Posted on 07/11/2014 10:51:02 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Undermanned and overworked crews can’t keep Littoral Combat Ships running
Did you ever work a job that required two people, but your stingy employer insisted that one was enough? Then you understand the problem with the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship.
One of the LCS’s supposed advantages is its much smaller crew compared to other vessels. Where a Navy frigate might have 200 sailors, the frigate-size LCS has just 40—although, to be fair, two different 40-person crews take turns running the ship.
LCS is a jack-of-all-trades warship that can carry different modules for various missions—anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare or mine-hunting.
The idea was that automation would enable fewer sailors to operate the $400-million LCS for all these missions. This saves on manpower costs as well as on precious shipboard space for crew accommodations.
But a new Government Accountability Office report proves what any Burger King worker already knows—cutting your workforce by 80 percent without also decreasing its workload … isn’t always a great idea.
When the GAO studied USS Freedom’s recent 10-month deployment to Singapore, the auditors found that crews worked too hard. “Freedom crews averaged about six hours of sleep per day compared to the Navy standard of eight hours,” the GAO stated.
“Some key departments, such as engineering and operations, averaged even fewer.”
And this happened despite the Navy temporarily adding 10 extra sailors to the crew and sending contractors aboard.
Missing sleep isn’t exactly a new problem for Navy sailors. But the sailing branch has workload standards for a reason. “Crew members told us that their sleep hours decreased significantly during major equipment casualties, particularly those affecting the ship’s diesel generators and other engineering systems,” the GAO explained.
Warships naturally have to periodically return to port for replenishment and repair. But with its small crew and limited on-board maintenance capability, the LCS is particularly dependent on shore-based support. If something needs to be fixed, the LCS either returns to port or maintenance teams—supplied by private defense contractors—fly out to the ship.
During the Singapore deployment, Freedom had to report to port for five days of preventative maintenance every 25 days, plus two weeks of intensive maintenance every four months.
The result was that the Freedom spent lots of time on the sideline. Ships of the Seventh Fleet—the Navy’s Pacific force—typically spend about 20 percent of their time in port. Freedom spent 58 percent of her tour docked in Singapore.
Mechanical problems were so common that the Freedom lost 55 days at sea, which in turn limited the amount of useful data that the Navy could collect about how reliable the LCS is in the first place.
Nor was Freedom the only problem ship. Another LCS, USS Independence, spent eight months of 2013 in dock or in maintenance.
The Navy wants at least 24 LCS. But critics worry that the vessel is too fragile and too expensive. Freedom’s maintenance issues suggest that such a small crew can’t maintain the ship, let alone cope with emergencies. And one wonders how many contractors would be eager to fly out to fix an LCS in the middle of a combat zone.
The Navy might want to sleep on this. Even if the LCS’ sailors can’t.
Data is data
Not really a fighting machine, more of a drop them off quick and get out of the way.
Survivability is low in both LCS models, sacrificed for speed (in the mid to high 40s kn). Considerably slower when at dock for repairs, of course.
I’m starting to get the impression that this ship was not a good idea.
Since the CO and XO aren't going to be standing watch, that leaves 2 officers per watch. Are they both on the bridge? I hope so. If they are, who is in CIC (Combat Information Center) and Engineering? No officers available if they are both on the bridge.
Now we get to the enlisted watch standers. You need at least one each for Quartermaster, Helmsman, and Boatswains-mate. You also need 2 lookouts (fore and aft), two in Combat Information Center, and two in engineering. Times 3 watch sections gets you to 27 enlisted. That leaves only 5 non-watch standers such as TWO Culinary Specialists (cooks), ONE Corpsman, ONE Logistics Specialist (storekeeper), and ONE other.
Now try keeping this up with half on and half off watch just for wartime steaming. If the ship takes damage and/or casualties you can forget about fighting it. There will barely be enough manpower to get it back to port.
In that case, you are worse off than if you had NEVER BUILT IT because it has sucked up other scarce resources that could have been better used elsewhere.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
“Mechanical problems were so common that the Freedom lost 55 days at sea, which in turn limited the amount of useful data that the Navy could collect about how reliable the LCS is in the first place.”
I’d say they got their data.
Humans need sleep?
Huh!
A lot of the ideas as far as software goes, on this project are being decided on now. The first submarine won’t be completed until 2026. It is estimated that the last one will be in service till 2078. So you can only imagine how that software will contrast to what will be in 2078.
I am not a software guy, but I always found it interesting how the computing technology on a submarine such as a LOS ANGELES Class compared to what we have now.
I will ad that the radio room was always refitted with the best the military could find.
Kill it dead. Kill the whole project, walk away, take the loss and hopefully learn some valuable lessons in how NOT to design a combat vessel. The Little Crappy Ship has been a failure but too many egos in Big Navy are involved to admit it.
Good “old-fashioned” principles of modularity.
In the sofware design, hardware handling is separated out in an abstraction layer, i.e., a library of routines/classes/etc.
The rest of the sofware is built on that.
For hardware, at the lowest level, it “should” be just that - hardware.
Then their is “firmware” on top of that, controller devices that are actually small computers running sofware. Like a disk drive controller.
Any of those three layers should be able to be replaced, and as long as the new one supports the old interface, and works “as advertised”, the other layers need no changes. Meanwhile, it can have a new interface that it also supports. When the other layers get to supporting the new interface, which is typically required to use new features, new features can be used.
It becomes like the 150-year-old axe that was my great-grandaddy’s - it’s had 3 new heads and 4 new handles.
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