The LCS program pisses me off because we wasted precious years that could have been spent building actual warships.

The. Real nightmare is how officers were punished for truth telling. In my USMC experience I felt that as a senior officer your obligation is to tell the truth as you see it. That ended your career in the USN

Thank you. This was hilarious. Incompetence at its best. Good to see the tradition of WW2 torpedoes has not been lost.

As a former enlisted person it never fails to not surprise me how there's always billions to be spent on pet projects headed by officers and retired-officers-turned-contractors while enlisted people are treated like garbage and veteran's benefits are a total joke. It really hammers home what the actual priorities are.

The LCS is clearly a Corvette. What i don't get is how little armament they put on the ships, as a Swede i always compared them to Swedish Corvettes which are much smaller and pack more firepower and sensors. The big thing about the LCS is the helicopter hangar which is a major asset so what these ships should have been is ASW frigates with limited capabilities in all other domains. ESSM NSM and 57mm Bofors backing up an excellent AWS suite of sensors and torpedoes would make a good ship given they where mechanically reliable. If the Stealth features where taken seriously it would complement the ASW functions nicely as they could passively search for subs.

What gets me most about the LCS’ is that we knew in advance they would fail but the Navy pressed forward while completely missing the point of the LCS’ intent.

For me, Dr. Sal, you summed up this whole "whiz bang" scheme: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Congressional Pork Barrel. Thank you for highlighting the enormous pressure placed on rising mid-level Surface Warfare Commanders to make stupid designs work.

My kid alerted me to this when a bunch of classmates interned at both yards. These were 2nd and 3rd year nav arch students scratching their heads and wondering “WTF?” at the design and engineering choices that were made in both classes of vessel. I also recall there were simple metallurgy problems in the difference between hull and superstructure construction-so one of the classes was simply shaking itself apart.

Never done so many Emergency break aways during an Underway Replenishment until you do a LCS. The boat moves lateral quick even when going into seas or with the seas

One of the best comments about the Littoral Combat Ships was what the CNO of the Navy said years ago. He said, they are not suitable for use in the Littoral and they are not meant to be used in combat. Priceless!

My pet peeve with these ships is how most people pronounce it like "literal combat ship". Thank you for pronouncing it correctly.

The experience with the Osprey class Coastal Mine Hunter (MHC) is a preamble for what happened here. Every failure cause seen in the LCS happened on the MHCs. History repeats itself.

The issue with naval ratings not being able to fix their own equipment is endemic throughout the fleet. On the one hand, everything is becoming more complex and, to some extent it needs to just be pulled and replaced with a spare that is hopefully in OBRP. You can't expect a 19 yo to fix these things at sea, even if they're a Nuke with Weaponized Autism. On the other hand, the damn toxic culture of the Navy, combined with low pay, leads to turnover that means that sailors don't stay in for the time needed to really develop the skills that would allow them to fix things in the same way that they did 30+ years ago. Until the Navy creates a culture that encourages electronic technicians with 10+ years of experience to be prevalent on every hull, we *have* to have equipment that is only repairable by contractors ashore. Is this strictly a Navy problem? No. It's a political issue where Washington is happy to demand that the fleet respond to every call around the world at a moment's notice, but not really fund it to build enough hulls or retain enough sailors to do so. It's only a Navy problem in that nobody in a star-equipped uniform has stood up and said No.

It was a huge bonus for the military-industrial complex and their lobbyists.

I think you are 100% right Sal. Everything this country is doing for quite a while now seems like it is not thought through to the end! I just hope there is some better things ahead.

Your ability to reduce complex situations to easily understood principles is consistent and, I think, remarkable. As an instructional designer and technical writer, I appreciate simplicity, brevity, comprehensibility, and clarity. You are a natural, Sal. Thank you. If you are ever in Charleston, SC, let me buy you a beer!

As a truck driver, I've delivered a few loads of robotic machines that were built in Finland to Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, WI which is where the LCS ships are built. It's a very impressive shipbuilding yard.

Sal, this is the best presentation I've seen concerning the LCS. The Navy types can't seem to see the forest for the trees.

