Littoral Combat Ship - Freedom/Independence

[Arjen]

Did you know some of those "tattletales" were equipped with torpedo tubes?

http://defensetech.org/2012/03/09/cold-war-tech-soviet-torpedo-trawlers/

Not too bright letting those sit right next to an aircraft carrier.

From an earlier thread:

It’s a torpedo and sonar trials ship variant of 1823/1824 Muna class which was mainly used as a coastal naval ammunition transport. The OS hull number means Opitnoye Sudno or experimental vessel.
Soviet AGIs may well have had torpedo tubes as was much rumored, but this isn't one of them, nor does its configuration make much sense for that role. Too much drag costing speed you need to chase warships around, and you don't need blatant sonar a NATO submarine would spot while doing a hull surface to attack surface targets. Many small torpedo test ships like this exist or have existed around the world. Given the way the USSR thought about life, I 'd imagine if a war broke out it had some kind of secondary harbor defense mission.

 

[TomS]

Arjen, thanks for digging that up. The actual Soviet AGIs tended to not carry Naval markings, as I recall.

And the tattletales in carrier groups were often frigates, not trawlers. If tensions had gone up, they'd have been run out rather aggressively and there would surely have been an unfortunate tin can tasked to keep itself directly in the LOS between the tail and the high-value target.

 

[sferrin]

Did you know some of those "tattletales" were equipped with torpedo tubes?

http://defensetech.org/2012/03/09/cold-war-tech-soviet-torpedo-trawlers/

Not too bright letting those sit right next to an aircraft carrier.

From an earlier thread:

It’s a torpedo and sonar trials ship variant of 1823/1824 Muna class which was mainly used as a coastal naval ammunition transport. The OS hull number means Opitnoye Sudno or experimental vessel.
Soviet AGIs may well have had torpedo tubes as was much rumored, but this isn't one of them, nor does its configuration make much sense for that role. Too much drag costing speed you need to chase warships around, and you don't need blatant sonar a NATO submarine would spot while doing a hull surface to attack surface targets. Many small torpedo test ships like this exist or have existed around the world. Given the way the USSR thought about life, I 'd imagine if a war broke out it had some kind of secondary harbor defense mission.

Well that actually makes me feel a little bit better.

 

[Rickshaw]

Who cares? This is a routine thing that navies do to each other. Back in the Cold War, you'd have Soviet tattletales actually sitting in the middle of USN task forces, taking station in the formation and following the formation lead's maneuvering orders. Perfectly legal and aboveboard surveillance. And it certainly isn't a one-way thing -- the USN does similar types of surfveillance as well. We just tend to have better capabilities to do it covertly or from a distance.

Maybe not in this case but if you have a task force performing a war game or multiple ship maneuvers or show of force can you declare these zones or have other restrictions of ships getting too close?

Generally, large areas for exercises are "declared" and generally they are actually only "advice to mariners" rather than have any legal bearing on whether a ship can be there, unless they are within territorial waters.

The Chinese ship was merely following and observing the US Navy ship, in International Waters. It wasn't close enough to represent a navigational hazard. As has been mentioned, this is normal naval surveillance and can occur for many reasons the world over. :

 

[Rickshaw]

Maybe not in this case but if you have a task force performing a war game or multiple ship maneuvers or show of force can you declare these zones or have other restrictions of ships getting too close?

Kind of. You can certainly issue a Notice to Mariners stating that live fire exercises (for example) are being conducted within a given area.

Or you can attempt to ram ships that come within 45 kilometers of your task force, the Chinese way.

You mean like the Icelanders did to British trawlers back in the Cod Wars? :

 

[Jemiba]

Did you know some of those "tattletales" were equipped with torpedo tubes?

According to Norman Friedman "Modern Warships", the reason for the Kildin-(former
Krupny-) class destroyers to have been armed with four rearward facing Styx launch
tubes just was their regular use as tattletales. Turning away from the US ships just prior
to the start of hostilities, they would have added their share of offensive potential.

