would come out the other because the aluminum hull plate was so thin. That’s probably better than the one where everybody forgot that if you make a boat out of steel and aluminum and then you stick it in salt water there’s a thing called galvanic corrosion that happens.
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Jan 12, 2020 17:18
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mlmp08 posted:For your mast reading pleasure: https://defencyclopedia.com/2015/08/28/integrated-masts-the-next-generation-design-for-naval-masts/ 5/5 mast read 
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Jan 12, 2020 17:31
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Cyrano4747 posted:Something something congress something keep yards open something pork. And theyre being built in critical purple great lakes states, arent they? They keep passing through Lake Erie.
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Jan 12, 2020 18:29
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One got stuck in Montreal last year when the St. Lawrence iced up. Condo owners complained about the INTOLERABLE RACKET* it made running at idle. *By which I mean noise > 0
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Jan 12, 2020 18:44
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Nebakenezzer posted:One got stuck in Montreal last year when the St. Lawrence iced up. Condo owners complained about the INTOLERABLE RACKET* it made running at idle. Habitat 67 are the most cold war condos
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Jan 12, 2020 18:50
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Nebakenezzer posted:One got stuck in Montreal last year when the St. Lawrence iced up. Condo owners complained about the INTOLERABLE RACKET* it made running at idle. *buys condo next to a port/airport/rail yard/gun range, complains bitterly about the noise* Seems about right!
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Jan 12, 2020 18:57
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Do both the freedom/ independence classes have issued with salt water or was it just one of them?
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Jan 12, 2020 19:03
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Here's the thing: the ships themselves aren't a terrible idea if you accept that you want a low capability ship to basically show the flag and be a visible presence. The fact that they went whole hog with automation is a problem in that it's made these ships have a gently caress ton of new technology related problems, but the flip side is that it cuts crewing down a lot which is a thing the navy really, REALLY loving needs right now. Like really needs. A lot of people want a huge navy that can respond to anything happening anywhere at the globe at any time with overwhelming force but, uh, they don't want to spend the money to incentive the recruitment that would take. (set aside whether that's a capability the USN either needs or should have, for the moment). The issue is that at the end of the day you end up with exactly that: low capability vessels that are mostly good at showing the flag and maybe conducting light duty ops. They'd probably be really good at chasing drug smugglers, for example. They'd probably be good at doing freedom of navigation poo poo and trading paint with Chinese and Russian patrol ships. But they're not going to be as capable as a DD, and that seems to be what the people who want this huge navy really want.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:08
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https://twitter.com/RupprechtDeino/status/1216392090223022082 Now my question is, how much payload is this thing carrying. Wonder if it has a full fuel load.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:25
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the biggest issue with LCS is the price. they are extraordinarily expensive for little to no capability compared to other designs in that class. as delivered, they lacked the sensors or firepower to do just about anything except inside a 5nm ring. they are embarrassingly under equipped. look no further than the very capable corvettes other western navies have fielded; better armaments, better sensors, better reliability, all for much less cost. for 500 million+ each, we should be getting drat near a destroyer’s worth of ship, especially considering these were shoehorned to plug the hole of the OHP’s early retirement. instead, we got a loving warship that can’t be operated on it’s design manning, has no way to defend itself from anything larger than a skiff, and can’t take a single hit without becoming a casualty. as for the automation, they went so overboard with it that the navy was essentially forced to double the originally promised manning, which was a huge part of the original pitch of these vessels, because the crews were so undermanned they could barely keep watch, let alone operate a fighting ship. the LCS has been, from start to finish, a textbook boondoggle pork barrel procurement disaster.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:27
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brains posted:
THe one silver lining is that there is hope it might end up being an over-produced proof of concept design. If some good technologies re: automation come out in the end and get rolled into future designs that could be a huge benefit for the entire fleet.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:32