The 2010s will, I’m sure, come to be known as the lost decade in naval shipbuilding with the failure in almost every shipbuilding program.

Gonna have to push back on the idea that the LCS can be salvaged and turned into something useful. The Freedom Hulls-maybe, but you’re gonna have to start by pulling the power plant and replacing it with something smaller, simpler & more compact. There’s nothing that can be done to save the Independence class. The hulls are worthless for anything save for their scrap value. (They actually do have quite a bit of scrap value, though. That’s a lot of aluminium…

I served six years on a USCG Cutter that was built in 1936 and decommissioned in 1980. We busted our butts to make sure our ship performed and looked good. The mind set and vision that won WW2 is gone. We have a bunch of overpaid , over educated bureaucrats in uniform, that are mostly interested in career advancement and cocktail party networking, all the while scolding lower ranked individuals for no agreeing with upper echelon twits !They are the problem.

The Oliver Hazard Perry Frigates were designed on a similar idea: small operational crew and maintenance would be done by shore side personnel. It never worked that way. These ships also had to expand crew beyond the facilities provided onboard. The Surface Navy keeps repeating the same mistakes because it looks good on a spreadsheet (save 10% here!) and the decision makers don't understand or want to understand that these are complex systems and nothing is free.

I apologize. I should have clarified my position. The problem with the Mark 14 development was that the Bur of Ordinance refusing to listen to the sub crews that pointed out the torpedo did not work. Furthermore the designer of the torpedo Adm Christie refused to listen to the criticism.

Thanks! I accidentally found your channel and now it's one of my go to YT destinations. You are offering the best analysis on shipping etc of any I have seen. Don't stop.

Thanks for putting this out, Sal. In a former life, I was a naval architect at NAVSEA. One of my tasks was to produce a group of designs that informed the design boundaries of what became the PC-1 class. That study showed unequivocally that a John Wayne go-fast boat will always be an unbalanced design, meaning that to run that fast, that far, the ship will need an extraordinary internal volume dedicated to fuel. In the case of LCS-1, the ships were literally unbalanced in that special damage stability rules had to be invented on the fly in order for the designs to be even marginally acceptable. Speed, payload, and range are the iron triangle of ship design, and LCS tried to break the physics of that triangle. But physics and your enemies don't care about Potomac politics - they will simply kill you. BTW, my earlier study already knew about the problem of aluminum hulls cracking because we had data from a Vancouver ferry service that used Austal aluminum hulled high speed ferries. The crews of those vessels had a never-ending task of welding up an expanding web of cracks. LCS came out of a brain fart called Street Fighter that would essentially recall the glories of the John Wayne movie "They Were Expendable" in that the "transformational" ships and their crews would be considered expendable in time of war. After saner parties pointed out that today's America may have to regretfully accept casualties in a naval war, overtly telling the crews that no one had their backs was probably a non-starter. Then there are the corrosion issues, the main propulsion plant issues, and the idiocy of believing the Navy had a large enough budget for the luxury of warehousing high tech mission modules all around the world, because the US Navy doesn't have the luxury of short distances enjoyed by the Danish navy (STANFLEX). And then, there was at least one mission module that didn't actually fit the hole it was designed for. The list goes on and on. The reason for ignoring the "fly first, then build" contracting concept was that (a) no shipbuilder can effectively start up a production line and then fire all of the people that were were working on it while the Navy makes a decision on who will get the real production contract, and (b) the Congressional delegations of both areas kept pushing their respective shipyards as federal jobs programs. No one, but no one, had the nation's security as their first priority. "Beyond moronic" is a good expression for everything that occurred. I do have to disagree with you about re-using the hulls for another purpose. Their aluminum hulls will not survive a 20 year life at sea. If the Navy insists on re-using the hulls, I would first court martial for gross misconduct everyone that made the "continuation" decisions" and are still on active duty and remove them from active service without a retirement check. That will be the only way to get the full and undivided attention of the program manager assigned to the correction program. The reason for my adamant position is that everyone involved in the LCS program has gotten promoted, which means the Peter Principle is not in effect in some circles.