 

[sferrin]

Maybe not in this case but if you have a task force performing a war game or multiple ship maneuvers or show of force can you declare these zones or have other restrictions of ships getting too close?

Kind of. You can certainly issue a Notice to Mariners stating that live fire exercises (for example) are being conducted within a given area.

Or you can attempt to ram ships that come within 45 kilometers of your task force, the Chinese way.

You mean like the Icelanders did to British trawlers back in the Cod Wars? :

Yeah, that's exactly the same. :

 

[Hot Breath]

Has the US Navy ever rammed another ship deliberately?

 

[Grey Havoc]

Has the US Navy ever rammed another ship deliberately?

It was a common enough tactic in times past. For instance in both WWI & WWII it was used by various forces including the USN against surfaced or submerging enemy submarines. However, it was most often used as an emergency or last ditch tactic, for example in boarding actions, or as a GOTH plan when one's ship was about to sink.

 

[sferrin]

Has the US Navy ever rammed another ship deliberately?

It was a common enough tactic in times past. For instance in both WWI & WWII it was used by various forces including the USN against surfaced or submerging enemy submarines. However, it was most often used as an emergency or last ditch tactic, for example in boarding actions, or as a GOTH plan when one's ship was about to sink.

In a war situation. For some unknown reason, both Russia and China, are allowed to use their ships themselves as weapons during peacetime with no ramifications. A couple rounds through the bridge of the ramming ship would likely discourage such behavior.

 

[Rickshaw]

Has the US Navy ever rammed another ship deliberately?

It was a common enough tactic in times past. For instance in both WWI & WWII it was used by various forces including the USN against surfaced or submerging enemy submarines. However, it was most often used as an emergency or last ditch tactic, for example in boarding actions, or as a GOTH plan when one's ship was about to sink.

In a war situation. For some unknown reason, both Russia and China, are allowed to use their ships themselves as weapons during peacetime with no ramifications. A couple rounds through the bridge of the ramming ship would likely discourage such behavior.

And when they reply and your ship then replies as well? WWIII started all 'cause you decided you wanted to prove your ship was bigger than their ship... :

 

[sferrin]

Has the US Navy ever rammed another ship deliberately?

It was a common enough tactic in times past. For instance in both WWI & WWII it was used by various forces including the USN against surfaced or submerging enemy submarines. However, it was most often used as an emergency or last ditch tactic, for example in boarding actions, or as a GOTH plan when one's ship was about to sink.

In a war situation. For some unknown reason, both Russia and China, are allowed to use their ships themselves as weapons during peacetime with no ramifications. A couple rounds through the bridge of the ramming ship would likely discourage such behavior.

And when they reply and your ship then replies as well? WWIII started all 'cause you decided you wanted to prove your ship was bigger than their ship... :

Oh please. Do you ever tire of playing the drama queen? : Who am I kidding, of course you don't. That's your raison d'etre. Let's make this very simple: the way to get others to stop bullying you is to stop allowing yourself to be bullied. But I forget. That requires icky concepts like "resolve", "courage", and "perseverance". Things that are increasingly "old fashioned" in today's modern, "progressive" world. : :

 

[TomS]

Has the US Navy ever rammed another ship deliberately?

It was a common enough tactic in times past. For instance in both WWI & WWII it was used by various forces including the USN against surfaced or submerging enemy submarines. However, it was most often used as an emergency or last ditch tactic, for example in boarding actions, or as a GOTH plan when one's ship was about to sink.

In a war situation. For some unknown reason, both Russia and China, are allowed to use their ships themselves as weapons during peacetime with no ramifications. A couple rounds through the bridge of the ramming ship would likely discourage such behavior.

And when they reply and your ship then replies as well? WWIII started all 'cause you decided you wanted to prove your ship was bigger than their ship... :

Oh please. Do you ever tire of playing the drama queen? :

You're think the appropriate response to a gentle ramming (which didn't actually happen, BTW) is to kill the bridge crew of an opposing ship, and you accuse someone else of being a drama queen??? ???

