0:02 on today's episode of what's going on
0:04 with shipping propublica has published
0:07 the inside story of how the Navy spent
0:11 billions on the little curtain
0:12 Little Ships
0:15 hi I'm your host Salma cogliano so yeah
0:18 propublica went full bore in calling the
0:20 littoral combat ships the little crappy
0:23 ships a nickname that many of on the
0:26 waterfronts of U.S Navy bases have for
0:29 the littoral combat ships this is a
0:31 program that has gotten a lot of
0:33 attention over the past two decades and
0:34 while what's going on with shipping
0:37 tends to focus on commercial shipping I
0:39 think this is really reflective too of
0:41 shipbuilding issues within the United
0:43 States that impact not just the US Navy
0:46 but also commercial shipbuilding and
0:47 more importantly the ability of the US
0:50 Navy to be out there on the waterfront
0:52 ensuring the safe movement of goods
0:54 around the world if you're new to the
0:56 channel hey take a moment subscribe to
0:57 the channel and hit the Bell so you'll
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1:00 out all right let's go ahead and look
1:02 into some little crappy ships
1:04 so before we even start let's talk about
1:07 my pet peeve with littoral combat ships
1:09 first up the designation littoral combat
1:12 ships these were a class of ships along
1:15 with cgx and DDX were going to be
1:16 developed at the beginning of the 21st
1:17 century they're going to be a next
1:20 generation of vessels post Cold War
1:24 looking forward to the 21st century and
1:26 littoral combat ship was just the
1:28 concept name for them it was not
1:29 supposed to be their whole designation
1:32 they are known as LCS they're a
1:34 designated LCS 1 through 30 something
1:37 and they never should have been this
1:38 they should have been a frigate they
1:39 should have been a Corvette they should
1:41 have been a patrol whatever something
1:44 calling them lcs's is just a thing the
1:47 Navy has started to do with things it's
1:49 like designating Sea Wolf uh submarines
1:52 SSN 21 they were the 21st century
1:54 submarines being built and instead they
1:58 gave them the hull numbers SSN 21 22 23
2:00 calling these things LCS is like
2:02 designing you know
2:05 uh you know big honking ship and then
2:07 calling it BHS one and two and three
2:10 it's it's stupid I I don't know why the
2:12 Navy did it and you would think this is
2:13 the worst thing they would have done but
2:16 that's not it either the two ships are
2:18 from two classes there's the freedom
2:21 class the model hole on the left and
2:23 then the independence class the trimaran
2:24 on the right
2:27 and I have never seen proof of this but
2:30 I am almost a hundred percent sure that
2:31 the derivation of these names come from
2:34 One Source freedom is not a name that's
2:35 been used very much in the history of
2:38 the US Navy Independence has the the
2:41 last Independence was a aircraft carrier
2:44 a uh a forestall-class aircraft carried
2:45 before it there was a light aircraft
2:48 carrier class named for it but I'm
2:50 pretty sure that these things come from
2:52 the movie Armageddon because that was
2:54 the name of the two space shuttles that
2:56 were used uh Armageddon comes out in the
2:59 late 1990s and then this class is
3:02 developed in the early 2000s I am almost
3:04 100 sure somebody sat there and said
3:06 let's name them after freedom and Independence
3:08 Independence
3:11 gotta love the US Navy all right this is
3:13 in truth all part of a larger plan by
3:15 the U.S Navy to develop what was then
3:20 conceived as a 355 ship Force goal 355
3:22 ships were nowhere near that we're under
3:25 300 ships now but these lcs's were part
3:26 of this and they were going to be part
3:28 of the 52 ships that made up what was
3:31 called the small surface combatants
3:33 we were getting rid of the frigates the
3:35 old Oliver has Perry frigates we're
3:37 going away we're phasing out the
3:39 minesweepers that we had the mcm's and
3:42 the mhcs and the idea was you're going
3:45 to build 52 littoral combat ships and
3:47 these vessels would provide a
3:48 multi-mission role that we're going to discuss
