LCSs and Frigates; Rethinking the Concept

[Halidon]

I recommend reading Raymond Pritchett's thoughts in this reaction to the Cavas piece, especially his responses in the comments section.

[Ought Six]

I recommend reading Raymond Pritchett's thoughts in this reaction to the Cavas piece, especially his responses in the comments section.

His fundamental premise seems to be that frigates would be useless for the USN because they would cost nearly $a billion$, yet have far less capability than the not much more expensive Burkes. I presume he is referring to the 5000+ ton mini-destroyers they call 'frigates' these days, not the traditional 2500-3500 ton smaller multipurpose ships. I would agree that the larger, more expensive so-called frigates would not be a good choice over the Burkes. Small frigates costing half what an LCS costs would be a very different ship, and a different matter.

[Elbs]

His fundamental premise seems to be that frigates would be useless for the USN because they would cost nearly $a billion$, yet have far less capability than the not much more expensive Burkes. I presume he is referring to the 5000+ ton mini-destroyers they call 'frigates' these days, not the traditional 2500-3500 ton smaller multipurpose ships. I would agree that the larger, more expensive so-called frigates would not be a good choice over the Burkes. Small frigates costing half what an LCS costs would be a very different ship, and a different matter.

I'll play ball. Let's say the Navy looks at these frigates. What sorts of roles do you see them fulfilling?

[Ought Six]

I'll play ball. Let's say the Navy looks at these frigates. What sorts of roles do you see them fulfilling?

They would fill the roles frigates always filled, and LCS roles as well. In wartime, they would be used for patrol, to hunt subs in less critical areas, anti-surface warfare (especially hunting FACs), acting as an outer screen to protect larger warships, attacking enemy shipping and supply lines, escorting friendly shipping, providing support and protection for amphibious raids and specops missions, to perform the naval equivalent of reconnaissance in force, area denial to enemy naval forces and naval gunfire support, to name a few. In peacetime they would provide forces on station in less critical areas, support specops missions, anti-terrorist operations, drug interdiction, anti-piracy operations, disaster relief, showing the flag in support of allies or as a display of force, contribution to NATO and UN operations, naval surveillance and so on.

As an example of a 'peacetime' mission, imagine a frigate on station off the coast of Yemen. Some very time-sensitive intel comes in that an al Qaeda leader is confirmed to present at a certain safehouse, but he never remains in one place for long. No time to call up an airstrike or get a drone into the area. The frigate loads a Vulcano round into its 5" gun and fires on the safehouse, which is 50 miles inland. Realtime satellite surveillance confirms a direct hit with no collateral damage. Yemeni security forces arrive a half hour later and recover the body of the al Qaeda leader and several fighters.

These kinds of ships could go into harm's way because, unlike the LCS, they can actually defend themselves. And also unlike the LCS, they carry enough firepower to attack a sophisticated or unsophisticated enemy above, on or below the water, as well as deep inland.

[Elbs]

Ok good breakdown. The thing is that a frigate isn't the best fit for these LCS roles. What's the point in lugging around VLS for SAMs and its associated fire control radar and directors, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, etc when you're chasing pirates? What about the crew for all that equipment? All of that equipment is taking up valuable space that could be used for things more suitable to the mission at hand. Space is at a premium on every warship, even a Nimitz class. Look at the Perry class and how tight the weight margins were when proposals were floated to upgrade them. That's the big benefit of the mission bay in the LCS ships, and if the Navy got their way it'd be even bigger than it is now. How are you going to do disaster relief with a frigate? Stuff the hangar with provisions and lose the helicopter?

The biggest drain on the Navy's budget is personnel costs. That's why the Navy is looking at a crew size of about 50-60 for LCS. You don't really see any frigates being manned by less than 100. There's also no way that a USN-spec frigate would cost less than LCS - you're not going to see a $250 million frigate when a Burke costs over $1 billion a pop. The electronic equipment (SPY-1K for a ship this size?) and filling the magazines would set you back nearly that same sum.

I don't think there's enough money to have a fleet of mini-Burkes running around doing these tasks.

[Meatwad]

Where's Hellfish?


IMO the LCS is a **** concept. Multi mission capability is ideal but makes things too expensive for a ship that should really only be small and fast with its main goals being small craft ship interdiction minesweeping/laying and ASW. Leave the major combat platforms like surface combat and air defense to the bigger ships.

The whole modular system is another **** concept as you are again making things even more expensive by paying for things not even on the ship or might not ever be used. Look at it this way, you are spending money on big parts of a ship that are sitting around doing jack, while you could be spending all of that money from those modules on maybe another few ships.

Small,fast,reliable, SIMPLE.

[Elbs]

Well look at the proposed numbers. ~ 50 ships and ~60 modules. In practice they will most likely be single mission ships. The modules just give you the ability to adapt the ship to a new role quickly should you need it. Need more coastal sub hunters quick? Swap the modules and in a few weeks/month you have them. It makes more sense than having a bunch of minesweepers tied up at the dock because there's no mines to sweep. A module costs a lot less than a dedicated minesweeper and it helps to get the most use out of the hulls.