Here's a sense of perspective for you. When USS Carron got "rammed" (shouldered) by a Societ ship in the Black Sea back in 1988, her CO didn't shoot up the Soviet ship or even aim his weapons at them; he called away a bosun's party and put them over the side to paint over the scratches, while still steaming along in the Black Sea with the Soviet Navy in company. Because that's what professionals do -- they get on with the mission without escalating an incident into a shooting conflict.

 

[sferrin]

Here's a sense of perspective for you. When USS Carron got "rammed" (shouldered) by a Societ ship in the Black Sea back in 1988, her CO didn't shoot up the Soviet ship or even aim his weapons at them; he called away a bosun's party and put them over the side to paint over the scratches, while still steaming along in the Black Sea with the Soviet Navy in company. Because that's what professionals do -- they get on with the mission without escalating an incident into a shooting conflict.

"Gentle ramming" there's an oxymoron if ever there was one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4jQhnXrWbg

Doing nothing is how you prevent a repeat of such behavior right? Nothing wrong with saying, "hey bozo, you're on a collision course, reverse or you will be shot". If they continue to attempt to ram you (and face it, as much as you'd like to pretend otherwise, intentionally ramming a ship is an attack) that's on them. For whatever reason though, the apologist/pacifists think it's perfectly acceptable for China to continue to ram ships without repercussion. One only need Google "china rams ship" to see, literally, millions of hits. I suppose you think this is perfectly acceptable behavior as well:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/index.html?_s=PMOLITICS

Yes?

Sending memos won't get this kind of crap to stop.

 

[TomS]

You know what actually got it to stop? A series of diplomatic discussions after several of these incidents, leading to an Incidents at Sea agreement that defined how ships should interact in such situations.

https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/c3837643-1489-4530-91c9-9bd653f4d00b/Diplomacy-at-Sea--U-S--Freedom-of-Navigation-Opera.aspx

How about we try that first, before we start killing people over scratched paint and dented steel?

 

[sferrin]

You know what actually got it to stop? A series of diplomatic discussions after several of these incidents, leading to an Incidents at Sea agreement that defined how ships should interact in such situations.

https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/c3837643-1489-4530-91c9-9bd653f4d00b/Diplomacy-at-Sea--U-S--Freedom-of-Navigation-Opera.aspx

How about we try that first, before we start killing people over scratched paint and dented steel?

Sorry, it just pisses me off to no end that we allow China to do pretty much whatever it wants anymore. This isn't something to disregard like say, if some podunk country, like Haiti or something, rammed our ships. It's China marking it's territory and testing our resolve. So far we are failing with bells on.

 

[TomS]

I think you (and a lot of other people) need to come to grips with the fact that China is a major world power and needs to be treated as such. There's a bit chunk of US responses to China that are insultingly paternalistic and probably encourage their more bellicose actions.

 

[sferrin]

I think you (and a lot of other people) need to come to grips with the fact that China is a major world power and needs to be treated as such.

And they would be if they acted like it. Mature that is. Right now they're like a teenager who thinks the way to get what he wants is to blast his music loud and steal from the neighbors. If they want to be treated with respect they need to show they warrant it.

 

[Hot Breath]

Here's a sense of perspective for you. When USS Carron got "rammed" (shouldered) by a Societ ship in the Black Sea back in 1988, her CO didn't shoot up the Soviet ship or even aim his weapons at them; he called away a bosun's party and put them over the side to paint over the scratches, while still steaming along in the Black Sea with the Soviet Navy in company. Because that's what professionals do -- they get on with the mission without escalating an incident into a shooting conflict.

"Gentle ramming" there's an oxymoron if ever there was one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4jQhnXrWbg

Doing nothing is how you prevent a repeat of such behavior right? Nothing wrong with saying, "hey bozo, you're on a collision course, reverse or you will be shot". If they continue to attempt to ram you (and face it, as much as you'd like to pretend otherwise, intentionally ramming a ship is an attack) that's on them. For whatever reason though, the apologist/pacifists think it's perfectly acceptable for China to continue to ram ships without repercussion. One only need Google "china rams ship" to see, literally, millions of hits. I suppose you think this is perfectly acceptable behavior as well:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/index.html?_s=PMOLITICS

Yes?