3:50 discuss
3:52 this is from
3:55 the Congressional research study that
3:57 was done on the Navy littoral combat
3:59 ships these are updated periodically
4:02 this is on backgrounds and issues for
4:04 congress they talk about the issue about
4:06 the 355 ship Force call but then they
4:09 say this the ls LCS is a relatively
4:11 inexpensive surface combatant we're
4:13 going to talk about that in a second the
4:16 uh with modular Mission packages the LCS
4:18 program included two different very uh
4:21 two very different LCS designs LCS won
4:23 the freedom and lcs2 the independence
4:25 built at different yards lcs1 is built
4:28 up in marionetta Wisconsin with uh
4:31 Marinette marine and Lockheed and lcs2
4:34 is built down at austal USA in Mobile
4:37 Alabama the LCS program has been
4:39 controversial over the years due to the
4:41 Past growth design and construction
4:44 issues with the first LCS concerns over
4:46 survivability concerns over whether
4:48 lcs's are sufficiently armed it would be
4:50 able to perform their stated missions
4:52 effectively and concerns over the develo
4:54 element and testing of the modular
4:57 Mission packages for lcs's the Navy's
4:59 execution of the program has been a
5:01 matter of congressional oversight
5:05 attention for several years this has led
5:07 to a GAO report that is very similar to
5:10 that that the LCS has not demonstrated
5:12 the operational capabilities it needs
5:14 operational testing has been found
5:16 several significant challenges including
5:18 the ship's ability to defend itself if
5:20 attacked the Navy is behind in
5:23 developing the mission modules GAO found
5:25 the lcs's frequently encountered
5:26 challenges during deployments that's
5:29 being very nice the Navy has begun to
5:30 take steps to address some of these
5:33 issues but it does not have a
5:35 comprehensive plan to address it and
5:38 without that comprehensive plan there's
5:41 concerned about future deployments this
5:43 in turn has led propublica to put this
5:45 piece together and I read through the
5:47 full propublica piece if I have a
5:50 criticism of it right off the bat I will
5:53 tell you is that it's dated there's
5:55 there's newer information out there than
5:57 what's in this this thing just came out
6:00 on September 7th 2023 but it is not a
6:03 full kind of iteration of all the problems
6:04 problems
6:08 it is a typical propublica piece uh very
6:09 well done they always have these snazzy
6:11 little Graphics here with it I do like
6:13 the fact that when you phase out from
6:16 the LCS what you see is a Ticonderoga
6:18 class cruiser and spruance class
6:20 destroyers that are nowhere around
6:22 anymore but they're all kind of rusty
6:24 which has been a big issue with the Navy
6:27 but then it goes into the full piece
6:29 here and it has a couple of key
6:32 takeaways right right here one Navy
6:33 secretary and his allies in Congress
6:35 fought to build more littoral combat
6:37 ships even as they broke down at Sea in
6:39 their weapon systems failed the Navy
6:41 wound up with more ships than it wanted
6:43 an estimated lifetime cost more than 100
6:46 billion or more the Navy's hasted
6:47 delivery ships took precedent over
6:50 combat ability without functioning
6:52 weapon systems the vessels are like
6:54 quote box floating in the ocean one
6:57 former officer said third Sailors and
6:59 officers complain they spent more time
7:00 fixing the ships than sailing them we're
7:02 going to talk about that top Navy
7:03 commanders Place pressure on
7:05 subordinates to sail the ships even when
7:07 the crews and vessels were not fully
7:09 prepared to go to Sea finally several
7:12 major breakdowns in 2016 exposed the
7:14 limits of the ships and their Crews each
7:16 adding fresh embarrassment to a program
7:19 meant to propel the Navy into a more
7:21 advanced technologically advanced future
7:23 I'm not going to go through the full
7:25 propublica piece because it's massive
7:27 instead I want to look at another piece
7:29 they put out that looks and highlights
7:31 and eight things you need to take or
7:33 need to know about the Navy's failed
