Papers Released Show Problems with Littoral Combat Ship (Severe hull cracks, speed limited to 15kts)

POGO ^ | April 23, 2012 | Danielle Brian

[JerseyanExile]

The more trickles out about the LCS, the more one learns what a piece of garbage it is. Hideously overpriced (if anything, the cost estimates in the article seem to be lowballing the price by anywhere from 200 to 400 million dollars per ship), criminally under-armed, poorly designed, incredibly frail, and now plain badly built. Other ships have had fatigue and cracking problems, but those were older vessels nearing the end of their service lives, not brand new ships! Just cancel the blasted things already. License one of the better European frigates, or start over from scratch.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Where was it built?

[hinckley buzzard]

This is outrageous. The Navy procurement system apparently has sunk to turd world levels of corruption. There is no other explanation for such egregious incompetence. These ships threaten to literally fall apart in combat.

[GATOR NAVY]

Agree completely. The Little Crappy Ships need to be cancelled yesterday.

[JerseyanExile]

Wisconsin apparently. The other LCS class is being made in Alabama.

[Vince Ferrer]

If these are not fixable quickly and convincingly, this program needs to be be dumped. There will be no "next project" for quite a while.

I read maybe two years ago about a proposal to replace current Coast Guard ships with an upgraded version of their current ships. Those could probably replace the LCS, and be much less expensive.

[Sporke]

I especially like how they can’t go into head-waves at all during bad weather. It’s just what our Navy needs.

Hell, bring back the Battleships, they’d be cheaper and they look spectacular. :)

[The Working Man]

Really now... This SHOULD not have happened. When I was in the Coast Guard back in the 1970’s the 378Ft Secretary class ships were of this style construction and they had the same stress crack problems. It was easily fixed with an expansion joint in the superstructure that allowed the superstructure to flex with the hull.

Bi-metal construction often has this sort of problem especially where there are wide temperature extremes from the Water to the Air temperatures.

Somebody really fell down on the job with this design. Then again maybe they were more concerned about the quarters for a mixed crew?

[DCBryan1]

Union workers strike again !

[NY.SS-Bar9]

Milwaukee - gotta love them union welders.

[blam]

This is the LCS built in Mobile, Alabama and not the subject of this article:

USS Independence (LCS-2)

[Myrddin]

My dad refused to accept a similar piece of crap when he was at the Pentagon. He had US Senators calling to lean on him to approve the defective vessel. He stood firm. It cost him a promotion from Commander to Captain. He was fine with that. Everyone knows where a Commander sits. The title Captain often elicits the question “Army or Air Force”.

[Cicero]

Secretary of the Navy Raymond Mabus told the Senate Armed Services Committee in December 2010 that both variants of the LCS were performing well, and that “LCS–1, the Freedom, demonstrated some of the things we can expect during her maiden deployment earlier this year.”[8] Then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead echoed this praise for the LCS-1, stating “I deployed LCS earlier than any other ship class to assure we were on the right path operationally. It is clear to me that we are.”[9]

Ray Mabus appears to be a typical Obamanoid appointment--which is to say, totally incompetent and politically crazy. And I would guess that Roughead probably is the kind of Perfumed Prince that Obama and Mabus would pick to do their wrecking for them.

All this, of course, under a Communist Secretary of Defense.

[A.A. Cunningham]

the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan independent watchdog

If you believe those pukes at POGO are nonpartisan and independent I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you cheap.

[Sola Veritas]

“Bi-metal construction often has this sort of problem especially where there are wide temperature extremes from the Water to the Air temperatures.”

Also, that in a salt water environment, you get electrolysis that degards the metals. Navy learned that years ago. Why would they still try it today?

[OldNavyVet]

Wisconsin is a long way from ocean water.

Nonetheless, my Navy days had plenty of well designed ships; epsecially the Essex Class carriers, where heavy-weather steel flexing situations were covered ... thanks to design excellence.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

I think they’re all union-thug welders...anywhere.

[NVDave]

Yes, it should not be a surprise.

Trouble is....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/16/navy-aluminum-idUSN1513314120100316

There’s just no way around the actual material properties here. Aluminum has a higher thermal coefficient of expansion than steel, work hardens much faster than steel, fails under work hardening conditions without much warning, and will melt at rather low temperatures compared with steel.

It isn’t a good material for a combat ship. A fishing skiff? Maybe. A combat ship? No.

But I NB that the crew has fold-down tables that will allow them to use a laptop. Whoopie.

[The Working Man]

Why would they still try it today?

---

Because it’s a “cheaper” construction methodology... supposedly. Yeah sure it’s lighter for the superstructure but you lose a tremendous amount of “armor” capability and aluminum has shown a tendency to melt and deform easily in a fire at sea situation.

If it had been me and weight was of a paramount concern I would have gone with a carbon fiber construction such as you see on the Airbus aircraft or the 787. Sure it’s a bit radical for sea-going warship design but I would have loved to have a prototype built to test it all out in a real-world environment.

[moovova]

The Navy’s Crack Monitoring team...

May be time for me to re-join the Navy.

...uh...nevermind...just remembered the recent tiff they had over DADT.