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The NSM might somewhat save it's ability to actually participate in any real conflict too because they are really, really trying to get 4-8 of those onto both classes. An OTH AShM would help immensely, even if they can't really aim them themselves. They'll still have fuckall for self-defense though, not having any VLS (or the area to add them later), even the shorter tubes, was a critical design flaw from the beginning. But the strength of the LCS was always it's ability to operate in littorals and being able to fire a handful of NSM means they can actually participate/be useful in say, some areas of the South China Sea. https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=111075 Thankfully FFG(X) looks to actually want to get us a proper Frigate; the Navy is even open to foreign yards and designs because they really, really need something to fill in for Burkes that isn't one big liability. Here's the congressional report on FFG(X) from Dec 2019 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/R44972.pdf Mazz fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 19:35
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Cyrano4747 posted:Here's the thing: the ships themselves aren't a terrible idea if you accept that you want a low capability ship to basically show the flag and be a visible presence. The fact that they went whole hog with automation is a problem in that it's made these ships have a gently caress ton of new technology related problems, but the flip side is that it cuts crewing down a lot which is a thing the navy really, REALLY loving needs right now. Like really needs. A lot of people want a huge navy that can respond to anything happening anywhere at the globe at any time with overwhelming force but, uh, they don't want to spend the money to incentive the recruitment that would take. (set aside whether that's a capability the USN either needs or should have, for the moment). If that was their intended use, would they not make more sense as cutters for the Coast Guard, rather than combat ships for the Navy?
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Jan 12, 2020 19:39
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Davin Valkri posted:If that was their intended use, would they not make more sense as cutters for the Coast Guard, rather than combat ships for the Navy? I kinda think so, but I've heard rumors that the operating cost is eye watering and the CG needs lower maintenance poo poo to fit their budget.
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Jan 12, 2020 19:41
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Davin Valkri posted:If that was their intended use, would they not make more sense as cutters for the Coast Guard, rather than combat ships for the Navy? They were intended to do a bunch of modular tasks for littoral warfare like small boat surface-to-surface action (pirate hunting), minesweeping, minelaying, ASW against diesel boats, etc. This idea was based on modules they could swap in and out per boat to make them flexible. You can still see an FY15 overview of the modules here: https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2015/navy/2015lcs.pdf?ver=2019-08-22-105642-770. The Danes have a system in place called StanFlex that actually does this module swap pretty well, even so far as short length VLS w/ ESSM packages. But the LCS modules completely fell apart and/or the boats just weren't fit for the mission(s). They have exceptionally high top speeds, like ~45 knots burst speed, mainly for the pirate boat/drug suppression work they had planned, but this capability cost a shitload and isn't really useful 99% of the time. You can find this type of imbalanced design all throughout the program. The LCS as originally envisioned weren't intended to be used much in Blue Water tasking, which is why they have no real sensors or weapons suites. The problem was that mission set was really dumb right from the start, and the DoD/MIC just doubled down on the idea for like a decade instead of addressing the growing problems. The Coast Guard does not need the LCS, they have the NSC, which is not only a more capable boat by most accounts, it's likely the base from which Huntington Ingalls is starting their FFG(X) design from. The NSC was not without it's own range of cost overruns and faults as well, and as Cyrano said the CG certainly' doesn't need 500 million dollar boats with insufficient crew berthing and sustained maintenance issues. Basically the Navy thought they had this one size fits all solution to a bunch of the green/brown water tasks that got highlighted in the early 2000s COIN focused DoD, and it turns out 1. all those missions are not handled well by 1 boat and 2. certainly not a 500 million dollar Frigate sized speedboat. The late 90s/early 2000s DoD made some colossally terrible designs throughout. Mazz fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 19:52
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Cyrano4747 posted:THe one silver lining is that there is hope it might end up being an over-produced proof of concept design. If some good technologies re: automation come out in the end and get rolled into future designs that could be a huge benefit for the entire fleet. this could be true, if they went the way of the Zumwalt or Seawolf and cut the order down to nothing. instead, congress went full retard and continues to dump money into the burn pit for no reason other than pork barrel politics, despite the protestations of the navy who actually has to staff and pay operating costs for these goddamn things. edit: and the navy is absolutely just as culpable for this situation as Congress, as mentioned above
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Jan 12, 2020 19:58
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brains posted:this could be true, if they went the way of the Zumwalt or Seawolf and cut the order down to nothing. instead, congress went full retard and continues to dump money into the burn pit for no reason other than pork barrel politics, despite the protestations of the navy who actually has to staff and pay operating costs for these goddamn things. The Seawolf also gets a pass here because it led to the Virginias, which are honestly great enough to justify the Seawolf expenditure as tech testbeds. I highly, highly doubt anything will do that for the LCS (or the Zumwalts, but we'll see).