Sending memos won't get this kind of crap to stop.

Of course it will. Shooting the captain and his bridgecrew won't. It will escalate a tight situation and make it far worse. You talk about "resolve", yet you'd resort to your guns at the first sign your ship was being shouldered (note, not rammed, that suggests it's coming on with the intent ot sinking you, rather than just telling you, "You're not welcome here" and that is the key point, the US Navy sometimes isn't welcomed by everybody around the world!). You obviously, arrogantly believe the US Navy owns the high seas for some reason. The rest of the world recognises a 12 mile limit to their territorial waters, the US only recognises a 3 mile limit in 1988 (now a 12 mile limit as well). Funny that.

 

[Hot Breath]

I think you (and a lot of other people) need to come to grips with the fact that China is a major world power and needs to be treated as such.

And they would be if they acted like it. Mature that is. Right now they're like a teenager who thinks the way to get what he wants is to blast his music loud and steal from the neighbors. If they want to be treated with respect they need to show they warrant it.

And how would they do that? They warn their target that they are not welcome and when their target fails to respond appropriately, they use their ship, rather than their guns (unlike your proposal) to enforce their viewpoint. Looks to me like they're showing restraint (unlike yourself). China does what it thinks it can get away with. The US does what it thinks it can get away with. Simples, really!

 

[sferrin]

You obviously, arrogantly believe the US Navy owns the high seas for some reason. The rest of the world recognises a 12 mile limit to their territorial waters, the US only recognises a 3 mile limit in 1988 (now a 12 mile limit as well). Funny that.

If rammings only occurred inside the 12-mile limit that would be one thing. They don't. Funny that.

International waters:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/12/exclusive-chinese-warship-pressures-us-navy-ship-leads-to-near-collision/

International waters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Impeccable_(T-AGOS-23)

As for "the rest of the world recognizing the 12 mile limit":

http://www.informationdissemination.net/2008/11/on-february-day-on-black-sea-in-1988.html

"In February 1988, Caron operating with Yorktown, entered the Soviet Union's 12 mile (22.2 km) territorial waters limit in the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula without permission. Under established international law, this act was permissible if the transiting foreign ship is progressing from one point in international waters to another point in international waters via the shortest course possible."

 

[Hot Breath]

You obviously, arrogantly believe the US Navy owns the high seas for some reason. The rest of the world recognises a 12 mile limit to their territorial waters, the US only recognises a 3 mile limit in 1988 (now a 12 mile limit as well). Funny that.

If rammings only occurred inside the 12-mile limit that would be one thing. They don't. Funny that.

I was referring to the concept that the US might need to reconsider it's actions on the High Seas in light of changing international views of what constitutes the "High Seas".

 

[sferrin]

You obviously, arrogantly believe the US Navy owns the high seas for some reason. The rest of the world recognises a 12 mile limit to their territorial waters, the US only recognises a 3 mile limit in 1988 (now a 12 mile limit as well). Funny that.

If rammings only occurred inside the 12-mile limit that would be one thing. They don't. Funny that.

I was referring to the concept that the US might need to reconsider it's actions on the High Seas in light of changing international views of what constitutes the "High Seas".

Define specifically what these "changing international views" are. Pretty sure there isn't going to be a time when ramming the other guys ship is perfectly acceptable anywhere on the planet.

 

[Hot Breath]

You obviously, arrogantly believe the US Navy owns the high seas for some reason. The rest of the world recognises a 12 mile limit to their territorial waters, the US only recognises a 3 mile limit in 1988 (now a 12 mile limit as well). Funny that.

If rammings only occurred inside the 12-mile limit that would be one thing. They don't. Funny that.

I was referring to the concept that the US might need to reconsider it's actions on the High Seas in light of changing international views of what constitutes the "High Seas".

Define specifically what these "changing international views" are. Pretty sure there isn't going to be a time when ramming the other guys ship is perfectly acceptable anywhere on the planet.

