
Congress is spending $400M on a ship the DoD doesn't want - JPKab
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/littoral-combat-ship-congress-navy-pentagon-400-million-pork-214009
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mikeash
Contrary to the title here, the Navy _does_ want these ships, but the
Department of Defense doesn't. "The military" isn't a monolithic entity.
Congress is favoring one branch over that branch's nominal bosses, but it's
not like they're buying something nobody wants.

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sctb
Thanks, we updated the submission title to make that clearer.

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SerLava
IMO it should say "that the navy wants, but the DoD doesn't"

But that would make it a pretty boring story.

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coldcode
We have too many ships as it is, buying more ships that don't function is
stupid, but business as usual. Buying excessive military hardware is
contractor welfare after all. How many carrier battlegroups is enough? We have
11, I think they want to build another half dozen.

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VLM
Just to inject some facts, the LCS rather optimistically handles 6 separate
missions, and one of them is replacing 70 OHP-class frigates from forty or so
years ago. The LCS ship count is down to 40 and still dropping.

The "doesn't work" bit is because they're too cheaply made and try to do six
missions. If it costs $1 to build a CPU and you offer a 75 cent contract for a
six core processor, you're gonna get a brick in a box not a working CPU.
They're in damage control now, what is the strategy that minimizes bad press
WRT spending money upfront or on repairs...

Another interesting fact is "all" new ship classes are clunkers for the first
couple ships and first couple years. It would be newsworthy if the LCS worked
perfectly outta the box. Because that would be an indication things were over
spec'd and contracts were padded increasing the bill higher than it should be,
so we'd be showered with reports of the new ripoff being overbuilt and padded
for profit. There is no way for the Navy to win on any possible scenario of
new ship classes. So I wouldn't read much into the journalist complaining, it
doesn't mean anything substantial.

There is the true fact that if you try to replace an auto mechanic's $10K
toolchest with a swiss army knife, that might be engineering-possible but
you'll have to blow $100K and it might not work as well as dedicated tools.
The idea itself of "saving money" by running six different missions using 40
multipurpose ships to replace 70 ships in itself might be a pretty dumb
strategy but the only way to find out seems to be to try.

Its interesting to consider a 2010s OHP frigate. A little architectural fine
tuning, call it the OHP-II, the cost savings would be staggering so buy 60 of
them for less money than the 30 or so LCS we're likely to end up with... Of
course you'd be stuck with a cold war mission core design. It might very well
be that a post cold war littoral mission is just simply going to cost more
money than bluewater cold war missions. Post cold war should in theory
nationwide be cheaper, that doesn't mean all possible missions magically will
become cheaper.

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jessaustin
_Its interesting to consider a 2010s OHP frigate. A little architectural fine
tuning, call it the OHP-II, the cost savings would be staggering so buy 60 of
them for less money than the 30 or so LCS we 're likely to end up with... Of
course you'd be stuck with a cold war mission core design._

That sounds nice, but I've seen no indication that today's Pentagon is capable
of purchasing such a product. What do other countries with littoral interests
use? Could we buy the same thing as e.g. Indonesia or Nigeria, and then just
tart it up with some fancier electronics?

Has _any_ mission actually become cheaper since the Cold War?

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VLM
Generally speaking the LCS is an imperial tool. No other nations will have
anything quite like it. Which is why we're not calling it our answer to the
Russian WTF-class or going in halfsies with our UK-bros. No foreign sales,
just a bit of "that's interesting" from a half dozen countries. Its an R+D
platform to the very highest levels, not just nuts and bolts level innards.
Its a revolutionary ship, not an evolutionary ship. Revolutionary ships have
always been very expensive and slow to produce. Sometimes they just don't
work. This aspect is not covered in the linked article. Sometimes experiments
like "the aircraft carrier" turn out pretty well, other times things like
"electromotive propulsion (diesel train style)" don't work so well.

I think its possible all missions are more expensive. During the cold war it
was all about looking scary to the Soviets but not actually firing thereby
starting WW3. Post cold war its constant hot fire missions invading and
occupying countries, the modern Crusades in the middle east and all that.
Actually shooting weapons is always more expensive than merely looking tough.

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jessaustin
To this ignorant observer, the task is: traveling and occasionally fighting,
in shallow coastal water. That requires a ship with shallow draft, which meets
certain minimums for maneuver, survival, and deadliness. Those minimums would
have to be developed with an understanding of previous military experience in
shallow coastal water. USA certainly has such experience, although maybe it's
40 years out of date? Have there been no more recent conflicts in such an
environment? That seems unlikely, so it would be an indictment of the Pentagon
if such had been ignored while developing this ship. That would also be
confirmation of TFA's point that this program should be canceled. Another such
confirmation would be to learn that some airy ridiculous notion like "imperial
tool" were ever considered by the designers.

The first aircraft carriers were big boats with flat decks. The effect may
have been "revolutionary" but the design certainly wasn't.

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rubidium
"designed too ambitiously to fulfill too many roles and, as a consequence,
well over its budget, flawed in its execution and struggling to meet even
minimal operational requirements."

History repeats ad nauseam. Watch the dark comedy Pentagon Wars movie
(featuring the Bradley fighting vehicle) for another example.

We now have examples on land (Bradley), air (F-35) and sea (Littoral) of over-
scoped, massively wasteful projects.

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astrodust
Don't forget the Osprey which was plagued with problems as they tried to make
a helicopter-plane.

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linkregister
I consider it one of the biggest mistakes in Marine Corps aviation. It has an
abysmal safety record and performs its mission half as well as the aircraft it
replaced.

I've lost two friends from Osprey crashes, so I have a personal (and perhaps
biased) viewpoint.

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Aelinsaar
Honestly, this is pretty small time, and contrary to the title there is some
demand. By contrast we seem to just shrug at the F-35 program as it races past
$1.5 trillion in sunk costs.

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cowardlydragon
The navy is largely pork. The modern navy is defenseless against any modern
state's antiship ballistic missiles.

