Why America’s Littoral Combat Ship is NOT in combat

What went wrong with the Littoral Combat Ship and did we learn any lessons? Despite the very different appearances and machinery of the two LCS variants, the Freedom and Independence classes were built to have the same overall capabilities. First among these were speed and maneuverability in shallow seas. Both variants have drafts of less than 15 feet, which is the amount of the ship beneath the surface. To pursue and catch small boats at high speeds, the LCS’ can dash at over 40 knots, potentially even 50 knots if some rumors are to be believed, making them the fastest non-nuclear surface ships in the Navy.

Edited by: Maksym
Written by: Chris Cappy & Diego Aceituno

The LCS achieves this by doing away with conventional propellers to move the ship, using high powered waterjets instead to make the vessels really scoot when they need to. Both ships weigh around 3,500 tons though with significantly different dimensions. The Freedom class has a length of 378 feet while the Independence is 418 feet in length as well as 46 feet wider than the Freedom class. This places the ships right in between the corvette and frigate sizes on the ship type spectrum we mentioned earlier, reflecting their focus on multi-mission coastal operations.

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Task & Purpose is a military news and culture oriented channel. We want to foster discussion about the defense industry.

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[Taskandpurpose]

US Congress probably: "MAKE IT MODULAR AND MAKE IT LAME!"

[thirdactwarrior]

I was a US Navy officer, then worked in the defense industry and then worked as a consultant to DoD on Finance and Logistics. This might sound cynical, but MHO, based on experience, is that to understand things like this is not to look first at the mission, capability or "bells and whistles." Follow the money and look at career paths. Look at how much money is going to what contractors for different systems, and what kind of systems get people promoted to flag rank. Small ships with smaller price tags that can be built by second tier contractors don't have the political leverage of big, high ticket ships built by first tier contractors. Bigger ships that are platforms to get skippers promoted to admiral will be more likely to get support than ones that don't. Blue water command beats out brown water command every time. The CO of a destroyer is more likely to eventually get command of a cruiser than the CO of a littoral ship. That's how it really works.

[ozhoo]

Well stated... We wanted twice the boat at half the price and ended up with half the boat at twice the price.

[stalwartteakettlepotato]

"Mom can we get corvettes? "
"We have corvettes at home. "

Corvettes at home:

[Mrbluedude]

I was part of the final crew of the Freedom, she was a good boat overall for her last few years of commissioned life. While the rest of the class was restricted to 18 knots we were still fully mission capable because she and Fort Worth had a different combining gear design from the later ships. While on our final deployment we still managed to achieve some pretty fast speeds. The FREEDOM class also in particular have some of the lowest radar cross sections of any US Navy ship class which enable them to sneak up on enemies in EMCON. The trouble is that those jets are acoustically loud and she still has quite an impressive thermal signature when those big MT30's are running.

In my opinion, scrapping those MT-30's and replacing them with a further two diesel engines and increasing fuel storage would be great for overall endurance. Combine that with installation of laser weaponary, replacing the main gun with the Leonardo Strales/Dart 76mm, adding SEWIP block III, adding those NSM's and a more effective point defense system would greatly enhance the Freedom class in general both in the Littoral zones and in blue water.

[Lockerus]

They were retired because the navy couldn’t find the littoris.

[timjfads]

I was a designer for the LCS-1. It was a nightmare project. I was told at one point that if I couldn't work 60 hours a week I might as well stay home. The Freedom took a huge hit in weight when the Navy told us to switch from aluminum to steel for the haul which crushed early speed calcs. Crawling under the grating in the phone booth engine room was rough for me on shipchecks. I can't imagine how the crew deals with those engine rooms. Good sub training I guess

[Odin]

That part near the end about the littoral combat ships being useful as test beds for other systems reminds me of the guy at a boxing gym who has perfected every technique of blocking punches with his face. That guy can't tell you what to do, but if you watch him spar, you sure as hell can learn what NOT to do.

