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