7:36 multi-billion dollar littoral combat
7:37 ship program
7:39 so item number one Navy officials vastly
7:41 underestimated the cost to build the
7:43 ships in estimates provided to Congress
7:45 the original price tag more than doubled
7:47 the concept of LCS was we're going to
7:49 build a ship that's going to operate in
7:52 the littorals close to the shore they're
7:54 not going to be front line units they're
7:56 not going to go toe-to-toe against enemy
7:58 destroyers and and you know basically be
8:00 front line units but they're going to
8:02 perform the missions that are kind of secondary
8:03 secondary
8:05 they're they're kind of the the Cerritos
8:08 of the U.S Fleet you know they're not
8:09 supposed to be the front line they're
8:11 not the Starship Enterprise but instead
8:13 they're the the kind of the secondary
8:15 vessel the problem is the cost went
8:16 through the roof there was supposed to
8:19 be about 220 million a piece they're now
8:22 costing over half a billion a piece and
8:25 not only that the ships provide a lot but
8:26 but
8:29 to get what they provide you lose a lot
8:31 and what do I mean by that
8:33 so these ships are extremely fast you're
8:35 talking about over 40 knots most ships
8:38 Navy vessels will hit maybe about 30 35
8:41 knots that tends to be the limit where
8:44 it goes these ships push well beyond
8:47 that and understand on any vessel you
8:49 can get three things whether you're a
8:51 warship or a commercial Vessel number
8:55 one speed the more speed you want the
8:57 more you lose if you if you imagine a
8:59 ship is like a pie graph these are the
9:01 three areas you have
9:03 so number one is speed the faster you go
9:05 that takes up room that can be used by
9:07 other things so you need a bigger plant
9:09 you need more engine space you need more
9:11 horsepower more battery more everything
9:13 this is going to take up a huge amount
9:16 of room second range these ships do not
9:19 have huge range but they do consume so
9:22 much fuel that fuel is a major component
9:24 of these vessels because you're going so
9:26 fast you need a lot of fuel on these
9:28 vessels but you don't have long range so
9:33 food I mean Fuel and and power eat up a
9:35 lot of the spaces and then what you have
9:38 left is really room for weapon space or
9:40 Cargo in the case of a cargo ship in
9:41 this case it's weapon space and these
9:43 ships are really short on weapon space
9:46 they don't have a lot on weapons and the
9:49 weapons they do have have a fatal flaw
9:51 as you're going to find out so all of
9:53 these contribute to this concept right here
9:54 here
9:56 or the vessel costing much more with
9:59 them plus the propulsion systems are a
10:01 problem unto itself which we'll discuss
10:03 so number two the ships were supposed to
10:04 be equipped with interchangeable weapon
10:06 systems to allow them to fight hunt
10:09 submarines and detect mines and navy
10:11 failed to make this happen so as in the
10:13 story they talk about the fact that one
10:15 of the chief of Naval operations went
10:18 and goes witnessed the Danish Navy with
10:20 what's called Stand Flex the the Danish
10:22 Navy developed a system which is modular
10:24 that you can plug and play these modules
10:27 into their ships and the U.S Navy love
10:29 those they thought that this is a great
10:31 way we can turn ships into
10:33 surface-to-surface vessels they can
10:36 fight other ships on the high seas or
10:38 they can be used to anti-submarine to
10:40 hunt submarines or they can be used to
10:42 hunt mines
10:44 and the idea is you plug and play you
10:45 pull these modules off you drop them in
10:48 and boom you're set and go problem is it
10:50 never work that way and more importantly
10:52 the Navy never designed the modules
10:55 first they designed the ships first and
10:57 then the modules came second they never
10:59 took the time to design the modules
11:02 necessary and you know put them on a
11:04 test vessel of some kind run them out
11:07 there to make sure that it worked the
11:09 way they wanted so for example the
11:11 anti-submarine weapons don't work at all
11:13 on this ship they've actually decided
