US Navy Wants To Spend $12+ Billion Dollars for 20 LCS Ships

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (Righthaven LLC? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: Super.. :(

LCS #1 (bottom pic) cost the taxpayers $584 million dollars.

LCS #2 (top pic) cost the taxpayers $704 million dollars.

(10 x LCS #1) + (10 x LCS #1) = one shit load of money for ships that are deemed 'not survivable in combat'.

On Edit to add: These things were supposed to cost 'only' $200 million a pop in the original Deepwater program.






U.S. Navy Wants it All When it Comes to LCS

Woah, so the U.S. Navy wants to buy both classes of Littoral Combat Ship in equal numbers for a total of 20 ships, double the planned by of 10 Hulls, according to my former colleague Chris Cavas’ latest piece over at Defense News.

[notesdev]

1. What exactly are these ships for?

My understanding of the original concept is that they were essentially sea-based artillery platforms. These two final versions look like bastardized amphibious assault ships.

[unhappycamper]

2. They are good target practice.

The NLOS mission module was canceled because NLOS was very expensive and couldn't hit shit..

AFAIK, they have a 57mm pop gun on the front. Woopie!

[Angleae]

12. NLOS hasn't actually been cancelled.

The army tried to cancel it but the navy picked it back up.

[unhappycamper]

17. Thanks (again) - I forgot the Navy wanted these $466K missiles.

Every missile is worth almost 10% of the overblown cost of these unsurvivable target barges.

We do live in strange times.

[RollWithIt]

3. They are essentially Close Shore Assault ships....

They have a hanger and flight deck. Can carry assault forces. Room for 2 helicopter assault ships. Problem is that we don't really have a solid use for them. But, I'd imagine they'll end up selling a lot of them to the Israelis.

[Posteritatis]

13. I could see a use for them in that sense...

There could be some use in something that could put, say, a company ashore someplace quickly. Of course, there aren't many deployments where that small a force is useful, save for the odd humanitarian/get-the-citizens-out-of-there sorts of missions. If the military was being used in that sort of way more often as opposed to the multicorps extravaganzas it's currently being used for, a small pile of those would be more flexible than the bigger regimental or brigade (I forget which - someone correct me?) scale ones wandering about right now.

Canada's been talking about something sort of in between those two roles for several years; the majority of our foreign deployments, Afghanistan notwithstanding, actually are for humanitarian/peacekeeping roles, and it's been a sore spot for years that our own soldiers usually need to rely on a third party to travel abroad. Stuff like this feels more appropriate to that kind of deployment mentality than what the US often uses, though I wonder if these aren't also potentially a solution in search of a problem that way.

[onethatcares]

18. let the damn Israelis build the fucking things then

outa their own pockets.

Christ I'm tired of funding killing machines while our kids are starving and people can't afford a home.

[Baclava]

5. The admirals will take pork any way they can get it.

that's the problem, eh

[Baclava]

4. Another big, bloated albatross

You want innovation - look north

Waterjets Propel Sweden's Visby to Success


The multifunction corvettes can quickly switch to surface warfare duties.

http://www.naval-technology.com/features/feature49549/feature49549-4.html


Coastal Corvette - Skjold Class Missile Fast Patrol Boats, Norway

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/skjold/


Maximum speed of the vessel is more than 100km/h.

[AsahinaKimi]

6. one of those ships is

The USS INDEPENDENCE, a ship that was formally named after an Air Craft Carrier sent to mothballs. My Veteran friends served on the Air Craft Carrier, and when I showed him this ship, he was just amazed.

[Archae]

I'm for these ships...

Since the Lockheed ones will be built here in Wisconsin, that means jobs.

[Archae]

16. What the heck?

How'd my reply end up repeating itself?

[Archae]

7. I'm for these ships...

Since the Lockheed ones will be built here in Wisconsin, that means jobs.

[Archae]

8. I'm for these ships...

Since the Lockheed ones will be built here in Wisconsin, that means jobs.

[Archae]

9. I'm for these ships...

Since the Lockheed ones will be built here in Wisconsin, that means jobs.

[Archae]

10. I'm for these ships...

Since the Lockheed ones will be built here in Wisconsin, that means jobs.

[Posteritatis]

11. But are you for those ships?

:)

[Old Troop]

14. I agree the poster wasn't very clear, but I think he's for these ships.

[Posteritatis]

15. I had that impression too, but wanted to make sure. (nt)

[onethatcares]

19. yeah, let's build killin machines everywhere

it's what we need to spread democracy and freedom. Maybe we can build more bombs to sell to our future enemies which will enable us to say, "They have weapons of mass destruction that can be used against us"


But at least we'll have jobs.


Will it ever change?

[Canuckistanian]

20. Why buy one when you can get two for twice the cost?

It's Pentagon economics.

[onethatcares]

21. imagine how impressed the Somali pirates will be

:shrug: