When the LCS's first came out, the Navy did not train the Engineering Crews properly and it showed in some of the break downs. One of them had a water leak on one of the Main Engines. There was a Drip coming from a smaller hole on the Water Pump. Someone put a PLUG into the hole and called it good. This hole was the tell tale to show when the seal is going bad. That plug caused the crank case to fill with water, which they kept pumping out. Int the end that engine was a Total Loss and had to be removed for replacement! There were so many of this type of problems and it all lead right back the Command not giving the crews the training that they needed!
It's also worth noting that the vast majority of the propulsion failures has been due to a design defect of the Freedom variant, which is being addressed now.
I have reservations about how the concept is implemented. What about damage control and relative self-sufficiency during operations. Contractors don't make house calls in a conflict zone and pulling out a unit from operations for a repair that the old navy did routinely on board somehow doesn't compute.
@@mikecimerian6913 did you watch the video? It clearly states that the ships were never intended to engage in high end combat. As such they were designed to an improved commercial standard if I remember correctly. As for maintenance, reality has smacked the Navy in the face pretty firmly with these ships. They are working towards being able to do more maintenance onboard & with their own forces in port.
I think it also came out in some relatively recent readiness investigations that poor training was par for the course in the Navy. Who knew that forcing partisan politician indoctrination instead of actually teaching people to do their jobs would be be a bad thing /s
@@bamascubaman in short the Navy made a lot of short sighted decisions with the LCS and got a ship that is less effective than a refitted Oliver Hazard Perry class would have been. Any ship capable of conducting high end combat will be pressed into service for that role under the stresses of war so skimping on structural design will come back to bite crews should the worst occur during their service lives.
As a USMC grunt, I would love to see a video on the history and future of amphibious troop transport ships like HLD and LPD types like Essex, Juno and the former Bonhomme Richard!
Yesterday I heard in the news that the LCS is being discontinued. The reasons are that the ship does not have offensive weaponry and the crew is soo small that if there are any loss of staff during an event, there would not be enough staff to continue operating the ship.
The word you were looking for there was 'impeller'. They are essentially the same thing as a centrifugal compressor in a turbine engine but instead of compressing and moving air, it is moving water.
As someone from Savannah, I find the presence of the giant Banana to be quite hilarious. Also nice to see the Navy commissioning another Savannah, been far too long since a ship has held that name, though personally I was hoping that one of the new Columbia-class boomers would get the name, though I think other than Columbia herself they are going to be named after states.
Great and informative video. The concept of the LCS is to provide a specific type of ship for a specific category of missions. 40 knots is quite impressive. It is not a destroyer or a conventional frigate Your comment that some of the problems early LCS's have had is due to new technology and designs. That is a normal result of new tools. "Frigate' has had several meanings in the post-WWII Navy. Some frigates from the 1980's were reclassified as cruisers. The DDE's of WWII were close to a common concept of a frigate, and some of the LCS missions might be similar to what a frigate can do.
LCS was conceived at a time when there was no blue water threat posed by a peer adversary. They are designed to fill specific mission roles that would not put them in high intensity combat. Interdiction, counter piracy, ASW and minesweeping are missions that fall into this area. The problem is that 20 years later, the geopolitical environment has changed with what is called the "Great Power Competition" by the Navy. Second, the heart of what these ships were built for, the mission packages are years behind schedule and overbudget. Only the surface warfare package has been successfully fielded. Even given all of this, the Navy still needs a small surface combatant. These ships can fill vital missions that would free up larger combatants to perform larger strategic roles like conducting strike warfare, ballistic missile defense and major anti-surface engagements and air defense. If the cost of maintaining and operating this ships can be kept inline with conventional surface combatants, it will remain a viable platform. But if the Constellation class frigates prove to be of better value for the money, I can't see LCS as being sustainable in the long term.
They basically used the budget for LST, Hydrofoils and other small vessel of the United States Navy. Now, they just need to just build them to do just taxi and hotel service for Marines.
Which aspect was most ground breaking? The Idea of Mission packages. However, current plans are ship will probably never have them changed out. Secondly Mission pagkages have ended up just being another means for politicians, designers, maybe also builder to SIPHON defense dollars into JOBs money for their area.
Couple of points for clarification. The mission modules/packages were initially intended to be able to get swapped out in hours, the reality was days, which is still relatively quick. Every time one of the mission packages was delayed congress cut back on its funding, which put it further behind. The modularity is something that has a ton of potential but it's not a mature enough concept to implement as intended right now. In no small part, that's due to a lot of contractors only innovating on someone else's dime.
The mission package concept as implemented on the LCS is not the best version of such a system (Stanflex takes that), but the vast majority of these criticisms fall apart on closer examination. First, the Danish ships with Stanflex typically carry the same modules in the same locations, especially those with the 76 mm gun module. In these cases, the modularity allows for rapid replacement after potential damage or to bulk up a particular area as necessary. Second, by separating the mission packages into separate divisions, we simplify logistics during peacetime. They can be swapped if necessary, but there is zero reason to do so regularly. Third, by using mission packages, we have the same base hull that can perform multiple missions, which actually reduces costs compared to specialized units. I’d personally have chosen a slightly more flexible system where you could trade out one module for another as necessary rather than the all-or-nothing mission package concept, but while we didn’t choose that initially that potential is still there for as long as these ships are in service.
Awesome coverage as always! Being from Mobile, and having worked at both Austal, on the independence class LCS (14,16,18,20,22), and FMM, on the freedom class LCS (15,17,19)in Wisconsin, I can wholeheartedly say these ships are over sold by the navy to cover up how much they are over spending for these vessels! They are revolutionary in many ways but they were rushed in manufacturing relative to the volume of these ships that have been produced. Too many of the same mistakes made over and over again because of rushed production!!!!
With carriers you get what you pay for. With LCS, you pay monthly for everything you get... Basically sold the USN a subscription plan for mediocre ships. Wild what idiot thought paying for-profit to do the work of sailors was a good idea! I'm sure he's pretty rich now though.
@ Kind of. Its overqualified in some areas and completely useless in others. It has nowhere near the range necessary and onboard facilities specific to the mission of the coast guard.
@@dragonbutt he's referring to the Coast Toasties looking at one or the other I forget which at the behest of Congress and turning their nose up at it.
What would you rather be commissioned on: A refurbished and modernized USS Iowa Class battleship or a modern LCS? I would choose the Iowa class every time!
According to the original specifications for the Gerald Ford, she would only need a crew of about 4500. That's 1000 fewer than all the previous super carriers. Modern electronics is what is making this possible. That includes the magnetics for the cats and cables and elevators. I think the concept of the LCS is great. Getting it to work is going to be the hard part. Changing crews may not be that good a deal. Ships need a lot of maintenance. To make the Blue/Gold crew work well, the ship really needs to be in condition to deploy as soon as the new crew comes aboard and all the mission specific armament is loaded aboard. If the ship has to sit in dry dock, or at a pier, for 3-5 months, going through refit, that's not good.
@@DeeEight An FFG7 could have done any of the same work and I doubt that the sonar suite meant for ASW will work for minesweeping. Minesweepers are made to eliminate all magnetic signatures and I doubt that they managed to remove every large bit of steel from these littoral ships. Even the FFG7 had a poor sonar for mine location. When we were in the Gulf we used VISUAL means to locate the mines Saddam let drift into the gulf. Former Sonar Tech here. They tried to market these ships as the do it all ships but the module swapping has been shown to take what amounts to a regular yard visit to swap out and is hence not cost effective. Some officers managed to get themselves nice jobs upon retirement with the contractors building and servicing these ships and the Navy got sold a bag of crap.
@ger du I'm sorry but how is a top-of-the-line US anti-ship missile the Firepower of an Apache. The independence class has been getting anti-ship missile launchers attach them in the Pacific because independence-class actually can work unlike the freedom class which apparently has the transmission of a WWII German heavy tank.
@@clonescope2433 then the firepower of a Seahawk. Anti ship missions are really not the LCS’ intended purpose and it wouldn’t be good at them. The US relies on naval aviation for that, and we are really good at that. Instead of launching an old ship launched ASM, why not launch arguably the best ASM in existence, the LRASM, from an airborne carrier launched fighter?
Thank you sir. That was a question I wanted answered. To change the subject. I once could of got a 16" HE round from Iowa class ship for free. Problem was, I had very little time to get it. Didn't have a pickup truck to move it and was by myself and just moving it from the bookstore where it was left was basically impossible. I might point out, this happened in Victoria BC, just a hop skip and a bridge from Esquimalt. I'm sure most folks interested in naval history will know where that is and the significance it has to things naval, especially Canadian and British.
@@victoriaregina8344 it wasn't loaded, had no fuse and where the hell would anyone find a 16" gun to shoot it out of? Either way, I'm sure it'd be classed as a DEWAT.
Brilliant and distinctively high level. I like this more technical and nuanced kind of video. Also, it reveals or showcases Ryan's deep knowledge. Keep up the good work!
As a student on ship design, at around 10 minutes in this video, you could have said, they were trying to do too much on the displacement, where the technology was what was supposed to give the capability, but, we are not quite there yet to build the capability into a small enough module you can swap in and out, and the experiment failed. The modular package theory does work for what needs to be done, but the package you can swap in or out is to enhance the capability for what needs to be good enough without it. We'll see what happens next on this, where the much bigger Constellation FFG is the result of the lesson learned. PS, as a small detail, want to do a video on why submarines are boats and not ships? There is a reason why you have COB and not CMC :) And would love it if you could get invited to have the Dick O'Kane's cribbage board on a video and teach the history of it.
I’m of two minds about the LCS. One is they don’t seem to be cost effective and appear to get used in blue water rather than littoral waters like designed. However there is a place for a small combatant in the fleet. Also they named LCS-29 after my home town which I appreciate
The LCS concept had to be modified as the global situation changed. When conceived, we expected to be fighting nations like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, where these ships would do well and where shallow water operations were critical. But in the 2008-2012 timeframe, we realized we needed to shift to blue-water operations (which killed Zumwalt) and needed new ships as rapidly as possible. Speed mean existing designs, which were Burke and the LCS, so the LCS was tweaked to fit the new expected roles.
You have to examine cost-effectiveness in a broader scope than just the ship itself. Remember that for each of these we have doing menial chores or chasing drug smugglers, we have one more DDG to allocate to more important duties like hunting subs or escorting CSGs. When the only other alternative at the time was to buy more Burkes (since Congress axed a proper Perry replacement), LCS is by far and away the more economical option.
@@GintaPPE1000 One way around that is to simply embark a USCG detachment on whatever USN ship is available, and make drug interdiction a collateral duty. It's amazing how quickly a fishing trawler can actually heave to when a US Navy ship goes to GQ 100 yards away...even if it is a 650' oiler. This was, of course, after the trawler figured out that their 15 knots wasn't going to outrun a ship designed to deploy with a battle group.
The LCS is a vessel looking for a mission. A frigate sized vessel with the capabilities of patrol boat. The Navy's new frigate is going to use the same worthless gun. Better to have built more patrol boats similar to the Cyclone class. Also, the reduced manning is good for the budget, but considered insufficient for proper damage control.
Given that the Navy has capped the buy of LCS (the new _Constellation_-class are basically slotting in where a bigger buy of LCS was originally planned) and are already taking the early vessels out of service, there seems to be some disagreement on whether the LCS represents "the future of the Navy."
He specifically, and one can assume deliberately, referenced the systems and technological developments on these ships as main examples representing the future of the navy. In fact, had you spent less time on being a pedant and more listening, you would have realized the shift toward building smaller, cheaper ships in greater quantities was clearly communicated as the most pertinent statement concerning the future of the navy.
Well they've only taken two out of service and then halted operations on the troubled Freedom class, but I think the Navy came full circle it seems like the role the LCS classes were supposed to fill or light fast-attack boats akin to torpedo boats, and with some of the modifications the independence classes got in the Pacific specifically anti-ship missiles it's funny to me it seems like the Navy came full circle except bigger this time.
@@Trebuchet48 I wouldn’t say the Zumwalt was a failure. It has a use: being a testbed for advanced and innovative technologies that will be implemented on a large scale with the DDG(X) program. While it was expensive and a bit too ahead of its time, it will at least serve a legitimate purpose, unlike the LCS.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 the primary purpose of the Zumwalts was to add a gun based long range firepower capability to the Navy. They failed spectacularly given that the Navy deemed the ammunition for said long range guns too expensive to procure and the majority of the tech developed that will translate into DDG(X) from Zumwalt is just it's computers. These could have been implemented on flight IIA or flight III Burke class ships in place of AEGIS. We have a bigger, more expensive missile destroyer that carries less missiles than an Arleigh Burke or a Ticonderoga and yet exceeds both in displacement for the gain of a somewhat stealthy hull form. That's a disgrace.
Ryan - You are correct in stating that the LCS ships are unproven in today's Navy however as to cost they are not cheap to build or operate. I hope the new Constellation Class Frigates can be built in large numbers for a reasonable price as the Navy desperately needs more escort vessel's.
Are US freighters getting harassed? Or did you mean as patrol boats if we were to ramp up against china and start enforcing fishing zones? Small ships build the fastest and evolve the fastest, I think the strategy of having a heavy roster of capital ships and rebuilding the light fleet has always served Navies well but it seems unpopular
The new Connies are not going to be the simple "off the shelf" solution the navy originally sold them as to Congress. For what was SUPPOSED to be a ASW primary role frigate (because of the failure of the development of the ASW module for the LCSs), they'd deleted things like the hull mounted sonar, and fitted extra full length Mk41 VLS tubes to increase the Tomahawk capability. And worse, they're being built by the shipyard that fucked up the Freedom class, so I would not be surprised if there are engineering failures discovered once the first few hulls are in the water.
The U.S. Navy has a serious addiction to OPM. Going way back, the _Perry_ Class. More recently the _Zumwalts_ and _Ford_ . Now banana boats. Must be the Navy's turn to look incompetent. The Army and AF have certainly had theirs. The Navy has been kicking the LCS concept around for thirty years or more.
Your video quality keeps getting better. Loved this! Why is the maximum speed of nuclear vessels classified whereas non-nuclear ships have their top speed declassified?
Part of that would be the types of vessels that are nuclear powered. It's a good idea to not tell a potential adversary how long it would take to park a super carrier within striking distance If they decide to act up
Do conventional ships REALLY have their top speed declassified? Official USN number for a Wichita-class AOR was "20+ knots". General Dynamics released "21 knots". I saw AOR-3 exceed 21 knots so many time I can't count them. As for the reason, a crumb here, a crumb there, and you can eventually derive a lot of information that you shouldn't have. A nuclear carrier is steam-driven. Nothing new and exciting when it comes to driving props with steam turbines via reduction gears. It's the REACTOR specs that are the big secret. If you can collect enough information regarding performance, then you can start to make some educated guesses about the capabilities of the nuclear side of the plant. It's all a matter of plugging variables into equations and then solving for the unknowns.
Every LCS mission you cited with the exception of mine warfare are traditional Coast Guard missions. Paint a half dozen white with an orange stripe, turn them over to the Coast Guard, keep another half dozen for Naval Reserve trainers and scrap/cancel the rest.
@@cgmason7568 We have been through this. It is a sunk cost to the Navy and a free capital asset for the Coast Guarc that requires a smaller crew than medium endurance cutter. It would be the equivalent of a Treasury Class with one third the crew. Personnel costs are the biggest component of lifecycles costs. The smaller crew would more than offset the other operating costs. It would be a good platform for drug ops, sanctions enforcement and anti privacy ops.
@@cgmason7568 Doesn't have the speed? The LCS has a max speed of 40+ knots. The Bear Claas medium endurance cutter has max speed of Standard type battleship. It does have less endurance but how much endurance does it need to operate in Caribbean for drug ops or the Horn of Africa for sanctions enforcement or antipiracy work? The biggest component of lifecycles cost is personnel. It has half the crew of a Bear Class. You can also strip some of the weapons systems an associated electronics that Coast Guard does not need to further reducing the O&S costs. The ship is already and paid for. The Navy no longer wants the ships and it is costing them money own and operate them. I am sure they would be glad to give them to the Coast Guard. Overall they are much more capable even after removing unneeded systems than any current large cutter
@@johnshepherd8687 that's their designed speed but do due engineering issues they don't combine gears, the endurance is only 3,000 miles that's nothing, and why are you comparing to a ship from the 80s and not the NSC which is from 2006-now?
When I see the ship, I only see the 57 mm gun. I would appreciate the ships if a video was made on the three combat configurations. I like the concept of the modular plug-out weapon systems. I was involved in futurist tank designs during the Falkland War. We thought about a track vehicle that had an anti-air module, an anti-armor, and an infantry support module. The army never saw the concept of this vehicle. In WW2, at Salerno, 88 guns were taking out LSTs. Minesweepers had to clear channels so that destroyers could take out the 88s. After the 88's were taken out the main role was anti-air. A similar thing happened at Anzio and Normandy. Thinking out way out of the box, perhaps modules could be specialized drones, ie drones for mine clearing, drones for antisub. Anti-air could be done by placing a vehicle like the Russian Pantsir on the flight deck.
These light vessels are all for pre-emptying the enemy strikes with their counter measures, since they are way too small to absorb much of actual punisment. That`s they power, with own striking abilities..
the only thing that concerns me is that much combat starts with an ambush situation. so youre going to have to weather the 1st blow and still be able to respond.
I enjoyed the video and learned some things, what I found funny is you are running a museum ship and not in the motion picture industry at all, but your walkie has painter tape with what I assume is you name on it as if you were on a motion picture set.
Hey Ryan, have you seen the rfp responses for the new ff? One defense comentator showed a drawing for the new ff (before winner was announced). The design looked like a meme, a 26ft rib with a paintball gun for main weapon with oars for propulsion.
I think the LCS is a perfect concept for anti-piracy/smuggling/drugs executed poorly. The US Navy needs a ship just large enough that gun, a helicopter, and 2 small boats and a small crew of marines for boarding. Things like VLS and CIWS aren't needed. A trimaran hull with a high top speed paired with having numerous smaller ships would be able to patrol and protect shipping/smuggling lanes way better.
Biggest problem with the ship is it’s made of aluminum and not steel Any modern anti ship missile is going to cause serious damage A modern torpedo exploding under the keel will break it in half
@@cgmason7568 Yeah, you actually have to y wait in base barracks for their ship to be operational.leave the dry dock to be efficient. The Navy saves money on the smaller crew size as the crew waits in the barracks for the ship to float again and go through certification and acceptance again. Yeah! Efficiency! Cost savings!
Norway experienced that, when they had an accident and sunk one of there frigates, they had a crew of only 105+ on a 133 meter frigate, and they was all tired from a big NATO/Norwegian exercise. Today, for example the frigate that is escorting CVN Harry S. Truman in the meds, have a crew of around 150.
@@FP194 That would be true if it was made out of steel. It’s the same situation as it is for any ship (besides maybe a carrier). An ASM causes a mission kill, a torpedo or two causes the ship to sink.
I read that the conventional hull version (I forget what class) has a combining gear problem that also limits it to low speed. The trimaran one has the wrong kind of beam supporting the pontoons and it's leading to them wanting to crack away from the main hull. As common as CAD and 3d simulations are, I'd think the Navy would've paid for someone to check the engineering math a couple times before they built nine of them.
Thanks for the video Ryan. I was wondering if you can make or have any videos on submarines in the U.S. navy? I plan on joining and going into sub service but i think it would be an intresting idea or video change. The engineering behind those boats are crazy and how they operate, especially with the new Columbia class being made replacing the Ohio class. Anyways great video as always, its always nice to learn about the mechanisms with these boats.
well- it kind of appears to be a rather large, very modern replacement of MTBs or those hydrofoil things that could exceed 40knots in their time. MTBs (the german navy used to have very nice Excocet carrying so called S-Boats, back in the days ...) to operate in the Baltic approaches. fast, relatively powerful and punching above their weight. the LCS sure have to prove themselves, when they have settled down to routine ops. hopefully they free up some money to build proper DDGs or CGs for fleet ops.
You did an awesome job covering the vessel but As has been said by many people, the independence class LCS would be more of an asset to the Coast Guard than the Navy!
The Independence could've replace the aging Cyclones. The Freedom could've been a general purpose vessel with mission modules, the experience gained would become the basis for a new frigate. My country's Kedah-class (MEKO 100 based) is similar in size to the Freedom but armed with just a typical 76mm Oto and 30mm autocannon. It also has a helipad and hangar and it is used for patrolling territorial waters and EEZ.
The LCS ships just don't have any / enough firepower for their size. If they are expected to be in range of shore bombardment, they are shooting targets at best, and don't have any firepower to respond to more than one gun shooting at them. They certainly can't defend themselves against a Chinese or Russian frigate, or corvette, let alone a destroyer
These ships were never designed to be ships of the line. The Navy has missions that don't pit them against larger more heavily armed ships. They were designed to fill missions that don't pit them against large surface combatants. Plus its size is due to its modular design. A large portion of its internal volume is empty space for its mission package. Plus there are weapon module locations where anti-surface missiles like the NSM, Harpoon and Hellfire missiles can be put in place. So a fully armed LCS is capable of self defense if attacked. But it is not a platform to use in offensive anti-surface actions or be an air defense platform like a DDG or a cruiser.
The base model of the LCS is needed; A 110MK Bofar Gun, 50 cal mounts and maybe CIWS Chain gun or SEA RAM. The mission area should used to accommodate a Marine Platoon or even Marine Company (3- 40 Foot Mission Modular Containers) if tested. The flight deck could accommodate Ospreys or Apache landings. I don't know if it has been tested for F35b landing yet. I think a Marine ManPad unit could also be housed now.
Was this what the Pegasus class PCM was supposed to do in the 80s. It’s propulsion system ended up decommissioning them. Fast shallow water low endurance middle armed patrol craft. Yes the LCS is bigger, but still has a similar mission and big problems. Wasted money. You could have taken a design similar to the USCG 270’ changed propulsion to gas turbine (vs diesel) and probably came within 5kts or so of the LCS speed with a much cheaper much much more reliable vessel. Doesn’t matter how many bell & whistles a ship has if it’s always in port being repaired .
Do you see the navy introducing or increasing corvette and frigate numbers to fill the patrol and light escort roll. LCS seems like a specialized frigates.
SIngle hull LCS is the way to go. Look at us swedes. 72meters perfection in the Visbyclass of ships. And no need of mission packages. Everything installed from the start( well VLS are getting installed soon??)
Apparently, it is a class of ships that are decommissioned almost as fast as they are built. The idea they are the future of the Navy is debatable. There is a comment by USMMCE yesterday that has good information as to why these ships broke down so much in the beginning.
I think it's an experimental prototype and should be treated as such. However, I wonder if it'll be able to carve out a niche for itself or will it just be folded into frigates or another class. Lightly built patrol vessels are definitely needed, but I am not convinced the LCS is the answer.
Littoral ships look like big boy coast guard ships or peacetime compromises personified. From what I've heard having the repair crew be contracted has only been problematic and ultimately more expensive.
The Navy was definitely flawed in thinking that almost all maintenance would/should be done by contractors. The lower availability of qualified workers has led to these crew having to constantly deploy around the globe, driving up costs. The Navy has realized their error & are taking strides to do more onboard & with their own forces.
@@cgmason7568 That's your opinion. They have a role that they can fill quite admirably, freeing up higher end ships. The new frigate will slot nicely in between LCS & the Arleigh Burkes.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for pointing out that these ships missions were never intended to go head to head with higher end ships, thus they weren't designed to handle that kind of damage. I'm glad to see that they are getting some more teeth but the trite argument of "they aren't survivable against higher end threats" is disingenuous at best.
These are cool and all, look like a great idea. Ain’t that what the Coast Guard is for? I mean they’re a real military branch. They should have these, the Navy needs the big boys IMHO.
I served on two frigates in the USN that did Law Enforcement Ops (LEO). It was OK for FF/FFG types to do that now and then. It's not OK for a DDG to do that in the Caribbean or off Somalia or anywhere else. That is a total waste of a scarce & expensive capable warship that should be doing fleet work. The biggest mistake on the LCS program was the propulsion plant requirement of 40 knots, which produced a horribly designed plant & poor operational reliability. The weapons systems were OK as designed. The USN has a history of building warships devoid of weapons then retrofitting capability afterwards; thinking Spruance & Knox classes as built. Had the USN required a reasonable 32 knots or so, they could have put two LM2500s as a conventional CODAG design set up and had little or no issues. You can always up-arm a warship. You can't change the propulsion plant. The LCS, properly envisioned & designed & built, could have been a great addition for low intensity assignments to free up the DDGs for the important work. In the end, the whole program was ill conceived waste of money.
i got an invite to the commisioning of uss minneapolis st. paul in duluth . what an awsome ship. when i was in the navy i was on a lst long slow target. lcs fast nimble go get them boys
Looking back to American naval practices in the age where New Jersey was built and conceived, damage control was a huge consideration in US naval training. It was what I (from a layman history buff’s perspective) see as a significant key to American success at sea in the Second World War. This damage control accompanied with hundreds or thousands of crewmen seems like it would certainly be manageable. How do you view the LCS’s ability to perform damage control with such small crews? Clearly the vessel is nowhere near the size of a battleship, but it’s size is comparable to a Sumner Class destroyer albeit with less than one fifth the crew size. Are there any standout modern technologies that you think will aid modern crews in this? Or rather their stealth, speed, and sensors (combined with the tactical operation and mission set of the ship) offer them an advantage to where damage control is seen as secondary to damage avoidance? Apologies if my train of thought is slightly confusing, I’m just curious.
Hi Ryan, just a stupid question, obviously naval doctrine has changed massively since the Iowas first hit the drawing board but if a modern ships gun was fired at an Iowa class battleship, would the shell be capable of puncturing the arament?
What is a Littoral Combat Ship? A waste of money originating from faulty Naval think tanks in the late 90s/early 00s that couldn't conceive of the need for larger ships with the fall of the USSR so tried to save money with smaller ships with modular designs. The smaller ships proceeded to fail at being cost effective, and the modularity was no where near as easy to switch out as it was supposed to be. That is on top of being redundant as near-peer adversaries have appeared with China's massively expanding Navy (and illegal sea claims), and Russia going crazy again. On the plus side, the Constellation Class frigates replacing these seem far better. Both cost effective (re-using a proven design), and better for larger fleet actions.