I worked at Austel in Mobile AL as a ship fitter during 2012-2016 and I worked on LCS 4&6 both independence class aluminum tri-hulls. Let me know if you want real first-hand information about pitiful construction and production processes. I worked on two JHSV vessels that were being built concurrently at Austel as well.

That money could have gone to modernizing the existing Perry Class FFGs, instead of decomissioning them all. Now, they're having to build an entire new class of FFGs, as well as spending yet MORE money to decomission these useless tubs.

Tell us what you really fell about the LCS, Sal.🙂

As a young sailor assigned to the Battleship New Jersry (BB-62) in 1982, my first impression was, "Those 16 inch guns were designed first, then the ship was built around them". The purpose of a warship (Navy) is to take weapons of destruction out to sea and try to reach the enemy on the other side of the ocean and cause havoc. The opposing enemy navy is trying to do the same and you end up fighting it out at sea. The victor then gets to sail on and attack the enemy with Naval Air, and Marines, with support from the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and Space Force. You don't design a race car and put a lawn mower engine in it!

LCS seems to me an example of building something needlessly avantgarde without really considering what mission you wish it to conduct, I'm still not sure what benefit it really has over a standard FFG of which there are numerous designs around the world.

This reminds me of the failure of the Mark 14 torpedo failure disaster overseen during the 1920s 30s and WW2

It sucks because there are plenty of long lead time projects and ideas where they have a safer option and a more risky option and it'd be worthwhile to try both. Then when they have two kind of similar ships for a similar purpose they choose both even though neither was safe and neither were truly worthwhile. If modules are key to the design they you need to have each module pretty thoroughly designed and somewhat tested so that you can design the ship around those modules so that the modules actually work. I can't believe have much maintenance and bookkeeping the military has offloaded to contractors. With the F-35 they can't even get a proper inventory of what parts they have. How can a military know if they're properly prepared and getting adequate supplies that way? If they request such an inventory, they have to get a new contract and pay hostage level pricing. And the military seems to be getting less and less even though it's paying more and more. The people planning and negotiating really need to make sure they're educated on all aspects of the process and what big projects need and go through as they progress. I think I heard one Captain say he wasn't really prepared or given guidance when he captained a ship that was being refitted or upgraded or something. I'm wondering if it's similar for those making these deals and plans. They have to make sure knowledge gets passed down. How can the Navy defend the USA if it can't even defend itself against corporations and contractors bleeding every penny they can from them? Public companies are required by law to make decisions that make their investors money. Isn't the Navy required by law to get the best deal for the taxpayers?

Same naming problem in telecommunications. It all started with a industry standards sub-committee called Committee for CDMA Long Term Evolution to merge the CDMA standards with European standards like UMTS and GSM. Now everyone has LTE on the top of their mobile and it effectively has no meaning.

So long as defense contractors can buy legislators without fear of serious punishment, we will never get a handle on these kinds of SNAFUs.

Thank you for covering this, Sal! As always, top-notch

I'm a former Boiler Technician in the US Navy. I steamed 1200 psi boilers for 8 years on Cruisers and Knox Class Frigates and Charles F Adams class destroyers. Only one time in 8 years did a ship I steamed failed to sail because of engineering problems and it was a stuck open reverse throttle on the port engine and we had to shut down the aft plant while SIMA repaired the throttle valve. Boilers and steam turbines were reliable and lasted the life of the ship unless you had a serious engineering casually like high water carryover into the high pressure turbine or low water in the boiler causing tubes to rupture, but these were very rare.

I am glad the Navy procured both ships. If they’d only procured one class or the other some critics (from the losing defense contractor) would be saying, ‘they should have gone with the other model.’ At least now the evidence is clear it wasn’t the specific design, but the concept itself that was fatally flawed. Painful lesson for the Navy to learn at the expense of billions to taxpayers.

The Navy had four patrol gun/missile boats in Naples Italy during the 1970s. The boats had little less than a 40 man crew and a top speed of +40 knots . Its length: 157 feet. F4 turbine assist whenever needed

Sal is so nice and talking about their poor planning not working out, because I think we all know the system is working as intended to make the MIC more money. Also, definitely not like the navy to use new technology that complicated, they usually try as hard as they can to make everything idiot-proof which usually involves early 1900's analog/mechanical hardware.

8:04 Now that's hardly a fair comparison at all...for the Cerritos. Those California-class ships actually perform useful missions, which is something the LCS will never accomplish.

Kudos for the Cerritos reference, for those unfamiliar, Lower Decks is awesome. Strange New Worlds even got live action versions of Boimler and Mariner this season. Too bad for the lack of focus that hobbled these LCS programs, but with no peer adversary it seems inevitable. Is precious time being wasted?

It's one thing for it to be light and fast but that the never had any punch to them was always inexcusable IMO (yeah, I think they added some Harpoon launchers to a few but still...). Glad we're finally getting back into building frigates. The Zumwalt class destroyers (even though they're the size of a cruiser) were equally a disaster but they're being retrofitted to be hypersonic missile platforms.

Very interesting Sal. Many thanks

Thanks so much for this! As I was reading through the Pro Publica material yesterday, I kept thinking, "I wish I knew what Sal made of this."

For decades I've noticed and wondered, what is it that happens when highly qualified, capable, experienced people turn up one day wearing a 'Management Hat'. Is there an invisible microscopic worm hidden away in management hats that burrows into the brain ?

My rule has always been, never buy the 1st model year of a new car design. Never buy the 1st model year of a new computer design. never buy the... well, you got it, first model year of the newly designed Navy little crappy Ship. New engineering. New hull metal. New engineering. Etc... all designed to be a jack of all trades: Turns out, it was a Master of NONE! and all combined, to not make it work.

Used to see these beer cans doing sea trials when I would go mackerel trolling off Perdido Point in Florida. They are impressive when they spool up their engines and throw a monster rooster tail. But when I heard about the hull flexing problems and unsecured cargo in the holds because of tie-down and flex problems, I realized that these things are pretty crummy.

Great coverage of topic.

The Navy has never met a dollar it couldn't squander.

The problems with the LCS actually run deeper than the wanton mechanical problems, cost overruns, shear graft and political grandstanding. They are literally ships without a mission. The concept was cooked up in the heady post Cold War days when the Navy was desperately searching for a mission to keep the money flowing, and avoid being "Peace Dividended". The real mission was basically shallow water patrol work. Lets be honest these were largely intended for Middle East Duty. The Persian Gulf. Maybe some light duty around the Southwest Pacific and Gulf of Mexico. But really their job was intended to keep the oil flowing. Then the US found vast domestic sources of easily extractable shale oil. Suddenly the Middle East was a much less critical mission for the Navy. At the same time we saw the sudden rise of actual Peer Navy's such as China, and the need for the more traditional force projecting Blue Water Navy was back at the top of the mission list. Prepare to fight the Pacific War again! And these ships have literally no effective role in any such conflict. They lack the range and capabilities needed to fight an actual shooting war on the other side of an ocean.

Good video Sal!

What they should be doing, first step is rip up all the maintenance agreements for the LCS and hold congressional hearings as to who allowed them. Absolutely criminal. Then grabbing a bunch of these and converting them into what they were meant to be, replacements for the Avenger class. As you said, a critical vulnerability of the US Navy is mine warfare, and it has just been ignored. Re-designate about 15 - 20 of them as MCM (Mine counter Measures). The 8 remaining Avenger class have been in service since the 80's. I'm not sure which class would be better suited though, MCM's don't need the speed, so maybe the Freedom class with their defective combining gear, but the Freedom class has steel hulls. Independence class may be better with their aluminium hulls, if they have fixed the issues with hull cracking. Either way, the main expense (besides building them) is the ludicrous maintenance contracts. Get rid of them and some of these ships could serve a useful purpose.