The distance from shore that territorial claims on the high seas begins. In 1988 the US only recognised three miles as the limit of territorial waters. Most of the rest of the world, including the Soviet Union recognised 12 miles as the limit. The US tried to enforce its view on the Soviet Union in the Black Sea. The Soviet Navy responded. In the 1999, the US adopted 24 miles as the limit.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The US tried to enforce its view on the Soviet Union in the Black Sea.

No this issue (size of territorial waters) had nothing to do with the 1986 and 88 Black Sea incidents. Both were related to the right of innocent passage that you have through another nation's territorial waters. The Soviets had passed a law in 1983 allowing innocent passage only through areas they had designated. Interestingly these incidents exposed that the Russian language version of the UNCLOS was different to the English language version! The difference was that in Russian a state had the right to limit innocent passage but in English no such right existed. The law was later clarified and made consistent allowing temporary suspension of innocent passage in specific areas only related to an ongoing security issue.


[/size]

The Soviet Navy responded. In the 1999, the US adopted 24 miles as the limit.

The two are completely unrelated.

 

[Triton]

"Chinese official: U.S. has ulterior motives over South China Sea"
by Steven Jiang, CNN
Updated 12:17 PM ET, Wed May 27, 2015

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/26/asia/china-south-china-sea-dispute/index.html

Beijing (CNN)A week after a CNN team aboard a U.S. Navy P8-A Poseidon heard the Chinese military issue warnings eight times to a U.S. surveillance plane flying over disputed waters in the South China Sea, a senior official with the People's Liberation Army has called Chinese response "professional" and suggested Washington is playing up the issue with ulterior motives.

"For a long time, the U.S. military has been conducting close-in surveillance of China and the Chinese military has been making such necessary, legal and professional response -- why did this story suddenly pop up in the past weeks? Has the South China Sea shrunk?" Senior Col. Yang Yujun asked rhetorically at a press conference Tuesday.

"A certain country has increased the frequency of its close-in surveillance of China and that has caused a problem," he added. "Some people have been intentionally and repeatedly hyping this topic. Their purpose is to smear the Chinese military and dramatize regional tensions. And I'm not ruling it out that this is being done to find an excuse for certain country to take actions in the future."

The South China Sea is the subject of numerous rival -- and often messy -- territorial declarations over an area that includes fertile fishing grounds and potentially rich reserves of undersea natural resources. In addition to China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim at least parts of the South China Sea.

The United States does not recognize China's territorial claims, and other claimants -- including several U.S. allies -- are alarmed by China's recent move to reclaim and militarize islands in the region.

Chinese expansion

In just two years, China has expanded these islands by 2,000 acres -- the equivalent of 1,500 football fields -- and counting, an engineering marvel in deep waters.

Last week the P8-A Poseidon -- America's most advanced surveillance and submarine-hunting aircraft -- that CNN had access to filmed early warning radar, military barracks, a lofty lookout tower and a runway long enough to handle every aircraft in the Chinese military on an expanded Fiery Cross Reef.

Yang, who is the spokesman for China's Ministry of National Defense, said the construction in the South China Sea is the same as building roads and bridges in the rest of the country "from the perspective of sovereignty," but stressed the civilian functions of the newly-built facilities.

Some in Washington have feared that China's creation of entirely new territory in the South China Sea is part of a broader military push intended to challenge U.S. dominance in the region.

They have pointed to Beijing's other maneuvers, such as sailing its first aircraft carrier, equipping its nuclear missiles with multiple warheads and developing missiles to destroy U.S. warships as proof.

As U.S. officials pledged to beef up military patrol in the South China Sea despite Chinese protests, tensions appeared to rise to a new high Monday when the Beijing-based Global Times -- run by the ruling Communist Party -- published an editorial that warned of an inevitable war between China and the United States.

War imminent?

At the press conference Tuesday, Yang echoed a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman who earlier said that the editorial reflected the newspaper's own view.