11:16 not to fit any anti-submarine Warfare
11:19 because this towed sonar system that was
11:20 going to be pulled behind the vessel
11:22 doesn't work very good because the ships
11:25 generate so much noise and so much wake
11:28 that it disrupts the uh the ability of
11:32 the towed array to hear that and really
11:33 the only thing that's been working so
11:35 far on these vessels which took a long
11:37 time to get in is the surface Warfare
11:40 the extra guns the Mind system is still
11:42 in development which is critical because
11:44 the the US Navy has been phasing out its
11:46 minesweepers we're at a point in the US
11:48 Navy where we're in a critical shortfall
11:52 in mind detection and mine hunting gear
11:54 and they have not yet fielded the First
11:59 full complement of mine lcs's this is a
12:01 massive problem for the US Navy because
12:03 mines are what kill ships if you look at
12:05 post World War II to today what has sunk
12:08 most U.S Navy vessels in that period is mines
12:10 mines
12:12 third scores of sailors and officers
12:14 spent more time trying to fix the ships
12:16 than sailing them oh one of the selling
12:18 points of LCS was they're gonna have a
12:21 small crew 40 people I don't know if
12:22 you've ever been on a U.S Navy ship
12:24 before but the one thing that is
12:26 characteristic of a US Navy ship is
12:27 there's a buttload of people on these
12:30 ships I worked in the commercial side I
12:31 worked for military sea lift command
12:33 I've worked with commercial ships you
12:35 open a bridge of a commercial ship or an
12:36 MSC ship yeah there's people up there
12:39 you know maybe two three maybe a lot on
12:41 an MSC ship during an underway
12:43 replenishment you go into U.S Navy
12:46 bridge I have no idea who the 20 people
12:48 are up on that bridge and what they're
12:50 doing but it's a lot of people and
12:51 you're talking about getting out of the
12:54 mindset of operating with scores of
12:57 people to a crew of about 40. now you're
12:59 looking at operating about 75 so so one
13:01 of the things they had to do is put more
13:02 people on these vessels because they
13:03 realized they didn't have enough people
13:06 on board which meant their birthing and
13:08 habitability was not well planned and so
13:10 now you've got to share facilities
13:11 you've got a hot bunk and get more
13:14 people together add to it
13:16 a lot of the equipment that's on the
13:19 ship can only be repaired by the
13:21 contractors because the contractors have
13:23 proprietary software and material on it
13:25 which they will not share with the Navy
13:28 so if a diesel generator goes out if a
13:30 crane goes out you need to get a
13:32 Contractor on board to do it you get
13:34 actually periods of time where these uh
13:36 LCS Crews were trying to fix the vessels
13:38 but there was only so much they can do
13:41 because they weren't allowed to touch
13:42 some of the equipment
13:44 for the Navy relied so heavily on
13:46 contractors for maintenance repair that
13:49 Sailors and officers were unable to fix
13:50 their own ships is the the inverse of
13:52 the story by the way one time you have
13:54 you're the one aspect you have this
13:56 where the sailors are trying to fix the
13:58 ships uh they spend more time doing it
14:00 the other time they can't touch the
14:02 equipment so they're trying to fix what
14:03 they can fix they don't have enough
14:05 people to do that and then the stuff
14:07 they need to get fixed to be underway
14:09 they can't touch because they have to
14:12 wait for a contractor to come on board
14:15 and so LCS creates this weird
14:18 environment where Sailors cannot do
14:20 their jobs that they typically have done
14:22 in the past you've got to rely on
14:24 contractors and that costs a lot of
14:26 money and money that was not
14:30 appropriately planned for it just ruins
14:33 the reliability of the vessel and the
14:35 ability to deploy it
14:37 fifth a string of high profile
14:40 breakdowns at Sea beginning in late 2015
14:42 laid bare the limits of the ships and
14:43 the crew one of the things this piece
14:46 does extremely well but nowhere near