I worked on the waterfront in San Diego supporting the LCS program from beginning to end, anyone in positions of authority, both civilian and Navy, if you publicly stated anything about the absurdity of the LCS program it would be the kiss of death for your career.

Love them or hate them but the old FFG-7 Perry-Class frigate should have been a jumping off point for small hull designs. Small enough for Littoral patrol but solid enough for true Bluewater operations.

Educational. Thank You.

The mine hunting system is Navy vs Laws of Physics. Guess who won? The sled they designed had too much drag and weight to be safely pulled by a MH-60 with a T700 series engine. Possibly upgrading to the new T901 (with a new transmission) might work.

I’m not an American so unaware of the goings on with your defence force procurement but you can rest assured that what has happened with these vessels isn’t unique to the US. Once sailors, soldiers and fliers get to the dizzy heights of driving desks all day long they forget completely that the money they are spending is TAXPAYERS money and they are frittering it away on pipe dreams, often ignoring the ideas and suggestions from the Navy/Army / Air Forces personnel actually working on them and seeing the problems. Exactly the same thing happens in Europe and I hate to say it but with 20 years in command in the merchant navy it also happens there too when Naval Architects get tunnel vision. Just look at the new class of containerships coming into service for one of the big 4 containership operators - Bridge and accommodation right up on the fo’csle in contravention of the Manila Convention and from a series of losses of barge carrying ships in the 1980’s where the accommodation right forward design led to the loss of at least one of them without trace in a storm

The whole LCS debacle is an absolute cluster.

Sal: Our man with a working conscience. Bravo.

Modular. A buzz concept I first encountered in Navy directed energy programs around 2011. A pretty boneheaded idea that all you have to have is a "log" with the proper interface that you can "plug into" a weapon director. Purely a high-level concept, the engineers and scientists knew it was bone headed, but what could you do. Any modular system will take considerably longer and more money to develop, and it will never work as well as a dedicated system in the volume/weight/power (SWAP) that is available.

The LCS is just a wow as is the way the program is managed just absolutely poor The LCS even with towed array wouldn’t have made a good sub hunter we would have heard them coming miles off those water jets are incredibly hard to mask even when at low speed chance are we would have blown them out of the water king before they knew we were even there As for the modular system I’ve seen it in action on the HDMS Esbern Snare it does work the absalons are great ships very capable in all roles To be honest the navy should have looked at replacing the perry with another low cost lower end frigate rather than what they are opting for now I think Elmo zumwalts idea of high low still has a lot of merit and use in the modern navy Yes the LCS would not find itself in front line quite and the idea in principle is a decent one it’s just been such a s*** show that realistically there’s now no way out Having a smaller ship like LCS really isn’t a bad idea if your doing missions like counter piracy counter narcotics or showing the flag as it frees up a more major asset such as a DDG Problem is when working close to land as they were initially designed for you need specific systems to deal with clutter you also need a decent defence system especially against air attack as HMS Coventry found out in 1982 when the A4s jumped off the land she had no means of defending herself Range is another major issue with these ships as you mentioned your basically hooked to a oiler to go anywhere The low crew numbers have risk also the RN and USN are well known for over manning that’s largely due to damage control reasons as well as allowing crew rest periods seems the LCS at the start didn’t have that down well In the RN we would do pre operational exercises called FOST (Thursday war) no ship can leave UK waters unless they pass this exercise and yes ships have failed and had delayed taskings because of it Those LCSs that reported issues and were told go to sea anyway is just utterly disgraceful leadership whom ever sent that order needs immediate removal from command

Professor Sal, Great deconstruction of Little Crappy Ships. You need to teach an open source course on Navy acquisition failure. It would make you a favorite of the Navy brass!🤔

Sal; The LCS issue is but a small part of the US Navy's present view of it's mission. The lessons learned in war have been largely been forgotten,,replaced by politically correct indoctrination. After 60 years since my Navy time,, I was privileged to go on a family day-cruise on a Navy destroyer last month, and Naval discipline as I knew it,, was absent,,, the crew behaved like they were all on a trip to Disney. Heart-breaking for me,,God help us if we have a shooting war!!