Defying U.S. calls for halting unilateral actions, however, China's transportation authorities on Tuesday hosted a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of two "multi-functional lighthouses" to improve navigational safety on two reefs in the South China Sea, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's president has proposed a peace initiative in the disputed waters, calling on all parties to put aside differences and focus on joint development.

"We emphasize that while sovereignty cannot be divided, resources can be shared, thereby replacing sovereignty disputes with resource sharing," Ma Ying-jeou was quoted as saying by the island's Central News Agency Tuesday.

 

[sferrin]

Yes, the US has ulterior motives. That's why it's building islands in other countries territory for military bases. Oh, wait. . .

 

[Hot Breath]

Yes, the US has ulterior motives. That's why it's building islands in other countries territory for military bases. Oh, wait. . .

Doesn't it just normally topple their governments instead? Much quicker!

 

[bobbymike]

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/07/lcs-production-surges-prices-drops/

 

[seruriermarshal]

Getting ready for the christening of the USS Little Rock, the latest and most agile battleship I the Navy!

 

[Moose]

Warship, battleship is a specific type which the LCS is not.

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S70ONM1ZC_k&feature=youtu.be

Launch USS Little Rock

 

[Grey Havoc]

Warship, battleship is a specific type which the LCS is not.

He was being sarcastic.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Going OT for a moment: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/22/navy-admirals-lack-strategy-training-and-experienc/

 

[Moose]

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Blue Ridge....

Sigh, come on people Wikipedia takes like 30 seconds to use.

 

[Triton]

Warship, battleship is a specific type which the LCS is not.

He was being sarcastic.

I thought that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was going to re-designate the LCS as a frigate (FF)?

Source:
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/ships/2015/01/15/lcs-navy-frigate/21801559/

 

[bobbymike]

Warship, battleship is a specific type which the LCS is not.

He was being sarcastic.

I thought that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus was going to re-designate the LCS as a frigate (FF)?

Source:
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/ships/2015/01/15/lcs-navy-frigate/21801559/

I think that changed to actually building a new frigate in the form, possibly, of a larger stretched LCS design??

 

[Triton]

"LCS Now Officially Called A Frigate"
by Christopher P. Cavas 3:58 p.m. EST January 21, 2015

Source:
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/ships/2015/01/15/lcs-navy-frigate/21801559/

WASHINGTON — Since its inception in 2001, the US Navy's Littoral Combat Ship program has been described as needed to replace the fleet's frigates, minesweepers and patrol ships. But the ship's place in the line of battle continues to be debated.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus thinks one of the reasons the ship is misunderstood is the nontraditional LCS designator. He directed an effort to find a more traditional and appropriate designation for the LCS and several other recent ship types, such as the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP) and the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB).

The first of the types to be redesignated is the LCS.

"If it's like a frigate, why don't we call it a frigate?" he said Jan. 14 to a roomful of surface warfare sailors at the Surface Navy Association's annual symposium just outside Washington.

"We are going to change the hull designation of the LCS class ships to FF," Mabus said, citing the traditional hull designation for frigates. "It will still be the same ship, the same program of record, just with an appropriate and traditional name."

Mabus has long been irked by the habit in recent years of applying program-like designations to ships, and LCS is an example. In the Navy's designation system, the first letter sometimes is the key to the overall role of the ship, and "L-class" ships are widely considered to be those involved in carrying Marines and their equipment for an amphibious assault. LCS is the sole exception — a ship the Navy counts as a surface combatant, not an amphibious lift ship.

"When I hear L, I think amphib," Mabus said. "And it's not an amphib. And I have to spend a good deal of my time explaining what littoral is."

Redesignating the ships as FF puts the ship squarely back in the surface combatant category, and is appropriate, since the Pentagon direction in developing the modified LCS was to make it more "frigate-like."

Navy sources said it was intended to designate only the modified LCS as frigates, but many of the upgrades intended for those ships are to be backfitted into earlier LCS hulls, blending the types. Mabus said the designation definitely will apply to the modified ships, and will likely be extended to all LCSs.