14:49 enough in my opinion is talk about the
14:51 incidence of these ships breaking down
14:53 and they don't go in enough detail about
14:55 it I would argue so one of the big
14:57 things on the freedom class the monohull
15:00 was What's called the combining gear so
15:02 to get to that high speed they did both
15:05 ships used different systems
15:09 the monohull the freedom class operates
15:11 on the diesel engines
15:12 and then to get the really high speed
15:15 you combine in gas turbines and what you
15:17 have to do is take all that power from
15:19 those engines combine it together into
15:22 water thrust coming out of jets out of
15:24 the back the independence class does it
15:26 differently by each engine Diesel and
15:28 gas turbine hooked to different Jets so
15:31 basically each engine is is kind of
15:33 slaved into a different jet the freedom
15:34 combines it all together and the problem
15:37 with that combining gear was initially
15:39 there was poor maintenance done on it
15:41 the engineering Crews were not well
15:43 trained on it then when they went into
15:45 full production they shifted the
15:47 manufacturer of the combining gear and
15:49 that combining gear was found to have a
15:51 fault in it and began to break apart now
15:54 there's a fix to to repair them however
15:57 with the US Navy has begun to do is just
15:59 retire the ships before they're even
16:01 fixed but they talk about this
16:04 in the piece the fact that these engines
16:07 began to suffer breakdowns along the way
16:08 the other piece they didn't talk about
16:10 is the independence class which is a
16:13 aluminum trimaran
16:15 you have to be careful about where you
16:17 sell that ship in terms of sea State uh
16:19 you know if you're a U.S Navy ship
16:20 driver you're used to putting the
16:21 Hammers down and barreling through an
16:24 ocean and not worried about it in an
16:25 aluminum Hull vessel you do that you're
16:27 going to crack the vessel and that's
16:29 what's happened with the independence
16:31 class matter of fact we see that with
16:34 Docking issues early on in Mayport there
16:36 was an issue in the Panama Canal because
16:38 the other problem you have with these
16:40 ships is their their water jet propelled
16:41 they're not propellers they're water
16:43 jets so imagine a jet ski if you've ever
16:45 been on a jet ski and you take your you
16:48 know hand off the throttle you have no
16:50 control over the jet ski anymore that's
16:51 the same thing with these vessels when
16:53 you have jet propulsion and you take the
16:55 power off the Jets you're going to go
16:57 wherever that ship wants to go and in
16:58 the case of several vessels they went
17:00 into the side of the Panama Canal and
17:03 damaged the aluminum's superstructure
17:04 you also had a vessel like the Little
17:05 Rock which they don't talk about in the
17:08 piece got stuck up on the Great Lakes
17:10 for a winter because it was a late
17:13 commissioning it was over in Buffalo
17:15 where the cruiser Little Rock was the
17:17 ship was delayed getting out of Buffalo
17:19 and it got iced in and trapped in the
17:22 Great Lakes for an entire winter
17:24 and again that story was not conveyed
17:26 and I think it's such a perfect one on
17:28 the lcs's
17:31 six top Navy commanders pressured
17:33 subordinates to sail even when the crews
17:35 and ships were not fully prepared to go
17:36 to seat man one of the things they do
17:39 really well in this is talk about when
17:41 lcs's were deployed out to the fleet for
17:44 Rim pack exercises out to Singapore how
17:46 the commanders were really pushing the
17:49 poor Crews to get vessels out even
17:51 though they sat there and said we can't
17:53 go we've got water in in the engines
17:57 we've got breakdowns this is unsafe and
17:59 yet they did it and in some cases
18:02 catastrophically damaged engines to the
18:04 point where ships had to be towed back
18:07 had engines had to be rebuilt it was
18:10 just a cluster I don't know why they
18:12 barreled so fast into this the whole
18:15 concept by the way was to build
18:17 two ships from the two different
