Quicksand Fans

Ok, everybody calm down as Sal says

Here's the whole thing

But the key bit:

We need to be upfront with each other about what this represents:
– First, this is an admission that we have a surface warship that cannot fight a surface battle. As we have discussed for roughly a decade here, LCS will be asked to do missions the transformationalists wished would go away, but those with a respect for historical reality knew would not. Even if the short range NLOS was made flesh, the LCS would still …
– Even with this bolt-on weapon, LCS is at best a “shoot and scoot” platform in a surface battle. Once its missiles are gone, it has nothing else to effectively fight anything from a light corvette up. That is OK, if you don’t mind having a ship the size of a WWII destroyer with with a smaller gun, fewer ASCM and less speed than a 1970s Pegasus Class hydrofoil.
– Low observability is gone. You can do a lot with an arc welder, bags of cash, and electrical cable duct-tapped to the deck, but when you do that, your RCS dramatically increases. You are also screaming beacons throughout the electromagnetic spectrum as you coordinate your non-integrated weapon in to a coordinated attack or at least getting a targeting solution locally or through your RC/manned helo.
– Irony is that Harpoon and NSM are not “littoral” weapons. They are designed for open ocean fighting for reasons your JAG can explain to you in detail. So, just CS not LCS.
– LCS was an exquisitely designed platform without much “white space” to make up for its many conceptual flaws. As such, no VLS, just bolt on and hope. This is something that will work, and in that note, we should be satisfied with.

I particularly liked the bit about an arc welder and duct tape

But this is probably the biggest band-aid on a fracture you'll ever see. And, it doesn't solve the problem

My father was a plank owner on one of the original LCS platforms, the LCS(L)(3)-24. These little gunboats were the life saving measure the Navy pressed into service to protect the Radar Picket Destroyers at Okinawa.

The LCS(L) or Landing Craft Support (Large) was based on the LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) hull with an entirely different deck layout. These gunboats mounted either a 3" .58 cal gun or single 40mm mounted forward at deck level, slightly aft and up was a twin 40mm gun tub forward of the bridge. Aft held another twin 40 mount. Up to six 20mm Oerlikon rapid firing cannons were mounted around the deckhouse and two 4.5 inch rocket launchers mounted at deck level, to the left and right of the deckhouse.

These boats were intended to escort landing craft in towards the beaches and to cross perpendicular to the beaches, laying smoke and providing covering fire for the landing craft as they made their approach run in to the beachhead. Most had a large firefighting manifold mounted on the bow to assist in shipboard firefighting.

The LCS(L)(3)-24 was one of the ships that took part in rescue operations at Okinawa, radar picket station #1 after the USS Bush and USS Colhoun were sunk by Kamikazes in April of 1945. Ignoring an order to return to the main anchorage at Kerama Rhetto, the -24 located and rescued 42 survivors of the USS Bush who would otherwise have been swept out to sea and lost. In another battle at Okinawa the -24 had a Kamikaze hit their main mast which ripped the wing off the plane which rolled into the water. The pilot survived and was picked up by the -24.

THESE LCS's were slow, but packed quite a wallop for their intended use.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/05/050024.htm

You realize THESE modified landing craft had way more firepower than the current floating disasters eh?

It is a sad thing, that a major war is needed to cull the retards from the fleet, at all levels. Up to and including SecNav
Dont get me going on that blithering asshole's latest SJW experiment....

kham wrote:You realize THESE modified landing craft had way more firepower than the current floating disasters eh?

It is a sad thing, that a major war is needed to cull the retards from the fleet, at all levels. Up to and including SecNav
Dont get me going on that blithering asshole's latest SJW experiment....

Before my father passed in 2009, he never really spoke of his service except to say I was here or there, or I was on this kind of ship. After a few abortive attempts to obtain the ships histories, I gave up for a long time until 2010 when the first of several books came out that actually had excerpts of the ships logs in them. LCS was the first... I think that one came out or at least I found it in late 2008... but after he passed I found Hellcats, Corsairs and Landing Craft which detailed several engagements in which my father's ship was involved.

After WWII he did some time in China before being assigned to the LST-857. He was aboard her when his task group was first in during the Incheon Landings. His task group landed and began to unload and were caught on the mud when the tide went out on them. His group got a Navy Commendation Medal for that one.

He was in for 12 years, between 1943 and 1955 and served in both WWII and Korea.

I share your opinion about the abilities of modern weapons... its like when the Airforce got rid of guns off of fighter jets... until they figured it was a serious deficiency that was getting our pilots killed. It's the same way every friggin weapon's system they come out with... there is always some glaring flaw that everyone ignores until the money's been spent. Take the M1117 Guardian Armored Security Vehicle. The basic design harkens back to the Caddilac Gage V-100 Series of Armored cars during The Vietnam War. It was designed I guess to replace the uparmored hummers, but never did. No one wanted them so they foisted them on the MP Corps. The MPs I knew that got saddled with them said they were death traps. Typical Washington...