LCS? the unofficial acronym is well known. The Independence Class might have some potential to insert SEAL/Commando teams and such , with it better stealth, high speed , helicopters and Boat/Vehicle bay, that is about it. The module bit is never going to work, so no ASW, MCM, or SWM.
@@DeeEight Hope you're getting paid for your comment. But please expalin what a module inserted into this ship accomplishes as far as "Surface warfare". The new SSM boxes destroy the stealth aspects of the the ship and what do these "boxes" do? They don't carry launch able cruise missiles. so wtf do they do? As to the MCM- they have nothing that fits in a module that works. And as to ASW, you have got to be joking, they can fly a helo, which is it, the ship has no extra ASW weapons , outside the basic sensors the hull has and that is it. Are you Dwayne ? or just some other squid shill? Your comment is crap, just like the LCS is. Get back when you know something about the effectiveness of the LCS. It is a chit boat MIC scam., dreamed up by some USMC generals and USN admirals/officers, and other defnece contractors working in cohoots with MIC corporations, so they could have gravy jobs after getting out.. It is a phucking useless boat for the USN, or for any navy for that matter. And I am not even into the mechanical/maintenance issues of that boat. Can't even call it a blue-water ship, because of the maintenance/mechanical issues. Regards
Hmmmm...I am certain my deployment off the coast of Iran in 1980 was longer than anything that New Jersey performed. To quote a press release from 2002: "On Feb. 19, the Roosevelt broke the previous record held by the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was at sea for 152 consecutive days in 1980 during the Iranian hostage crisis.." It is unstated that this was preceded by over 90 continuous days at sea broken by an unplanned 5-day port visit to Singapore precipitated by a border skirmish by Viet Nam into Thailand.
Typically they are not deployed in the same manner as other surface combatants. They are rotated to forward operating ports like Singapore where they remain forward deployed for 12 months or more, and crews rotate there to keep the ships on station. The US Navy has bases around the world where they can be kept anywhere they are needed.. One could argue if that is cost effective as compared to a destroyer, but that is another matter.
Littoral Combat Ships have a classification based on letters A-C that determine how stealthy they are. C Littoral ships are the most stealthy, as the vast majority of men have a hard time locating and finding Class C Littoral ships. For some reason, female radar operators do not seem to have a problem with this though.
I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to go there. C Littoral ships indeed. That said, they CAN be located...if you use a large enough missile and the proper approach profile.
Hey Ryan, at 4:21, you show a clip of guys manning the rails, and doing what I believe to be “Cheer Ship”. While I was there this was only performed one time, Sydney Australia. Is that a photo from then? I was starboard aft during this event, but this looks to be starboard forward. Can you confirm this photo location?
I kinda think the Zumwalts might have died to mission creep. My understanding is their primary design goal was to be "land attack destroyer" and to provide long range short bombardment capabilities. Not be a massive multirole ship.
The trouble is that mission hasn't been viable in the decades since anti-ship missiles came online. It's a job done more safely by planes. They're also more versatile and have much better range. Our doctrine is about hitting harder, faster, and deeper, and needing a prolonged shore bombardment just means we already failed.
Not mission creep. Congressional meddling in their budget and development. There was supposed to be 32 ships, with two advanced gun systems each, with some thousand rounds of guided 155mm long range shells each. As the order was cut, that also reduced how many guns would be built and how much ammo would be procured, and the unit prices for all this new stuff was based on the 32 ship run, in order to spread the R&D costs out across the total production run. When it finally dropped to 3 ships, well now there would only be 6 guns and 6,000 ish rounds of ammo, and now the guided shells went from about $60k each to a million plus each, or basically as much as something like a harpoon missile.
@Battleship New Jersey an LCS is a large Corvette. Also, LCSs are “Green Water” ships rather than Blue Water, though the Navy seems to be upgrading them to become more survivable in Blue Waters.
Savannah has a bigger flight deck than a destroyer or frigate that operate a manned helicopter and a firescout unmanned helicopter. In addition it will have 8 NSM antiship missles. That is a lot of firepower in a small package. What ever happened to the 1800 ton destroyers of WW2 that did all the unglamorous jobs such as radar picket duty or hunting Japanese supply barges around Guadalcanal?
The WWII 1800-tonner had a crew of 350 with about 15 officers. The LCS has a crew of 40-70 with 4 officers. The LCS is not intended to go up against a standard warship, or indeed against anything heavier than a speedboat "armed" with a couple of soviet-era surplus RPGs and some AK47s. It definitely feels like a solution in search of a problem, far too easy to mission-kill since its gunnery system lacks redundancy and the crew isn't capable of making even minor repairs.
The best way is to get navy engineering crew to get involvd during the LCS construction as observers. This to make sure they know very well about the ship that soon were operated by them after complition n hnd over to Navy.
I'm just an army ground pounder, but I think these ships are at best going to be glass cannons and at worst are going to be very expensive ocean floor reefs following any real engagement. Carriers are important but I think the navy needs to go back to the type of force that they had in ww2. Meaning capital ships that are purpose designed to dish and take damage, cruisers designed mainly for gunfire support and force protection, and destroyers that act as the screen for the fleet. This thing the navy seems to have about building "cheap" (yet also somehow expensive) and complex throwaway ships aren't going to accomplish much of anything other than getting a lot of people killed.
The reduced crewing requitement is going to be a game changer in the long term. Too bad two years later the US is planning to decommission all LCS ships in favor of yet another new frigate.
![Eminem - Fuel (feat. JID) [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t5H_CewqpKA/mqdefault.jpg)
When the LCS's first came out, the Navy did not train the Engineering Crews properly and it showed in some of the break downs. One of them had a water leak on one of the Main Engines. There was a Drip coming from a smaller hole on the Water Pump. Someone put a PLUG into the hole and called it good. This hole was the tell tale to show when the seal is going bad. That plug caused the crank case to fill with water, which they kept pumping out. Int the end that engine was a Total Loss and had to be removed for replacement! There were so many of this type of problems and it all lead right back the Command not giving the crews the training that they needed!
It's also worth noting that the vast majority of the propulsion failures has been due to a design defect of the Freedom variant, which is being addressed now.
I have reservations about how the concept is implemented. What about damage control and relative self-sufficiency during operations. Contractors don't make house calls in a conflict zone and pulling out a unit from operations for a repair that the old navy did routinely on board somehow doesn't compute.
@@mikecimerian6913 did you watch the video? It clearly states that the ships were never intended to engage in high end combat. As such they were designed to an improved commercial standard if I remember correctly. As for maintenance, reality has smacked the Navy in the face pretty firmly with these ships. They are working towards being able to do more maintenance onboard & with their own forces in port.
I think it also came out in some relatively recent readiness investigations that poor training was par for the course in the Navy. Who knew that forcing partisan politician indoctrination instead of actually teaching people to do their jobs would be be a bad thing /s
@@bamascubaman in short the Navy made a lot of short sighted decisions with the LCS and got a ship that is less effective than a refitted Oliver Hazard Perry class would have been. Any ship capable of conducting high end combat will be pressed into service for that role under the stresses of war so skimping on structural design will come back to bite crews should the worst occur during their service lives.
I really wish Ryan _hadn't_ explained the presence of a giant ambulatory banana, that would've been hilarious.
LOL! Me too!
Agreed, especially if the banana started photobombing the video
As a USMC grunt, I would love to see a video on the history and future of amphibious troop transport ships like HLD and LPD types like Essex, Juno and the former Bonhomme Richard!
I'd like to see that too. I feel like I really missed out being on a ship that didn't have marines on it, instead we had to carry our own seabags. :)
Me too. My father was an Electrician's Mate on the Vancouver LPD 2 when they sent the first Marines into Vietnam from 1964 to 1967-8.
As a USMC Intel pogey, I'd like to see that too
Well, the USS Wasp LHD-1's scheduled decommissioning is mid 2030's with the rest following about 5 years after that.
Yesterday I heard in the news that the LCS is being discontinued. The reasons are that the ship does not have offensive weaponry and the crew is soo small that if there are any loss of staff during an event, there would not be enough staff to continue operating the ship.
The word you were looking for there was 'impeller'. They are essentially the same thing as a centrifugal compressor in a turbine engine but instead of compressing and moving air, it is moving water.
Great video. I learned a lot. I wasn't even familiar with the word Littoral. I first read it with a "C" in front.
Clitoral combat has destroyed more than a few empires. And probably saved quite a few marriages...
As someone from Savannah, I find the presence of the giant Banana to be quite hilarious. Also nice to see the Navy commissioning another Savannah, been far too long since a ship has held that name, though personally I was hoping that one of the new Columbia-class boomers would get the name, though I think other than Columbia herself they are going to be named after states.