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Jan 12, 2020 20:04
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stealie72 posted:And theyre being built in critical purple great lakes states, arent they? They keep passing through Lake Erie. Stravag posted:Do both the freedom/ independence classes have issued with salt water or was it just one of them? Both were very much built on a design/build program where design was actively taking place while the vessels were under construction-for me as a fitter's helper that meant I spent all my time doing re-work. Someone added a new antenna mast on top and now this bulkhead 3 decks down has to be cut out and replaced with 8mm plate instead of 6mm or whatever, and that gets outrageously expensive very quickly. I didn't know automation was such a thing in them, but that makes sense of why they would wind up being so complex and expensive.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:04
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aphid_licker posted:Really impressive to see that thing poop out casings (e: the CIWS). Does the size mean that they think it's an important capability? It seems huge compared to that self-defense missile launcher aft, why not add a second one of those instead? A bit back, but if you look at the CIWS in the video clips, it has the sensor ball of for EO/IR work; my guess is they are using the 30mm CIWS for close-in surface action too. The Navy still mostly leans towards 25mm or Mk46 mounts for this, not the Phalanx. I appreciate the Chinese approach if true; I always wondered why you couldn't just make the CWIS do this; even with the high ROF you just shorten the burst considerably and scare the gently caress out of whoever you're shooting at in the process. Mazz fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 20:10
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brains posted:, congress went full retard Friendly reminder that TFR's one of the forums that deep sixed "retard" as something we throw around.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:12
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Mazz posted:You can still see an FY15 overview of the modules here: This is some good poo poo, thanks. It seems like a lot of the issues with being undergunned stem from the mission module concept and the assumption that the module would provide weaponry for whatever role was required... except with the modules not working as expected, it now doesn't have proper armament for any mission.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:31
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It should be noted that the Navy was enthusiastically all-in on the LCS program until - maybe - 2 to 3 years ago. Congress likes the continuing shipbuilding and the Navy was happy to pretend that the LCS was a worthwhile idea. In a related note, I found this article predicting future war to very insightful: https://warontherocks.com/2020/01/battle-of-the-bastions/ TL;DR - future war may be dominated by fortified regions which have large concentrations of long-range sensors and firepower.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:37
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Wingnut Ninja posted:This is some good poo poo, thanks. It seems like a lot of the issues with being undergunned stem from the mission module concept and the assumption that the module would provide weaponry for whatever role was required... except with the modules not working as expected, it now doesn't have proper armament for any mission. Yes, but also partly in the brain damaged early 2000s DoD that the extent of SSW would be like Iranian speedboats they could engage with Hellfires or Viper Strikes. The fact they never considered even the shorter tube “self-defense” length VLS is very damning to the whole thing. No matter what the modules were it should’ve had 8 VLS tubes for future proofing. It’s honestly loving insane to me it did not; the entire current and future arsenal of the Navy is built around VLS. The fact the NSM is working out is basically pure luck; all the original concepts completely fell through. But yes the failure of the modules made the whole thing that much worse.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:38
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Mazz posted:They were intended to do a bunch of modular tasks for littoral warfare like small boat surface-to-surface action (pirate hunting), minesweeping, minelaying, ASW against diesel boats, etc. This idea was based on modules they could swap in and out per boat to make them flexible. You can still see an FY15 overview of the modules here: The US has a bad history with planning modular designs that never become modular. It's the same basic story as you see with the Spruance class as well. Supposed to be able to drop in all sorts of neat modules for specific missions, ended up just being built with the capabilities they had and getting upgrades down the road to individual systems like any other ship. End result was a huge as gently caress DD with the capabilities of smaller ones. Seriously, the fuckers are about the size of a cruiser. The arleigh burke isn't a ton smaller, but it still manages to be a more capable design in about 50 less feet.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:39
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I remember there was a poster here a few years ago who I believe worked at Austal and got mad we poo poo on the LCS so much mainly because the yards built what was asked for or something along those lines. He was basically right too; the MIC/shipyards are partly responsible for over promising on things like the modules but the design was just completely flawed from the start, much like building the 35A, B and C from one airframe. You can blame LockMart/Austal for taking a poo poo in a box and marking it guaranteed, but really it comes down to some really terrible handwaving at the Pentagon/Congress from the start.