Navy sources said a decision on what hull numbers the ships will carry has yet to be made. There are several possibilities — if the ships pick up with the frigate series, the next number available is FF 1099.

The fleet's last guided-missile frigates (FFGs) will be decommissioned in September, and the next number in that sequence is FFG 62. But unlike the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates being phased out, the LCS doesn't carry an area air-defense missile such as the Standard missile — the basis for the "G" — so the FFG series isn't entirely appropriate.

The Navy also could decide not to change the hull numbers but simply change the designator — something that was done in the late 1970s when new Aegis guided-missile destroyers were redesignated as cruisers without changing the numbers.

Ship redesignations are happen from time to time for a variety of reasons. The first Ticonderoga-class cruisers, for example, started out as guided missile destroyers (DDG) and were changed to guided missile cruisers (CG) just before construction began to reflect their higher cost and the need for more experienced officers.

Until the 1970s, US Navy frigates were ships larger than destroyers but smaller than cruisers. In 1975 all frigates were redesignated either as cruisers or destroyers, while the fleet's destroyer escorts and ocean escorts were changed to frigates. That move brought the US into line with all other foreign navies, where frigates are considered smaller than destroyers but larger than corvettes or patrol boats.

Mabus said he would announce additional designation changes in coming weeks.

 

[Triton]

"What’s In A Name? Making The LCS ‘Frigate’ Reality"
by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on January 16, 2015 at 6:45 PM

Source:
http://breakingdefense.com/2015/01/whats-in-a-name-making-the-lcs-frigate-reality/

CRYSTAL CITY: What’s in a frigate? That which we call a Littoral Combat Ship by any other name would smell as sweet — or stink as bad, according to LCS’s many critics. While LCS is being redesigned and renamed, there’s a lot of hard work and hard choices required to make the improvements real.

Yesterday, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced the new upgunned, uparmored, and as yet unbuilt version of LCS would be formally redesignated as a “frigate.” (From heaviest to lightest, the traditional classification runs: battleship, cruiser, destroyer, frigate, corvette). One of the major criticisms of the original LCS design was its lack of firepower and protection compared to the Perry-class frigates it would replace. The improved design will be worthy of the frigate designation, Mabus insisted.

“If you list the attributes of a frigate and then list the attributes of [an improved LCS], we’re actually more capable than a normal frigate is,” Mabus told reporters after his remarks to the Surface Navy Association conference. “They don’t look like traditional Navy ships sometimes, and I think that’s one of the issues that traditionalists have, but if you look at missions, if you look at what a frigate is supposed to be able to do, that’s what this ship does.”

The basic plan set forth a year ago is to buy 32 Littoral Combat Ships of the current design, the last of them in the fiscal 2018 budget. Then the Navy will buy 20 of the upgunned version — what’s now the frigate — starting in fiscal 2019. The exact package of upgrades that will actually make the frigate a frigate won’t be finalized until ’19, but it will include more weapons, armor, and sensors.

The Navy wants to add at least some of these improvements to at least some the Littoral Combat Ships being built before 2019. “We’re going to try to fold in these new capabilities earlier than [LCS] 32,” Mabus said.

How many of them? “All of them,” Mabus hopes. “If we fold in some, we’re going to fold in all [the improvements]. It’ll add about $75 million a ship but, as we said, that’s still under the congressional cost cap. We’re not going to piecemeal it, we’re going to do the entire upgrade.”

The Secretary’s subordinates sounded somewhat less sanguine. “We’re going to want to do that [upgrade] across the board as best as possible,” said Sean Stackley, assistant secretary for acquisition. But “this isn’t exactly a binary thing,” Stackley told reporters: It’s not an either/or where you either have to add the entire upgrade package envisioned for the frigate or do nothing.

“[Upgrades] to improve the survivability, we want to do those on all the ships,” Stackley said: extra armor around weapons magazines, for example, shock hardening around vital equipment, or degaussing the hull to reduce its magnetic field. But the details of more complicated upgrades — such as missiles and electronics — will take a few years to figure out. In the meantime, he said, you might have to build ships with places for the systems-to-be-determined to plug in later.