I remember the promise of the CG(X) the replacement of the TICONDEROGA Class. Unfortunately, this was during the "Peace Dividend" of the 1990's. The TICONDEROGA's were $1B+ each. Now, we squandered $billions on the FORD Class. There will not be any more USN cruisers. So, now we need to build/modify ARLEGH BURKEs to add the capabilities of cruisers. Now, we are building FFGs displacing 7000 tons which will have the same gun as the LCS. Nice gun, but not as your primary gun system. The current 5"/60 gun is good, but only fires 15 to 20 rounds per minute. Not good for fighting a swarm attack from 40 knot gun boats. Not good for running away from a hand full of boats. See about the Robo cruiser. Part of the problem was the aft missile launcher blocked MT 52. Gun boat bullets were striking the super structure. The USN is NOT interested in naval guns. The evidence is the DDG 1000 class. FFG class with the cool LCS class gun. The Rail Gun is canceled. To close with the Peace Dividend, we were well on our way to a 600 ship navy. Not any more.

Sal, great video as usual. Has anyone been held accountable for this disaster?

I appreciate the reference to the Cerritos from Star Trek LD, didn't expect to hear that in a video about the navy

I was on the USS Rogers DD-876 in Portland OR. we had about 35 BT's , MM's each active duty. 2 fire rooms , 2 engine rooms. Don't forget the USS Zumwalt #1000

The push for automation is the culprit. We always were short-handed aboard, not enough people aboard to do the tasks needed. And the computer control of each section was (as you said) woefully misunderstood. That created problems in the daily operation of our LCS ships. I would have rather commanded a barge.

I agree with your take on the lcs 99.99%. My only complaint is that Fort Worth isn't a smaller city. It's the 13th largest in the US.

The sheer incompetence pointed out here is astounding.

Awesome, Thanks!

Sal, around the 24 minute mark you expressed, what I imagine, the Navy command structure expressed, "Make it work", thus, a command mindset, get those officers and swabies to work...just do it. Now, you have overworked crew. Personally, I was shocked that certain crew needed mental health intervention.

I knew some people from one of the contractors that were working on the combat systems for the LCS here in San Diego. They loved it because there was never going to be an end to their jobs (they also readily admitted that the LCSs were pieces of err...caca)

When you talk about obtaining a decommissioned LCS i'm reminded of the line from Full Metal Jacket: can i interest you in some ARVN rifles? Never been fired and only dropped once. The LCS program is in the same situation. I recall reading some time back about a study done regarding future wartime operations and ship survivability. We were SORELY lacking in damage control, not to mention basic seamanship. Need to reestablish the Navy yard system and take some control back from contractors with friends in Congress.

I always enjoy a good Casablanca reference. Thanks, Sal!!

The hull of the Independence class is based on the Austal Australian-built ferry "Benchijigua Express", which travels between the Canary Islands for the Fred Olsen line. I have travelled on this trimaran. Very fast and stable, carrying quite a large roll-on, roll-off vehicle load plus passangers. Disappointing to hear that the LCS vessels have been poorly executed.

They served their purpose, they shifted vast amounts of tax payer cash to the military industrial complex. And then in failing, set the stage to have to do it all over again.

Insiders make lots of money off these projects...then off to the next great idea. Thanks Sal...always great information.

Best show that is Long overdue . Sal, have you seen the Hull cracks???😮

We are making the mistake of focusing on the expensive shiny objects; rather than building the capacity to build.

So if there was a war, would the contractors be on the ships in the war zone under fire in case something breaks so they can fix it? If not, doesn't that make the "warships" totally unable to fight?

Just had a chance to catch this one. Great show, Navy you're not never afraid to call out stupidity. I'm sure the idea of pre retirement is because the Navy's looking to save some money. At least for the short-term.

This is just sad😢. Great video, very informative.

In case you were not aware a Chinese institute in Harbin has been working on underwater drones for ten years just think of swarms of low detection armed drones moving as a shoal of fish over hundreds of nautical miles

Sal, I nominate you for secretary of the navy!

