The Navy Just Sank Its High-Speed Future

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/09/did-the-navy-just-give-up-its-speedy-future.html

The ship was supposed to zoom over the ocean top, 50 percent faster than its competitors. Then things changed.

The Navy Just Sank Its High-Speed Future
Bill Sweetman
02.09.15

The future of the Navy was supposed to be speedy, thanks to its new Littoral Combat Ships. The Navy has built two versions of the LCS, a conventional-looking single-hull ship from Lockheed Martin and a trimaran—a ship with a slender hull and two outriggers—developed by General Dynamics. Tiny by U.S. warship standards, at 3,000-plus tons, the LCS is distinguished by its 45-knot-plus top speed—50 percent faster than most warships. But now the Navy wants to rebrand the LCS as a frigate—that is to say, a real warship, capable of fighting in any circumstances alongside the rest of the fleet or performing long oceanic patrols, with revamped armament and mission equipment. The future version may sacrifice the original ships’ speed, according to Vice Admiral Thomas Rowden, commander of naval surface forces.

~snip~

A few pioneers invented a fast, austere warship called Streetfighter, to protect larger ships in the littorals. But the Pentagon views fast, austere, lean concepts the way that certain French farmers view ducklings, so the Navy stuffed a funnel and tube down the Streetfighter’s throat and fattened it up into a multi-role oceanic combatant. Why? The Navy wanted to sustain a force of around 300 warships, but wanted to replace its Ticonderoga cruisers with the expensive DDG-1000, later the Zumwalt class. It therefore needed a relatively cheap ship to make up numbers.

The Navy has now decided that the LCS’s speed is unnecessary—probably because a new generation of very accurate, automated, stabilized medium-caliber gun mounts now provide an effective counter-swarm defense. Is it a good idea to saddle the fleet, to 2050 and beyond, with the burden of the original speed requirement?

There are few things more wasteful than the lifetime cost of meeting a requirement that no longer matters. Consider the space shuttle, its wing and payload bay sized to retrieve from orbit a huge spy satellite that was never built. The Joint Strike Fighter’s overall length had to fit the elevators on Britain’s now-retired Invincible-class carriers.

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Another little known fact about this POS: It uses around $71 million dollars a year in gas.

[Sherman A1]

1. Bring back

The PT boats.

[brush]

2. Interesting post . . .

guess the Navy, much like the Air Force with the F-35 can't help themselves from loading up previously fast, sleek platforms with everything and the kitchen sink add-ons (the F-35 particularly looks so bloated compared to its predecessors.

Made me do a little googling on other fast Navy ships — destroyers.

Seems the Fletcher class destroyers from WWll were faster (36 knots) than both the modern 30-knot Zumwalt and Arleigh Burke class ships.

What's up with that, or did I answer my own question with my first sentence?

[DetlefK]

3. So, a lean, expensive specialist gets a makeover into a hulky, cheap allrounder?

That sounds like really bad planning.

On the other hand, technology/tactics change so fast that construction can't stay up-to-date.

I wonder what happens when mini-drones, rail-guns, lasers... become main-stream 10 years from now.

And what happens when exoscelettons for commandos and robots become battle-ready 20 years from now? The ships will need bigger corridors, new insertion-/extraction-vehicles that can support the weight-/size-/tech-requirements of these new troops, landing-/docking-bays to handle those new vehicles, workshops that can support robotic troops...

And for what kinds of missions will these robotic troops and ships be? If only the elite gets equipped with robotic tech, then the ships will be designed for short-term missions. If this tech gets spread far and wide in the US armed forces, then the ships have to be designed for long-term missions.

[unhappycamper]

4. What happens when.....

Google: soviet military rotting