Great and informative video. The concept of the LCS is to provide a specific type of ship for a specific category of missions. 40 knots is quite impressive. It is not a destroyer or a conventional frigate Your comment that some of the problems early LCS's have had is due to new technology and designs. That is a normal result of new tools. "Frigate' has had several meanings in the post-WWII Navy. Some frigates from the 1980's were reclassified as cruisers. The DDE's of WWII were close to a common concept of a frigate, and some of the LCS missions might be similar to what a frigate can do.
LCS was conceived at a time when there was no blue water threat posed by a peer adversary. They are designed to fill specific mission roles that would not put them in high intensity combat. Interdiction, counter piracy, ASW and minesweeping are missions that fall into this area.
The problem is that 20 years later, the geopolitical environment has changed with what is called the "Great Power Competition" by the Navy. Second, the heart of what these ships were built for, the mission packages are years behind schedule and overbudget. Only the surface warfare package has been successfully fielded.
Even given all of this, the Navy still needs a small surface combatant. These ships can fill vital missions that would free up larger combatants to perform larger strategic roles like conducting strike warfare, ballistic missile defense and major anti-surface engagements and air defense. If the cost of maintaining and operating this ships can be kept inline with conventional surface combatants, it will remain a viable platform. But if the Constellation class frigates prove to be of better value for the money, I can't see LCS as being sustainable in the long term.
They basically used the budget for LST, Hydrofoils and other small vessel of the United States Navy. Now, they just need to just build them to do just taxi and hotel service for Marines.
It's a ship not made for rhetorical or figurative combat but for littoral combat.
Thank you, I'll see myself out...
Nice.
Ha!
Which aspect was most ground breaking? The Idea of Mission packages. However, current plans are ship will probably never have them changed out. Secondly Mission pagkages have ended up just being another means for politicians, designers, maybe also builder to SIPHON defense dollars into JOBs money for their area.
Couple of points for clarification. The mission modules/packages were initially intended to be able to get swapped out in hours, the reality was days, which is still relatively quick. Every time one of the mission packages was delayed congress cut back on its funding, which put it further behind.
The modularity is something that has a ton of potential but it's not a mature enough concept to implement as intended right now. In no small part, that's due to a lot of contractors only innovating on someone else's dime.
The mission package concept as implemented on the LCS is not the best version of such a system (Stanflex takes that), but the vast majority of these criticisms fall apart on closer examination.
First, the Danish ships with Stanflex typically carry the same modules in the same locations, especially those with the 76 mm gun module. In these cases, the modularity allows for rapid replacement after potential damage or to bulk up a particular area as necessary.
Second, by separating the mission packages into separate divisions, we simplify logistics during peacetime. They can be swapped if necessary, but there is zero reason to do so regularly.
Third, by using mission packages, we have the same base hull that can perform multiple missions, which actually reduces costs compared to specialized units.
I’d personally have chosen a slightly more flexible system where you could trade out one module for another as necessary rather than the all-or-nothing mission package concept, but while we didn’t choose that initially that potential is still there for as long as these ships are in service.
You mean the portion of your paycheck that the government arbitrarily decides is theirs to waste as they please.
Awesome coverage as always! Being from Mobile, and having worked at both Austal, on the independence class LCS (14,16,18,20,22), and FMM, on the freedom class LCS (15,17,19)in Wisconsin, I can wholeheartedly say these ships are over sold by the navy to cover up how much they are over spending for these vessels! They are revolutionary in many ways but they were rushed in manufacturing relative to the volume of these ships that have been produced. Too many of the same mistakes made over and over again because of rushed production!!!!
I worked on USS Freedom. You gave a good overview on the LCS class.
the most groundbreaking feature of these is the cost overruns. Wait, that's standard operating procedure for the Navy.
Yep. Including some *$13 BILLION* aircraft carriers.
With carriers you get what you pay for.
With LCS, you pay monthly for everything you get...
Basically sold the USN a subscription plan for mediocre ships. Wild what idiot thought paying for-profit to do the work of sailors was a good idea! I'm sure he's pretty rich now though.
A $400,000,000 speed boat.
Would make a well armed Charter....🤔🎣
Yes. But who doesnt love an armed speedboat?
It also is a WiFi hotspot
@ Kind of. Its overqualified in some areas and completely useless in others. It has nowhere near the range necessary and onboard facilities specific to the mission of the coast guard.
@@dragonbutt he's referring to the Coast Toasties looking at one or the other I forget which at the behest of Congress and turning their nose up at it.
What would you rather be commissioned on: A refurbished and modernized USS Iowa Class battleship or a modern LCS?
I would choose the Iowa class every time!
Much Safer!!!
According to the original specifications for the Gerald Ford, she would only need a crew of about 4500. That's 1000 fewer than all the previous super carriers. Modern electronics is what is making this possible. That includes the magnetics for the cats and cables and elevators. I think the concept of the LCS is great. Getting it to work is going to be the hard part. Changing crews may not be that good a deal. Ships need a lot of maintenance. To make the Blue/Gold crew work well, the ship really needs to be in condition to deploy as soon as the new crew comes aboard and all the mission specific armament is loaded aboard. If the ship has to sit in dry dock, or at a pier, for 3-5 months, going through refit, that's not good.
Great at what?
@@DeeEight An FFG7 could have done any of the same work and I doubt that the sonar suite meant for ASW will work for minesweeping. Minesweepers are made to eliminate all magnetic signatures and I doubt that they managed to remove every large bit of steel from these littoral ships. Even the FFG7 had a poor sonar for mine location. When we were in the Gulf we used VISUAL means to locate the mines Saddam let drift into the gulf. Former Sonar Tech here. They tried to market these ships as the do it all ships but the module swapping has been shown to take what amounts to a regular yard visit to swap out and is hence not cost effective. Some officers managed to get themselves nice jobs upon retirement with the contractors building and servicing these ships and the Navy got sold a bag of crap.
@ That's possible. I still maintain that the concept was a good one. Waste of money? Maybe. You never know unless you try.
@ger du I'm sorry but how is a top-of-the-line US anti-ship missile the Firepower of an Apache. The independence class has been getting anti-ship missile launchers attach them in the Pacific because independence-class actually can work unlike the freedom class which apparently has the transmission of a WWII German heavy tank.
@@clonescope2433 then the firepower of a Seahawk.
Anti ship missions are really not the LCS’ intended purpose and it wouldn’t be good at them. The US relies on naval aviation for that, and we are really good at that. Instead of launching an old ship launched ASM, why not launch arguably the best ASM in existence, the LRASM, from an airborne carrier launched fighter?
Thank you sir. That was a question I wanted answered.
To change the subject. I once could of got a 16" HE round from Iowa class ship for free. Problem was, I had very little time to get it. Didn't have a pickup truck to move it and was by myself and just moving it from the bookstore where it was left was basically impossible.
I might point out, this happened in Victoria BC, just a hop skip and a bridge from Esquimalt.
I'm sure most folks interested in naval history will know where that is and the significance it has to things naval, especially Canadian and British.
Given that uncle sugar doesnt like even 40mm baton rounds to be sold to the population, the giving of a 16 inch H.E Shell seems rather far fetched
@@victoriaregina8344 it wasn't loaded, had no fuse and where the hell would anyone find a 16" gun to shoot it out of?
Either way, I'm sure it'd be classed as a DEWAT.
Brilliant and distinctively high level. I like this more technical and nuanced kind of video. Also, it reveals or showcases Ryan's deep knowledge. Keep up the good work!
I'm really liking the way you presented this I appreciate it.
As a student on ship design, at around 10 minutes in this video, you could have said, they were trying to do too much on the displacement, where the technology was what was supposed to give the capability, but, we are not quite there yet to build the capability into a small enough module you can swap in and out, and the experiment failed. The modular package theory does work for what needs to be done, but the package you can swap in or out is to enhance the capability for what needs to be good enough without it. We'll see what happens next on this, where the much bigger Constellation FFG is the result of the lesson learned. PS, as a small detail, want to do a video on why submarines are boats and not ships? There is a reason why you have COB and not CMC :) And would love it if you could get invited to have the Dick O'Kane's cribbage board on a video and teach the history of it.
You should do a comparrison of this modern LCS to the original LCS (L) of the late WW2 era.
My favorite part is at 9:50 when the Banana looks up like "I was not gathering intel for anyone..."
I was very confused by that banana. Thanks for clearing that up.
I’m of two minds about the LCS. One is they don’t seem to be cost effective and appear to get used in blue water rather than littoral waters like designed. However there is a place for a small combatant in the fleet. Also they named LCS-29 after my home town which I appreciate
The LCS concept had to be modified as the global situation changed. When conceived, we expected to be fighting nations like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, where these ships would do well and where shallow water operations were critical. But in the 2008-2012 timeframe, we realized we needed to shift to blue-water operations (which killed Zumwalt) and needed new ships as rapidly as possible. Speed mean existing designs, which were Burke and the LCS, so the LCS was tweaked to fit the new expected roles.