18:19 construction areas one from the freedom
18:22 class up in Marinette and then the
18:24 independence class down in alstall and
18:25 they were going to build them and kind
18:26 of compete them against each other
18:27 they're actually going to build two of
18:29 each and compete them against each other
18:31 well they initially build the freedom
18:33 and Independence then they canceled the
18:35 third and fourth one the Coronado and
18:37 the Fort Worth then they re-authorized
18:39 them again those four ships were going
18:41 to be test ships they were going to be
18:42 the ones they test everything on they
18:44 were not going to be the full combat
18:47 versions but then out of those four they
18:49 were going to decide which one to build
18:51 either the the monohull freedom class or
18:54 the trimaran independence class and
18:56 instead they decide to build both which is
18:56 is
18:58 I I don't know how to say it Beyond
19:01 moronic it really is because you're
19:04 building two distinctly different
19:06 classes of vessels that are not
19:09 compatible at all together use different
19:10 equipment different Machinery that
19:12 they're just completely different
19:15 and if you have problem with one class
19:17 you can't really replace them and
19:18 they're designed for different
19:21 operational environments the US should
19:23 have chose one class and gone with it
19:25 but instead they went with both now they
19:28 did it because they wanted to get chips
19:29 out in the fleet faster there's
19:31 political pressure to do this it makes
19:33 more congressmen and Congress and
19:34 Senators happy because you're building
19:37 both in Alabama and in Wisconsin but in truth
19:38 truth
19:42 it was a disaster from the beginning and
19:44 every time anybody said let's take a
19:46 moment and pause here nobody did and
19:48 instead they kept on trucking that's
19:51 probably the worst part of this program
19:53 seven one Navy secretary and his allies
19:55 in Congress fought to build more of the
19:57 ships even as they broke down at Sea and
19:59 their weapon systems failed the Navy
20:00 wound up with more ships than it wanted
20:03 at an estimated lifetime cost about 100
20:07 billion 35 literal combat ships have
20:08 been built initially there's going to be
20:12 52 then they were down to 20 then they
20:14 went up to 32 and then they added three
20:18 more on top of the 32 for a total of 35
20:20 to keep Austin shipbuilding up and
20:23 running until it could get the contract
20:25 for the second Freedom class excuse me
20:27 the second consolation class frigates
20:29 which they haven't gotten because
20:30 Austell is in a disastrous position
20:34 right now because of its management and
20:36 what you see here all the time
20:39 is the leadership of the Navy both
20:42 civilian Secretary of the Navy and
20:46 Admirals not making good decisions uh he
20:48 talked about here former Navy secretary
20:49 Ray mabis said the Navy took the break
20:51 down seriously but it did not seem from
20:53 what we were looking at that it was a
20:54 systematic problem I don't know how Ray
20:56 maybe says that with an honest face he's
20:58 one of the longest-serving Navy
21:00 secretaries in history and yet he
21:03 watched these ships fail repeatedly over
21:05 and over again and what gets me is they
21:07 were not listening to the crews and the
21:10 people on scene who were on board the
21:12 vessel you know young Navy Lieutenant
21:14 commanders were you know getting command
21:16 for the first time are going to do
21:18 whatever they have to do to succeed
21:20 because if you fail at your your command
21:22 you're never going to become an admiral
21:24 and they put these men and women in
21:27 positions of failure every time and then
21:29 they're shocked shocked I tell you that
21:32 these things fail I don't understand
21:35 this whole program and then eight
21:37 lawmakers with shipyards districts
21:38 played a key role in expanding the
21:41 program and protecting it from scrutiny
21:43 one of the guys who came out violently
21:45 against this program was was former
21:48 Senator John McCain who ran for
21:50 president and died he and his staff were