There's obvious logistics problems with the idea of swapping modules out over a few days, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be workable with the space of a few months.

[Meatwad]

Well look at the proposed numbers. ~ 50 ships and ~60 modules. In practice they will most likely be single mission ships. The modules just give you the ability to adapt the ship to a new role quickly should you need it. Need more coastal sub hunters quick? Swap the modules and in a few weeks/month you have them. It makes more sense than having a bunch of minesweepers tied up at the dock because there's no mines to sweep. A module costs a lot less than a dedicated minesweeper and it helps to get the most use out of the hulls.

There's obvious logistics problems with the idea of swapping modules out over a few days, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be workable with the space of a few months.

I'm not arguing about swapping time, nothing wrong there. What I'm arguing is that the USN should have have it down on exactly these ships missions will be doing. They should be dedicated, and they should probably be corvettes and they should be cheap. I'm not suggesting they can't have the number of ships built to spec for different tasks either and a few for special tasks, just have a clear goal in mind for the ship and leave it as is no need for the modules and extra cost involved in them. You also simplify crew training with that.

If they find they aren't getting the mission requirement use out of them well that is clearly a problem with the USN's planning phase.

[Halidon]

They should be dedicated,

That is exactly, precisely, 100% what they wanted not to do. Hulls with dedicated, narrowly-defined missions are what the Navy already had, the idea of a modular mission package is to have mission-agnostic hulls.

[happyslapper]

I'm not arguing about swapping time, nothing wrong there. What I'm arguing is that the USN should have have it down on exactly these ships missions will be doing. They should be dedicated, and they should probably be corvettes and they should be cheap. I'm not suggesting they can't have the number of ships built to spec for different tasks either and a few for special tasks, just have a clear goal in mind for the ship and leave it as is no need for the modules and extra cost involved in them. You also simplify crew training with that.

If they find they aren't getting the mission requirement use out of them well that is clearly a problem with the USN's planning phase.

If the logistics work, then what's the loss?

We need to get out of this mentality of seeing ships as tools. They need to be the tool boxes.
Cheapness, corvette size, special tasks... it all lends itself specifically towards modularisation. A 'cheap' lean-manned platform with a highly adaptable and highly upgradable mission-specific module(s).

The USN isn't the only navy in the world that has identified this as a solution to doing more with less. As I said, it's a mentality issue; either change the mentality or be doomed to this present cycle of ever more expensive ships in ever fewer numbers.

[fiorellabel]

In my opinion there are to put in consideration also the geostrategical picture.

A main difference between Usa and its own allies is the sheer distance of its mainland to the plausibile theater of operations.

With the exception of Cuba any foreseeable operation for USN would require its ship to cross almost an ocean.
Usually that was dealt throught the use of prepositioning bases near to the intended theater of operations, but it works in case of predictable, long duration scenarios typical of cold war period i.e. exactly the opposite of what LCS are intended for.

Thought to a Lcs near Somalia for anti-pirate mission that need to be diverted to Corean peninsula or Spratly for an increase of tension involving Chinese navy, in best case it involves to cross Indian ocean, Strait of Malacca with a stops to Diego Garcia to change module.
In the worst one (module is not available there), back to Usa throught Atlantic, Panama strait, Pacific, Sea of Japan.
Most of even middle sized navies has a more restricted theater of operations so they can begin with real corvettes and OPV and to taylor their ships exactly on their needs.
So it happened to have frigates (let's say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupo_class_frigate or even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descubierta_class_corvette) way smaller than a Us Coast guard cutter and armed better than a US navy destroyer.

[Piggy]

Call me stupid, but if I understood you well and correct, the thing is, US NAVY is going to sail significant distance to perform littoral task in environment where quite capable opponent could be met. My stupid question is: Is this kind of action of a littoral type (for LCS) or more for frigates/destroyers?

[Einhander]

As I understand the concept it's the platform to clear the way for the bigger fish - to remove mines, coastal arty/missile batteries and smaller coast-guard-like vessels and choppers.

[Silent Reader]

The module idea is nice in theory.. but they need to get it working first. wasn't there an article a week or so ago that it had been canned as it would take too long to swap the modules?

Also for mine hunting the LCS seems to be a pretty big ship still. I'd probably go for three 20 crew boats than one 60 crew LCS as these would be able to cover a much bigger area which should be critical. Maybe give these cmall mine hunters a secondary role in which they could still be used for counter piracy operations (a 56mm gun maybe?) or maybe for spec ops insertion / river partol with some additional guns. get 15-20 of these boats and 5-7 LCS less, make the LCS itself maybe slightly bigger to accomodate more weapon systems

[Ought Six]

The bottom line that everyone seems so very fond of ignoring is that the LCS is simply not capable of defending itself in anything but the most low-intensity environments. Its offensive capabilities are equally light. So the question is, are we okay with the strategy of fleshing out the entire lower end of our Navy with such light forces that simply cannot safely operate in a medium-, much less high-intensity battle environment without Burkes being assigned for their protection?