You have to examine cost-effectiveness in a broader scope than just the ship itself. Remember that for each of these we have doing menial chores or chasing drug smugglers, we have one more DDG to allocate to more important duties like hunting subs or escorting CSGs. When the only other alternative at the time was to buy more Burkes (since Congress axed a proper Perry replacement), LCS is by far and away the more economical option.
@@GintaPPE1000 One way around that is to simply embark a USCG detachment on whatever USN ship is available, and make drug interdiction a collateral duty.
It's amazing how quickly a fishing trawler can actually heave to when a US Navy ship goes to GQ 100 yards away...even if it is a 650' oiler. This was, of course, after the trawler figured out that their 15 knots wasn't going to outrun a ship designed to deploy with a battle group.
The LCS is a vessel looking for a mission. A frigate sized vessel with the capabilities of patrol boat. The Navy's new frigate is going to use the same worthless gun. Better to have built more patrol boats similar to the Cyclone class. Also, the reduced manning is good for the budget, but considered insufficient for proper damage control.
The prupulsors sound like what the super cat ferry's use. These are fuel hungry but are robust enough for a commercial vessel.
I would have definitely have not mentioned the 7 foot tall banana, but made sure it was in nearly every picture I took of the ship. :)
Given that the Navy has capped the buy of LCS (the new _Constellation_-class are basically slotting in where a bigger buy of LCS was originally planned) and are already taking the early vessels out of service, there seems to be some disagreement on whether the LCS represents "the future of the Navy."
And then there's the Zumwalt class....
Another Navy failure conceived about the same time.
He specifically, and one can assume deliberately, referenced the systems and technological developments on these ships as main examples representing the future of the navy. In fact, had you spent less time on being a pedant and more listening, you would have realized the shift toward building smaller, cheaper ships in greater quantities was clearly communicated as the most pertinent statement concerning the future of the navy.
Well they've only taken two out of service and then halted operations on the troubled Freedom class, but I think the Navy came full circle it seems like the role the LCS classes were supposed to fill or light fast-attack boats akin to torpedo boats, and with some of the modifications the independence classes got in the Pacific specifically anti-ship missiles it's funny to me it seems like the Navy came full circle except bigger this time.
@@Trebuchet48 I wouldn’t say the Zumwalt was a failure. It has a use: being a testbed for advanced and innovative technologies that will be implemented on a large scale with the DDG(X) program. While it was expensive and a bit too ahead of its time, it will at least serve a legitimate purpose, unlike the LCS.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 the primary purpose of the Zumwalts was to add a gun based long range firepower capability to the Navy. They failed spectacularly given that the Navy deemed the ammunition for said long range guns too expensive to procure and the majority of the tech developed that will translate into DDG(X) from Zumwalt is just it's computers. These could have been implemented on flight IIA or flight III Burke class ships in place of AEGIS. We have a bigger, more expensive missile destroyer that carries less missiles than an Arleigh Burke or a Ticonderoga and yet exceeds both in displacement for the gain of a somewhat stealthy hull form. That's a disgrace.
The Savannah Bananas are the perfect mascot for these ships
Ryan - You are correct in stating that the LCS ships are unproven in today's Navy however as to cost they are not cheap to build or operate. I hope the new Constellation Class Frigates can be built in large numbers for a reasonable price as the Navy desperately needs more escort vessel's.
Are US freighters getting harassed? Or did you mean as patrol boats if we were to ramp up against china and start enforcing fishing zones?
Small ships build the fastest and evolve the fastest, I think the strategy of having a heavy roster of capital ships and rebuilding the light fleet has always served Navies well but it seems unpopular
Compared to what it would cost to build a modern battleship... they're likely VERY cost effective.
@@DeeEight you are funny 😅😅😅😅
@@DeeEight A better radar and VLS cells is very important. The ships will likely also be better able to integrate future technology onto them.
The new Connies are not going to be the simple "off the shelf" solution the navy originally sold them as to Congress. For what was SUPPOSED to be a ASW primary role frigate (because of the failure of the development of the ASW module for the LCSs), they'd deleted things like the hull mounted sonar, and fitted extra full length Mk41 VLS tubes to increase the Tomahawk capability. And worse, they're being built by the shipyard that fucked up the Freedom class, so I would not be surprised if there are engineering failures discovered once the first few hulls are in the water.
The U.S. Navy has a serious addiction to OPM. Going way back, the _Perry_ Class. More recently the _Zumwalts_ and _Ford_ . Now banana boats. Must be the Navy's turn to look incompetent. The Army and AF have certainly had theirs. The Navy has been kicking the LCS concept around for thirty years or more.
Your video quality keeps getting better. Loved this!
Why is the maximum speed of nuclear vessels classified whereas non-nuclear ships have their top speed declassified?
Part of that would be the types of vessels that are nuclear powered. It's a good idea to not tell a potential adversary how long it would take to park a super carrier within striking distance If they decide to act up
Do conventional ships REALLY have their top speed declassified? Official USN number for a Wichita-class AOR was "20+ knots". General Dynamics released "21 knots". I saw AOR-3 exceed 21 knots so many time I can't count them.
As for the reason, a crumb here, a crumb there, and you can eventually derive a lot of information that you shouldn't have. A nuclear carrier is steam-driven. Nothing new and exciting when it comes to driving props with steam turbines via reduction gears. It's the REACTOR specs that are the big secret. If you can collect enough information regarding performance, then you can start to make some educated guesses about the capabilities of the nuclear side of the plant. It's all a matter of plugging variables into equations and then solving for the unknowns.
Every LCS mission you cited with the exception of mine warfare are traditional Coast Guard missions. Paint a half dozen white with an orange stripe, turn them over to the Coast Guard, keep another half dozen for Naval Reserve trainers and scrap/cancel the rest.
Coast Guard doesn't want them
@@cgmason7568 We have been through this. It is a sunk cost to the Navy and a free capital asset for the Coast Guarc that requires a smaller crew than medium endurance cutter. It would be the equivalent of a Treasury Class with one third the crew. Personnel costs are the biggest component of lifecycles costs. The smaller crew would more than offset the other operating costs. It would be a good platform for drug ops, sanctions enforcement and anti privacy ops.
@@johnshepherd8687 they are far too expensive to run and don't have speed or endurance
@@cgmason7568 Doesn't have the speed? The LCS has a max speed of 40+ knots. The Bear Claas medium endurance cutter has max speed of Standard type battleship. It does have less endurance but how much endurance does it need to operate in Caribbean for drug ops or the Horn of Africa for sanctions enforcement or antipiracy work? The biggest component of lifecycles cost is personnel. It has half the crew of a Bear Class. You can also strip some of the weapons systems an associated electronics that Coast Guard does not need to further reducing the O&S costs. The ship is already and paid for. The Navy no longer wants the ships and it is costing them money own and operate them. I am sure they would be glad to give them to the Coast Guard. Overall they are much more capable even after removing unneeded systems than any current large cutter
@@johnshepherd8687 that's their designed speed but do due engineering issues they don't combine gears, the endurance is only 3,000 miles that's nothing, and why are you comparing to a ship from the 80s and not the NSC which is from 2006-now?
I can't stop thinking of it as a 'literal combat ship', as in oh wow! it's literally a combat ship!
When I see the ship, I only see the 57 mm gun. I would appreciate the ships if a video was made on the three combat configurations.
I like the concept of the modular plug-out weapon systems. I was involved in futurist tank designs during the Falkland War. We thought about a track vehicle that had an anti-air module, an anti-armor, and an infantry support module. The army never saw the concept of this vehicle.
In WW2, at Salerno, 88 guns were taking out LSTs. Minesweepers had to clear channels so that destroyers could take out the 88s. After the 88's were taken out the main role was anti-air. A similar thing happened at Anzio and Normandy. Thinking out way out of the box, perhaps modules could be specialized drones, ie drones for mine clearing, drones for antisub. Anti-air could be done by placing a vehicle like the Russian Pantsir on the flight deck.
Nice! Thanks for the breakdown... I was getting a bit confused! 😎🖖👍
1:33
The default reply when a layman asks a question you KNOW they won't understand the answer to.
Trimaran is the future. Allows much greater weapons topside and outer hull can take enemy hits while protecting personnel in the main hull.
It also allows for a much larger hangar.
These light vessels are all for pre-emptying the enemy strikes with their counter measures, since they are way too small to absorb much of actual punisment. That`s they power, with own striking abilities..
@@Ah01 What part of "they are not designed for higher end combat & thus aren't likely to be deployed in such environments" do you not understand?