21:52 completely against this he said that he
21:55 knew that this was a boondoggle that was
21:57 happening and tried to kill the program
22:01 on multiple times but senators and
22:03 congressmen from those areas repeatedly
22:07 would counter him on it and you know the
22:09 argument was the Navy validated the
22:11 concept they kept saying that we need
22:13 these ships for this Mission we need 32
22:16 ships we need 32 ships yet what we're
22:18 seeing right now is the Navy's retiring
22:20 these vessels ships are being towed out
22:23 away from the dock right now without
22:27 ever having had much service life is it
22:28 an August 15th Story by Mike Schuller
22:30 over G Captain U.S Navy to commission's
22:33 five-year-old littoral combat ship USS
22:36 Sioux City this is LCS 11. this is one
22:39 of of the freedom class vessels I
22:40 understand the city of Sioux City these
22:43 ships were named largely for smaller
22:45 towns and communities and so it was a
22:47 big event when the Navy decides to name
22:51 a vessel for these areas so Coronado
22:54 Fort Worth all these little towns got
22:56 these ships and and when Sioux City was
22:58 commissioned this Sioux City Iowa went
23:00 full out you know they had huge events
23:03 it cost the city lots of money to
23:04 sponsor these events and now you're
23:06 decommissioning the ship after five
23:08 years the city of Sioux City is talking
23:11 about suing the US Navy uh for to
23:13 recouping their losses over this because
23:17 these ships are being taken out and
23:19 let's be clear there were moments
23:21 moments in this program inflection
23:23 moments Bob work who was a former
23:26 Secretary of the Navy uh wrote a piece
23:28 about this talked about all the failures
23:30 of the program where the senior Navy
23:32 leadership both Secretary of the Navy
23:34 chief of Naval operations the head of
23:37 Naval sea systems command the head of
23:39 surface Warfare for the U.S Navy all
23:40 should have sat there and said this is
23:42 not working the amount of plans that
23:45 came out you know there were going to be
23:47 three crews for every two ships and then
23:49 a deployment or we're gonna have the
23:51 blue and gold system of two Crews on a
23:53 vessel uh you name it every time you
23:55 turned around there were some new LCS
23:58 plan to come out and understand the
24:00 first ship was launched in 2008 and we
24:02 still still just have one Mission set
24:05 modules for surface combat we've lost
24:08 the anti-submarine one the anti-mind one
24:11 is just coming online now but the the
24:13 idea that you've been building if you've
24:15 run through the program you've built all
24:18 35 ships now and you are retiring them
24:19 and you still don't have the mission
24:24 modules is insane it's insane it's the
24:26 reason why these ships got the nickname
24:28 not littoral combat ships but little
24:30 crappy ships now let me be clear
24:32 I am not an enemy of the literal combat
24:34 ships I oppose the US Navy
24:36 decommissioning these I think you fix
24:39 them and you make them work a hull is a
24:40 Hull and there's a lot of systems you
24:41 can do you can make them into drone
24:43 carriers you can make them into
24:45 expeditionary Warfare vessels by putting
24:47 Marines on board uh you make the mission
24:50 modules work uh you can still get 20
24:52 years out of these ships but the idea
24:55 that the Navy is Towing these off into
24:59 Reserve decommission yards is is
25:01 Criminal am I
25:03 my opinion and let me be clear that a
25:04 lot of people have written about this
25:07 over the years if you ever listen to the
25:09 podcast mid-rats with Commander
25:11 salamander in Eagle One they have talked
25:13 about this for a long time just go
25:15 through U.S naval Institute proceedings
25:18 and all the big journals simsac you name
25:20 them they have been articles written
25:22 about lcs's since the very beginning
25:25 and the criticality of it the problem
25:28 was the envisionment that Dom Rumsfeld
25:31 Secretary of Defense back in the 2000s
25:34 had was that post-cold war it's the end
25:36 of History there's going to be no more