Mazz fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 20:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:Here's the thing: the ships themselves aren't a terrible idea if you accept that you want a low capability ship to basically show the flag and be a visible presence. The fact that they went whole hog with automation is a problem in that it's made these ships have a gently caress ton of new technology related problems, but the flip side is that it cuts crewing down a lot which is a thing the navy really, REALLY loving needs right now. Like really needs. A lot of people want a huge navy that can respond to anything happening anywhere at the globe at any time with overwhelming force but, uh, they don't want to spend the money to incentive the recruitment that would take. (set aside whether that's a capability the USN either needs or should have, for the moment). It would've been fine if we were treating them as real-world tech demonstrators to work the kinks out in low numbers before feeding the now-mature tech into follow-on, higher capability and reliability, lower cost designs. Like Seawolf -> Virginia, or Zumwalt -> something else probably. But we're building the things like we actually expect to use them for something.
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Jan 12, 2020 20:51
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Godholio posted:It would've been fine if we were treating them as real-world tech demonstrators to work the kinks out in low numbers before feeding the now-mature tech into follow-on, higher capability and reliability, lower cost designs. Like Seawolf -> Virginia, or Zumwalt -> something else probably. But we're building the things like we actually expect to use them for something. They also came around when concurrent design was the big thing. See also: Ford class carriers and the F35
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Jan 12, 2020 21:07
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Sperglord posted:It should be noted that the Navy was enthusiastically all-in on the LCS program until - maybe - 2 to 3 years ago. Congress likes the continuing shipbuilding and the Navy was happy to pretend that the LCS was a worthwhile idea. gently caress yeah Castles Brian up in this bitch
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Jan 12, 2020 21:11
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Concurrent design is just so dumb on its face.
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Jan 12, 2020 21:37
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Mazz posted:A bit back, but if you look at the CIWS in the video clips, it has the sensor ball of for EO/IR work; my guess is they are using the 30mm CIWS for close-in surface action too. The Navy still mostly leans towards 25mm or Mk46 mounts for this, not the Phalanx. I appreciate the Chinese approach if true; I always wondered why you couldn't just make the CWIS do this; even with the high ROF you just shorten the burst considerably and scare the gently caress out of whoever you're shooting at in the process. Yes, the CIWS is used for surface targets too, that functionality was first seen on the smaller H/PJ12 when it was introduced on the Type 052B and 051C destroyer classes. It has essentially replaced smaller/secondary gun mounts on PLAN frigates and destroyers, and older hulls getting a MLU tend to replace said gun mounts for it (for example, see the 051B 2015 refit). I think the only new-ish hull retaining secondary gun mounts is the 056 corvettes (having two 30mm mounts). And even those have been removed on the last corvettes getting built, and replaced by machine gun RWS. Dante80 fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jan 12, 2020 |
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Jan 12, 2020 22:10
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So guys, the new first post is in reasonable shape.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:07
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Nebakenezzer posted:So guys, the new first post is in reasonable shape. So you're saying we're in the final countdown?
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Jan 12, 2020 23:11
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Cyrano4747 posted:So you're saying we're in the final countdown? 
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Jan 12, 2020 23:15
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw Very cold war.
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Jan 12, 2020 23:16
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