Excellent info video ryan never knew what was meant by littoral combat ship!!👍
the only thing that concerns me is that much combat starts with an ambush situation. so youre going to have to weather the 1st blow and still be able to respond.
And the Navy doesn't like tanking hits.
@@rinzler9171 who does?
We do the ambushing around here. ;)
Not so hot on contractors handling maintenance.
I enjoyed the video and learned some things, what I found funny is you are running a museum ship and not in the motion picture industry at all, but your walkie has painter tape with what I assume is you name on it as if you were on a motion picture set.
Hey Ryan, have you seen the rfp responses for the new ff? One defense comentator showed a drawing for the new ff (before winner was announced). The design looked like a meme, a 26ft rib with a paintball gun for main weapon with oars for propulsion.
I think the LCS is a perfect concept for anti-piracy/smuggling/drugs executed poorly. The US Navy needs a ship just large enough that gun, a helicopter, and 2 small boats and a small crew of marines for boarding. Things like VLS and CIWS aren't needed. A trimaran hull with a high top speed paired with having numerous smaller ships would be able to patrol and protect shipping/smuggling lanes way better.
I think the biggest problem with the LCS is that the crew is too small. If they take any casualties, critical jobs aren't going to get done.
Biggest problem with the ship is it’s made of aluminum and not steel
Any modern anti ship missile is going to cause serious damage
A modern torpedo exploding under the keel will break it in half
And that they keep breaking
@@cgmason7568 Yeah, you actually have to y wait in base barracks for their ship to be operational.leave the dry dock to be efficient. The Navy saves money on the smaller crew size as the crew waits in the barracks for the ship to float again and go through certification and acceptance again. Yeah! Efficiency! Cost savings!
Norway experienced that, when they had an accident and sunk one of there frigates, they had a crew of only 105+ on a 133 meter frigate, and they was all tired from a big NATO/Norwegian exercise. Today, for example the frigate that is escorting CVN Harry S. Truman in the meds, have a crew of around 150.
@@FP194 That would be true if it was made out of steel. It’s the same situation as it is for any ship (besides maybe a carrier). An ASM causes a mission kill, a torpedo or two causes the ship to sink.
1:06 You are right. That would have been funny.
"There is going to be a banana in the background... Moving on."
Thanks for the coin Ryan! Anytime you want to come see more of the main gun again let me know.
How do littoral ships do on rough water or in severe storms? Is it a rough ride?
thank you for explaining this..
All of which are to be decomissioned by end of the next yeah as hull defects limit it to 15 knots.
I read that the conventional hull version (I forget what class) has a combining gear problem that also limits it to low speed. The trimaran one has the wrong kind of beam supporting the pontoons and it's leading to them wanting to crack away from the main hull.
As common as CAD and 3d simulations are, I'd think the Navy would've paid for someone to check the engineering math a couple times before they built nine of them.
Thanks for the video Ryan. I was wondering if you can make or have any videos on submarines in the U.S. navy? I plan on joining and going into sub service but i think it would be an intresting idea or video change. The engineering behind those boats are crazy and how they operate, especially with the new Columbia class being made replacing the Ohio class. Anyways great video as always, its always nice to learn about the mechanisms with these boats.
It appeared that some of te crew members of the new ship could use some PT.
well- it kind of appears to be a rather large, very modern replacement of MTBs or those hydrofoil things that could exceed 40knots in their time. MTBs (the german navy used to have very nice Excocet carrying so called S-Boats, back in the days ...) to operate in the Baltic approaches. fast, relatively powerful and punching above their weight.
the LCS sure have to prove themselves, when they have settled down to routine ops.
hopefully they free up some money to build proper DDGs or CGs for fleet ops.
You did an awesome job covering the vessel but As has been said by many people, the independence class LCS would be more of an asset to the Coast Guard than the Navy!
The Independence could've replace the aging Cyclones. The Freedom could've been a general purpose vessel with mission modules, the experience gained would become the basis for a new frigate. My country's Kedah-class (MEKO 100 based) is similar in size to the Freedom but armed with just a typical 76mm Oto and 30mm autocannon. It also has a helipad and hangar and it is used for patrolling territorial waters and EEZ.
Well i guess next we'll see "What is a Coastal Patrol Craft (PC)." Luckily you got the best one up in Philadelphia, USS Tornado.
The LCS ships just don't have any / enough firepower for their size. If they are expected to be in range of shore bombardment, they are shooting targets at best, and don't have any firepower to respond to more than one gun shooting at them. They certainly can't defend themselves against a Chinese or Russian frigate, or corvette, let alone a destroyer
Who said they'd have to go up against a destroyer?...
These ships were never designed to be ships of the line. The Navy has missions that don't pit them against larger more heavily armed ships. They were designed to fill missions that don't pit them against large surface combatants. Plus its size is due to its modular design. A large portion of its internal volume is empty space for its mission package. Plus there are weapon module locations where anti-surface missiles like the NSM, Harpoon and Hellfire missiles can be put in place. So a fully armed LCS is capable of self defense if attacked. But it is not a platform to use in offensive anti-surface actions or be an air defense platform like a DDG or a cruiser.
@@dmac7128 so they need DDG’S that where not expected for costal environments for babysitting, go it
If a banana is the mascot, is Dayo their theme song? Love your vids, keep them coming!
It would be criminal not to play that at every game.
The base model of the LCS is needed; A 110MK Bofar Gun, 50 cal mounts and maybe CIWS Chain gun or SEA RAM. The mission area should used to accommodate a Marine Platoon or even Marine Company (3- 40 Foot Mission Modular Containers) if tested. The flight deck could accommodate Ospreys or Apache landings. I don't know if it has been tested for F35b landing yet. I think a Marine ManPad unit could also be housed now.
Spinal tap reference, nice.
Was this what the Pegasus class PCM was supposed to do in the 80s. It’s propulsion system ended up decommissioning them. Fast shallow water low endurance middle armed patrol craft. Yes the LCS is bigger, but still has a similar mission and big problems. Wasted money.
You could have taken a design similar to the USCG 270’ changed propulsion to gas turbine (vs diesel) and probably came within 5kts or so of the LCS speed with a much cheaper much much more reliable vessel. Doesn’t matter how many bell & whistles a ship has if it’s always in port being repaired .
Do you see the navy introducing or increasing corvette and frigate numbers to fill the patrol and light escort roll. LCS seems like a specialized frigates.
Watching Victory at Sea on the Roku. Film of the bombardment of Iwo Jima. Would be cool to see the Iowa's in action .
SIngle hull LCS is the way to go. Look at us swedes. 72meters perfection in the Visbyclass of ships. And no need of mission packages. Everything installed from the start( well VLS are getting installed soon??)
@@DeeEight True. Im no ship expert but i think the total size of ship takes a toll on the ship it self. Swe Visby is only 72meters and 600 tons.
Wondering if the tri hual design can improve the ships survivability from torpedos.
Apparently, it is a class of ships that are decommissioned almost as fast as they are built. The idea they are the future of the Navy is debatable. There is a comment by USMMCE yesterday that has good information as to why these ships broke down so much in the beginning.
I think it's an experimental prototype and should be treated as such. However, I wonder if it'll be able to carve out a niche for itself or will it just be folded into frigates or another class. Lightly built patrol vessels are definitely needed, but I am not convinced the LCS is the answer.
Littoral ships look like big boy coast guard ships or peacetime compromises personified. From what I've heard having the repair crew be contracted has only been problematic and ultimately more expensive.
They are about the size of cutters but way more expensive
The Navy was definitely flawed in thinking that almost all maintenance would/should be done by contractors. The lower availability of qualified workers has led to these crew having to constantly deploy around the globe, driving up costs. The Navy has realized their error & are taking strides to do more onboard & with their own forces.
@@bamascubaman but they are still building more, which is sad
@@cgmason7568 That's your opinion. They have a role that they can fill quite admirably, freeing up higher end ships. The new frigate will slot nicely in between LCS & the Arleigh Burkes.
@@bamascubaman except they can't and don't do the mission they were designed for
Thank you, thank you, thank you for pointing out that these ships missions were never intended to go head to head with higher end ships, thus they weren't designed to handle that kind of damage. I'm glad to see that they are getting some more teeth but the trite argument of "they aren't survivable against higher end threats" is disingenuous at best.
Great video.
You mean Little Crappy Ship. Fixed it for you.
These are cool and all, look like a great idea. Ain’t that what the Coast Guard is for? I mean they’re a real military branch. They should have these, the Navy needs the big boys IMHO.