This was incredible and eye-opening. I’m not a military veteran, not a person who has served with the US Navy. But I can read, and this isn’t the first time I’ve read or seen stories about the constant and complex problems that the Navy has experienced with this brand new class of ships. Brand new concept for a warship (Allegedly). Any new design, new model of just about anything- cars, commercial aircraft, warships is IMO bound to have some teething problems. But this seems absurd, because the Navy’s top brass knew the designs were problematic before the first steel plate was cut. Problems that put the lives of American sailors at risk. What is a commander of such a vessel to do when, in the middle of combat, fighting the ship and its crew fighting for their lives, the vessel breaks down or runs out of gas? I have read more than one paper in which the authors (Retired, senior Navy officers) opined that if these vessels ever entered combat with a capable, well-equipped enemy warship with a proficient crew (One article gave the Chinese, Type 55 Frigate as an example) the LCSs would likely be blown to pieces- and quickly. The information that the technical information and know-how for much of these warships’ most advanced systems (Propulsion, Weapons, Electronic Warfare) remains PROPRIETARY with the contractor, after a contract has been completed and a new vessel delivered, probably way over budget- well that’s just CRAZY. The US taxpayer paid for these ships. From concept to initial design, testing, build, shake-out and ultimate deployment with the Fleet. Taxpayers paid for all of it. Allowing General Dynamics or whoever is the main contractor to retain proprietary possession of information about the ships’ systems is absurd. And, I believe unpatriotic. Profit at ALL costs, sailors lives be damned? I don’t know what will happen to this class of overpriced, underperforming, underwhelming ships. Will they be relegated to becoming very expensive Coast Guard Cutters, patrolling America’s vast shorelines? Admiral Nimitz would be outraged if he saw the crap that came out of this program. For the first time in my life, I have reason (and I’m definitely not alone) to question whether the current US Navy could successfully carry out its basic mission: to fight and win wars.

Okay, the Lower Decks reference has my subscription for life to this channel 😂

The hull cracks had restricted the speeds below 20 knots, and only in calm sea states, last I heard. Did that change?

Think about how many Jet Skis we could have built for the cost of these ships.. every sailor would have one.. and there will still be plenty of money left over for frigates

As a retired surface warfare office with exclusive service in destroyers and frigates I can state with some experience that you are you are spot on with your analysis. In fact, you were kinder that I am about this class. When I first heard about the concept I thought it was a good idea. Then I started hearing about some of the criteria and I knew the class would fail. Why 40 knots?!? Why not include any vertical launchers? Why did you build them with no provision for adequate crew. "A warship is as full of men as an egg is full of meat." (I could explain why but lack space here.) The entire program is and was infuriating. It was political and theoretical from the beginning. The same factors are starting to work again on the Constellation class. The United States Navy has lost the abilty to make warships. So sad.

I like your enthusiasms about a strong subject, even if it make you blood boil over.

Greed, incompetence, jobs programs, can only be repaired by the corporation, congressional oversight!! What could go wrong!

Not sure what is going on with KZfaq, it will not let me see many of the replies to a great subject, paints a good picture These ships still have a function. Seem like they may be better forward deployed with a Repair Tender to keep them operational. Kinda like a large PT boat short distance missions / patrols.

My husband worked on the Minesweepers down here at Naval Station Ingelside, TX. All of the ships had been sold off and given away not too long after the Base was built. Now the Base is sold. Crazy waist of money.

Thank you ❤

PS. Sounds like the Flower class corvettes were a better design. At least those could cross the Atlantic on convoy duty and hunt/kill submarines even if the crews were half dead from seasickness by the time they reached England. But seriously, my dad was an old “destroyer navy” sailor. With a tender and an oiler, a flotilla could be kept on station almost indefinitely.

Guess the Navy needs to support the Right to Repair.... starting with their own ships

Good commentary!

Yay for the Lower Decks reference!

Why the heck would the Navy - or any part of the military - cede so much control to contractors, especially ones who blow through budgets like they are nothing? And why would Congress ever sign on?