USS Freedom: Quicker, High-Tech and Pirate-Proofed

[Tab]

Source: Unsourced

Pirates, quiver in your skiffs. Put down your rocket launchers and run. The USS Freedom has just landed. Or launched. Whatever, just be afraid.

The high-seas bandits' advantage had long been in their nimbleness in a huge ocean. Now, however, the United States Navy is touting the USS Freedom, the lead mothership in its class of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS, and littoral means coastal).

Specifically designed for the "Global War on Terrorism," the 378-foot craft aims at pirates and oh so much more. According to a fact sheet, Freedom can also defy "asymmetric 'anti-access threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface crafts." So seafaring villains thinking of trading in the crafts for submersible diesels, forget about it.

The rip-roaring Freedom has been called the Navy's corvette, but it runs on Rolls-Royce MT turbines, as pictured here. Other Freedom factoids:

* 3,000 tons
* 45 knots (52 mph)
* Staffs smaller crews (Blue and Gold crews, 40 members each)
* Has a helicopter launch pad
* Feels like a submarine.
* Can discharge manned or unmanned boats attached to its sides. Yeah, kind of like Transformers...but not really.
* Packs Raytheon RAM missiles, guns, and decoy launching systems


Its success isn't just the boat itself, but a faster shipbuilding process (by about half) and lower materials cost. That may have helped stave off 300 planned or considered layoffs for Marinette Marine: The shipyard that built Freedom received a contract for a second LCS ship.

Read more: http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92536?fp=1

[DS1]

1. Shit! 52 mph for something that size is fucking FAST!

[Lasher]

2. Good.

Now go sink one of the pirate mother ships. Catch and release just ain't gonna get it.

[Xipe Totec]

3. the Navy's corvette... very funny

A corvette is a small, manoeuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft, although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvette

[Arctic Dave]

4. That is exactly what it is, a Frigate. Or as Navy personnel call them,

missile and torpedo bait.

Doesn't sound like it has a very useful purpose. I think they are tying it to "fighting piracy" to hype it u[p

[Captain Hilts]

6. They might be effective against teenagers in a patched zodiac. nt

[Captain Hilts]

5. Practically all aluminum, so they'll burn nicely. Going after pirates is all they're good for. nt

[JDPriestly]

7. Now if we can just get the corporations that own the ships that

this expensive piece of hardware protects to pay their taxes so that we don't have to starve to keep this toy running, we will all be happy.

I don't want the pirates taking anyone hostage, but then, I wonder why we taxpayers should have to pay for the military hardware that protects the ships that transport the cargo of tax avoiding corporations. I'd rather see my tax money go to pay teachers or fund alterative energy research.