Coast Guard doesn't want them
The USCG would be making a big mistake taking these fine vessels
You do realize that coast gaurd goes on deployments too right they don't just stay in US waters lmao
I served on two frigates in the USN that did Law Enforcement Ops (LEO). It was OK for FF/FFG types to do that now and then. It's not OK for a DDG to do that in the Caribbean or off Somalia or anywhere else. That is a total waste of a scarce & expensive capable warship that should be doing fleet work. The biggest mistake on the LCS program was the propulsion plant requirement of 40 knots, which produced a horribly designed plant & poor operational reliability. The weapons systems were OK as designed. The USN has a history of building warships devoid of weapons then retrofitting capability afterwards; thinking Spruance & Knox classes as built. Had the USN required a reasonable 32 knots or so, they could have put two LM2500s as a conventional CODAG design set up and had little or no issues. You can always up-arm a warship. You can't change the propulsion plant. The LCS, properly envisioned & designed & built, could have been a great addition for low intensity assignments to free up the DDGs for the important work. In the end, the whole program was ill conceived waste of money.
Most ship's speeds go to ten, ours goes to eleven.
i got an invite to the commisioning of uss minneapolis st. paul in duluth . what an awsome ship. when i was in the navy i was on a lst long slow target. lcs fast nimble go get them boys
Looking back to American naval practices in the age where New Jersey was built and conceived, damage control was a huge consideration in US naval training. It was what I (from a layman history buff’s perspective) see as a significant key to American success at sea in the Second World War. This damage control accompanied with hundreds or thousands of crewmen seems like it would certainly be manageable. How do you view the LCS’s ability to perform damage control with such small crews? Clearly the vessel is nowhere near the size of a battleship, but it’s size is comparable to a Sumner Class destroyer albeit with less than one fifth the crew size. Are there any standout modern technologies that you think will aid modern crews in this? Or rather their stealth, speed, and sensors (combined with the tactical operation and mission set of the ship) offer them an advantage to where damage control is seen as secondary to damage avoidance? Apologies if my train of thought is slightly confusing, I’m just curious.
Hi Ryan, just a stupid question, obviously naval doctrine has changed massively since the Iowas first hit the drawing board but if a modern ships gun was fired at an Iowa class battleship, would the shell be capable of puncturing the arament?
They've never tested it, so unclear. However, modern ships have pretty small guns, so her armor would likely do well.
What is a Littoral Combat Ship?
A waste of money originating from faulty Naval think tanks in the late 90s/early 00s that couldn't conceive of the need for larger ships with the fall of the USSR so tried to save money with smaller ships with modular designs. The smaller ships proceeded to fail at being cost effective, and the modularity was no where near as easy to switch out as it was supposed to be. That is on top of being redundant as near-peer adversaries have appeared with China's massively expanding Navy (and illegal sea claims), and Russia going crazy again.
On the plus side, the Constellation Class frigates replacing these seem far better. Both cost effective (re-using a proven design), and better for larger fleet actions.
LCS? the unofficial acronym is well known. The Independence Class might have some potential to insert SEAL/Commando teams and such , with it better stealth, high speed , helicopters and Boat/Vehicle bay, that is about it.
The module bit is never going to work, so no ASW, MCM, or SWM.
@@DeeEight Hope you're getting paid for your comment. But please expalin what a module inserted into this ship accomplishes as far as "Surface warfare". The new SSM boxes destroy the stealth aspects of the the ship and what do these "boxes" do? They don't carry launch able cruise missiles. so wtf do they do?
As to the MCM- they have nothing that fits in a module that works.
And as to ASW, you have got to be joking, they can fly a helo, which is it, the ship has no extra ASW weapons , outside the basic sensors the hull has and that is it.
Are you Dwayne ? or just some other squid shill?
Your comment is crap, just like the LCS is.
Get back when you know something about the effectiveness of the LCS.
It is a chit boat MIC scam., dreamed up by some USMC generals and USN admirals/officers, and other defnece contractors working in cohoots with MIC corporations, so they could have gravy jobs after getting out..
It is a phucking useless boat for the USN, or for any navy for that matter. And I am not even into the mechanical/maintenance issues of that boat. Can't even call it a blue-water ship, because of the maintenance/mechanical issues.
Regards
Hmmmm...I am certain my deployment off the coast of Iran in 1980 was longer than anything that New Jersey performed. To quote a press release from 2002: "On Feb. 19, the Roosevelt broke the previous record held by the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was at sea for 152 consecutive days in 1980 during the Iranian hostage crisis.." It is unstated that this was preceded by over 90 continuous days at sea broken by an unplanned 5-day port visit to Singapore precipitated by a border skirmish by Viet Nam into Thailand.
Actually I think he was talking about a deployment off of Lebanon.
Been wondering about that banana for so long lol
If new jersey came back im sure it would have volunteers lined up to serve on her
With a smaller crew IMHO also comes less hands to handle problems when it hits the fan.
Do LCSes have the ability to deploy to other areas of the world effectively? If they do not, I see them as a step away from the mission of the navy.
Typically they are not deployed in the same manner as other surface combatants. They are rotated to forward operating ports like Singapore where they remain forward deployed for 12 months or more, and crews rotate there to keep the ships on station. The US Navy has bases around the world where they can be kept anywhere they are needed.. One could argue if that is cost effective as compared to a destroyer, but that is another matter.
Littoral Combat Ships have a classification based on letters A-C that determine how stealthy they are. C Littoral ships are the most stealthy, as the vast majority of men have a hard time locating and finding Class C Littoral ships. For some reason, female radar operators do not seem to have a problem with this though.
I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to go there. C Littoral ships indeed. That said, they CAN be located...if you use a large enough missile and the proper approach profile.
Hey Ryan, at 4:21, you show a clip of guys manning the rails, and doing what I believe to be “Cheer Ship”. While I was there this was only performed one time, Sydney Australia. Is that a photo from then? I was starboard aft during this event, but this looks to be starboard forward. Can you confirm this photo location?
The hydrofoil concept probably were they got most of there ideas for these
I kinda think the Zumwalts might have died to mission creep. My understanding is their primary design goal was to be "land attack destroyer" and to provide long range short bombardment capabilities. Not be a massive multirole ship.
The trouble is that mission hasn't been viable in the decades since anti-ship missiles came online. It's a job done more safely by planes. They're also more versatile and have much better range. Our doctrine is about hitting harder, faster, and deeper, and needing a prolonged shore bombardment just means we already failed.
Not mission creep. Congressional meddling in their budget and development. There was supposed to be 32 ships, with two advanced gun systems each, with some thousand rounds of guided 155mm long range shells each. As the order was cut, that also reduced how many guns would be built and how much ammo would be procured, and the unit prices for all this new stuff was based on the 32 ship run, in order to spread the R&D costs out across the total production run. When it finally dropped to 3 ships, well now there would only be 6 guns and 6,000 ish rounds of ammo, and now the guided shells went from about $60k each to a million plus each, or basically as much as something like a harpoon missile.
Do you think the Hydrofoil will back a comeback?
@Battleship New Jersey an LCS is a large Corvette. Also, LCSs are “Green Water” ships rather than Blue Water, though the Navy seems to be upgrading them to become more survivable in Blue Waters.
"What is a Littoral Combat Ship?"
Well, Ryan. It's a swindle of tax-payers money. That's what it is.
Just like NATO. We'll take your money then do nothing with it.
Savannah has a bigger flight deck than a destroyer or frigate that operate a manned helicopter and a firescout unmanned helicopter. In addition it will have 8 NSM antiship missles. That is a lot of firepower in a small package. What ever happened to the 1800 ton destroyers of WW2 that did all the unglamorous jobs such as radar picket duty or hunting Japanese supply barges around Guadalcanal?
The WWII 1800-tonner had a crew of 350 with about 15 officers. The LCS has a crew of 40-70 with 4 officers. The LCS is not intended to go up against a standard warship, or indeed against anything heavier than a speedboat "armed" with a couple of soviet-era surplus RPGs and some AK47s. It definitely feels like a solution in search of a problem, far too easy to mission-kill since its gunnery system lacks redundancy and the crew isn't capable of making even minor repairs.
The best way is to get navy engineering crew to get involvd during the LCS construction as observers. This to make sure they know very well about the ship that soon were operated by them after complition n hnd over to Navy.
9:53 was that some ammo that became sentient? reference 2:38
I'm just an army ground pounder, but I think these ships are at best going to be glass cannons and at worst are going to be very expensive ocean floor reefs following any real engagement.
Carriers are important but I think the navy needs to go back to the type of force that they had in ww2. Meaning capital ships that are purpose designed to dish and take damage, cruisers designed mainly for gunfire support and force protection, and destroyers that act as the screen for the fleet. This thing the navy seems to have about building "cheap" (yet also somehow expensive) and complex throwaway ships aren't going to accomplish much of anything other than getting a lot of people killed.
Hard to believe the Navy hasn't heard that it's bad luck to bring bananas on a boat.
The reduced crewing requitement is going to be a game changer in the long term. Too bad two years later the US is planning to decommission all LCS ships in favor of yet another new frigate.
Just a "C" short of a good time!
Did you stick around for the decommissioning ceremony the next day?
a littoral combat ship actually fights (vs a figurative combat ship) :-)