LCS: Quick Swap Concept Dead

[Leaper]

It was deemed the best solution for future deployments, I guess, but it seems this swap concept needs to be refined. I wonder how they will proceed from now on. Saying that the LCS can't get the job done of current frigates, minesweepers and patrol boats is quite heavy artillery.. Moreover, it's interesting to see that they are considering replacing the 57mm for the 76mm. Why haven't they thought about this earlier? The armament problems are giving me the creeps, to be honest.

The 57 with it's programmable ammunition is quite capable. I've only had good experience with it, but that's just me

[Moxica]

Were did you have any experience with that Leaper? Would be intresting to know

[Leaper]

Naval gun fire training

[Halidon]

In my mind something more similar to a mini-Burke might be better, but who knows.

Build in VLS (possibly even a navalized ATACM) and I might not be as critical.

Wrong missions. A Mini-Burke would be just a less capable Burke trying to do the same missions poorly, at a time when there are sixty active Burke class destroyers and more on contract. LCS and its modules were supposed to be aimed at covering missions the Burkes don't already cover well like MIW, ASuW, shallow-water ASW, presence missions, VBSS, humanitarian relief, etc. The program has plenty of problems covering those missions, but a USN version of the European frigates wouldn't do them any better.

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

Wrong missions. A Mini-Burke would be just a less capable Burke trying to do the same missions poorly, at a time when there are sixty active Burke class destroyers and more on contract. LCS and its modules were supposed to be aimed at covering missions the Burkes don't already cover well like MIW, ASuW, shallow-water ASW, presence missions, VBSS, humanitarian relief, etc. The program has plenty of problems covering those missions, but a USN version of the European frigates wouldn't do them any better.

I understand what you're saying and I think I agree with that.

But it occurs to me that there should be a ship type already in service somewhere (albeit less sophisticated than the LCS) performing the types of missions intended for the LCS.

[Halidon]

I understand what you're saying and I think I agree with that.

But it occurs to me that there should be a ship type already in service somewhere (albeit less sophisticated than the LCS) performing the types of missions intended for the LCS.

There are hulls which cover one or two each, but none have the ability to cover all. And, critically, none have the flexibility to potentially cover all. That's not to say the LCS is wonderful, the article and discussion I linked in the other thread covers much of what there is to say for and against while certain reports remain outside the public realm. But part of the reason those problems exist is the complexity of the problem. The "easy" solution wouldn't be one hull, it would be 5 or six mission-specific hulls with all the drawbacks inherent to that approach. We could start from scratch on a new one-hull solution, of course it would take the better part of a decade to get to the same place we are today without any guarantee of doing it better because we'll have no more deployed experience than we have today. Or we can take the LCS hulls, warts and all, and use them to learn how everything works and doesn't work, what they really can and cannot do, and what needs to come next.