25:38 peer-to-peer pressure peer-to-peer
25:40 conflict we're going to be in this great
25:41 world and what we'll need is small
25:43 little vessels to patrol the world's
25:44 oceans which is great this is exactly
25:46 what you kind of do need you know you
25:49 need offshore Patrol vessels offshore uh
25:52 type type vessels but these vessels
25:54 weren't built to that instead they were
25:56 built to be this gee whiz we're going to
25:58 make this the Swiss army knife of
26:00 vessels and we're not going to build one
26:02 class we're going to build two classes
26:03 and they're going to be super fast
26:06 because speed is better than armor and
26:08 defense which the British learned in the
26:10 first world war when you name a ship the
26:12 Invincible and it sunk It's not a good sign
26:13 sign
26:16 this is a flawed concept from the very
26:18 beginning if these were 30 knot vessels
26:21 with long endurance they were able to
26:23 sit on station be self-sustaining in
26:26 terms of Maintenance and Repair then you
26:27 would have a vessel that you can send
26:29 out there like an offshore Patrol cutter
26:31 or an offshore Patrol vessel and leave
26:34 them on station that's what the U.S
26:37 needed in this a vessel like that look
26:38 at the British and the river class look
26:42 at the offshore Patrol vessels that the
26:43 U.S Coast Guard is looking to build
26:45 right now or the National Security
26:47 Cutters the US Navy is building right
26:49 now that's what you needed you needed a
26:51 ship with redundancy in in propulsion
26:54 with good range with fuel efficiency so
26:56 that can cruise at low speeds and stay
26:58 on station for long times for Point
27:01 defense and can show the flag these are
27:03 not designed to go toe-to-toe against
27:06 Russian and Chinese guided missile
27:08 destroyers these were designed for a
27:09 much different Mission and I think we're
27:11 forgetting that when it comes to it
27:12 we're focusing on the negative of the
27:15 lcs's and just did for nearly 30 minutes
27:17 but there's still a platform that can be
27:19 used the U.S Navy has done this time and
27:22 time again with platforms we build
27:25 200 something four stack destroyers in
27:28 World War one and then we repurpose them
27:31 into seaplane tenders and and and and
27:33 amphibious assault ships you name it
27:36 same thing with lsts after World War II
27:37 we turn them into all these different
27:38 various things you could do the same
27:40 thing with the lcs's you just got to
27:43 have the vision the imagination to do it
27:45 and more importantly the commitment to
27:47 do it but again I just don't think we
27:50 tend to have that right now instead what
27:51 we're doing is we're phasing out lcs's
27:54 we're building frigates now up in
27:56 marionette uh the constellation class
27:58 but even them they're built to a Italian
28:01 French design the frem frigate but
28:02 they're not going to be in service until
28:07 2030. and it's only 20 23. and it's just
28:10 hard to figure out how the US Navy goes
28:12 before Congress screams that we need
28:14 ships there are threats out there we
28:16 need to counter while at the same time
28:18 you're towing away ships that are five
28:21 years old and scrapping them I just
28:23 don't understand it I hope you enjoyed
28:26 today's episode I I don't join today's
28:28 episode it's terrible I don't like
28:30 talking bad about the Navy believe me I
28:33 don't at all but it bothers me that this
28:35 happens if you enjoyed today's episode
28:36 take a moment subscribe to the channel
28:37 hit the Bell so if you learned about new
28:39 videos as they come out leave a comment
28:41 share it across social media give it a
28:43 thumbs up and if you can support the
28:44 page how do you do that well you can hit
28:46 that super thanks button down below or
28:49 go over to patreon and become a monthly
28:51 or yearly subscriber or if you'd like
28:53 you can buy yourself an LCS you can help
28:55 the US government out and take an LCS
28:57 off their hands I'm sure they'll sell
28:59 you one they have a whole batch fairly
29:01 new almost never been used very low C