[NimbleBard]

9:17 "But problems during construction caused delays and significant cost overruns" while the guy has "HA HA HA" on his welding mask is a great meta commentary there :D

[timtitus]

I've been directly involved with repairs on these ships. Short sighted design, bad QA, and the Navy not learning from past mistakes concerning materials, ie Aluminum in ships structures. Aluminum's inability to flex leads to cracking. We saw this in the Aluminum superstructure of both CG and Fast Frigate. This is caused by torsional stress as the ship passes through waves and swells. The bow may be pushed to starboard while the stern is pulled to port. Steel hulls can flex while Aluminum to a far lesser degree. These all lead to failure. I think the base concept and I'm talking base concept is a good one but material choices have condemned this class of ship from the beginning.

[bryonslatten]

6:00 Yep, bureaucratic thinking drove the LCS development. Years later, the USCG even offered its Sentinel-class cutter as a modern patrol boat design but the Navy rejected it and continued to bleed money into the two LCS classes. Even their Heritage-class cutter is a slow, down-armed but effective LCS-type ship that is much cheaper than an LCS. Navy doesn't want that either.

[colerape]

Cappy I spent the last 12 years of my service in the Army. My first 6 years I spent in the Navy. Even spent a few in the Air reserve. I was on the USS Fife, DD991. When I joined the crew in 1986 the ship was in yard hands conducting improvements and ship life extension. They put a lot of different things on board, the biggest addition was the Vertical Launch System. They cut a huge hole in the forecastle. When we finally deployed the ship had a badly found hull and a permanent list (it leaned to one side), because the structure was weakened by the hole in the forecastle. In high seas we would roll perilously in that direction. We were deployed out of Yokosuka Japan. We went through at least two typhoons and one major storm off San Francisco while I was on board. We always had major breakages etc (even injuries) during these times. We spent many months in Japanese ship yards trying to fix the problem. While I was on board we were only deployed for actual sea duty for two years (I was on board from 1986 to 1990. There were all sorts of other problems. The ship was eventually used for target practice and sunk in 2003. Way sooner than it should. The Navy got rid of the Spruance class for good reason. However, one of the biggest problems was a lack of oversight of the the ship yards. At least a third of the yard workers were stoned or refusing to do any work at any given time. Some of them would call in bomb threats so they could go home early. All of these problems were known to the Navy. Yet the Navy was happy to approve design features for this new ship that repeated all the problems that occurred on the Fife (nicknamed Fire in the Forward Engine room). To make matters worse for the Navy they failed to give oversight in the ship yards a greater priority. I don't like using the word corruption, but I have to wonder if anyone has followed the money? What procurement officers, congressman, senators, and bureau of design officials got paid to look the other way (what Admirals)? Why didn't the Coast Guard given this duty? Why did the Navy have to have these ships? The USCG could have made better use of proven designs and more experienced crew in these types of duty. The Coasties would have been perfect for the job.

[thomaspinney]

Another excellent piece. The LCS and Zumwalt surface combatants are both catastrophic failures, because in part they were designed when we were fighting people who literally had no navy of their own and as you pointed out, there was no perceived blue water threat. Both classes also violated a cardinal rule - do not incorporate too many new systems in a new platform. Finally, they were built in large numbers before we had a chance to prove just how worthless they were. As a former destroyerman I was delighted when I first learned we would be getting new small warships. But when I started learning of the specs I was dismayed. Why, oh why did we require 40 knot speeds? That forced so many other compromises in the design. I could go on and on about the failings of the class which are even worse than what you portray. You are absolutely right that Congress was more interested in job creation than getting the Navy effective warships. Thanks to the Hurculean efforts of sailors, these poorly designed ships are slowly being warped into reasonable, if limited, combatants.

[matthewaaaron]

Navy wanted a little patrol boat, Congress pork barrelled it up to the LCS, and pork keeps it under construction.

[kekistanimememan]

The fact that they didn’t foresee modularity coming at the cost of damage resistance and control actually scares me.

[CitiZenFree-pzts]

Well done. I appreciate the deep dive into the history and facts. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels.

[enemyofYTemployees]

Don’t you love it how none of these companies get penalized for going way over budget or downright failing on projects that cost the tax payers billions of dollars?

[RoninTF]

Lesson: don't go into series production, BEFORE seatrials

[BobfromSydney]

Thank you for the eye opening report, I really feel sad after hearing everything that happened with this project.

[PumpkinTuna]

Great job. This is an excellent breakdown of the whole LCS thing.