Some of the Littoral Combat Ships already in the water may never get all the upgrades. Internal armor, for example, is such an integral part of a ship’s construction that it might be impractical or impossible to retrofit. “For ships that are already delivered, it may be such a large charge that we may only be able to do partial [upgrades],” said the Navy’s Program Executive Officer (PEO) for LCS, Rear Adm. Brian Antonio.

There’s also the constraint of time, Antonio told reporters. “LCS-1 was commissioned in ’08, and with a 25-year service life, that takes her to 2023,” when she retires — which would be just four years after the upgrade design is finalized in 2019. Littoral Combat Ships come in for major maintenance every 32 to 36 months. So with the earlier ships, said Antonio, “there’s a mathematical possibility that we wouldn’t be able to get everything in.” (It’s also inefficient to invest in upgrading a ship about to retire).

“We’ll catch as many as we’re funded [for] and can do,” the admiral said.

For every upgrade to the ship, there’s a delicate balance between how much combat capability it would add and how much time, cost, and complexity it would require. It’s worth remembering that the epic overruns and delays on the first two Littoral Combat Ships were caused primarily by a decision halfway through construction to change basic features of the design. Since then, the program has made only modest improvements from ship to ship, and it’s made remarkable progress controlling both cost and schedule.

“What I like is stability in the shipbuilding plan,” said Antonio. “Worst thing in the world would be, ‘hey, we’ve got this great new thing, we’ve got to go [add] it,’ and ship deliveries get delayed by six months, a year, two years, and all of a sudden everything’s out of whack.”

“It’s already going to be a sporty timeline,” Antonio said. What the Navy has to work from is the current LCS design — actually two designs, the Lockheed-built Freedom class and the General Dynamics Independence — and a detailed concept for the upgraded frigate version, developed over six months by the Small Surface Combatant Task Force. That concept calls for such improvements as new electronic warfare gear and a new “over the horizon” anti-ship missile with a 100-150 nautical mile range. It doesn’t specify such things as whether the minimum acceptable is 100 or 150 or something in between, what specific targets the weapon must be able to hit, what kind of seeker the warhead should have, let alone which missile to buy.

“The task force identified capability,” said Antonio. “We’ve got to identify the systems; then we have to identify how those systems integrate or interface with the current systems; and then there’s a whole development and testing [process] that has to happen.”

How far along are we? Antonio has hired three former Small Surface Combatant Task Force staff to form a “concept development team” with full access to all the task force’s analysis: “That kind of gives me a jump start,” he said. He’ll soon be able to show both shipbuilders a “sanitized” version of the task force materials as well.

The Navy needs to take all the task force’s concepts for capabilities and translate them into specific, formal requirements, Stackley explained. Those requirements then need approval by a Resources and Requirements Review Board (R3B). Then, for each requirement, the Navy needs to decide if it can meet it with equipment already in service — which may require buying more items off existing contracts — or if it must hold a competition for something new. A Request for Proposals will go out to industry in 2018, with award and procurement in 2019.

Then it’s up to the winners from industry to deliver the goods and to the government to integrate everything into a working warship. (The Navy is acting as its own “lead systems integrator” here rather than contracting that function out). Only then will the world be able to judge whether the final product is worthy of the name of “frigate,” an honorable heritage going back to the USS Constitution.

 

[Triton]

Then the Navy Times tells a slightly different story--

"SECNAV unveils new name for LCS: the 'fast frigate'"
By Meghann Myers, Staff writer 3:45 p.m. EST January 15, 2015

Source:
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2015/01/15/navy-secretary-mabus-littoral-combat-ship-fast-frigate/21805513/

The much derided littoral combat ship program is here to stay, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced Thursday, and it's getting an upgrade: a name change.

Going forward, new Freedom- and Independence-class ships will be christened under the frigate designation that's more suited to the ship's missions, Mabus said in a speech at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium outside Washington, D.C.

"We are going to change the hull designation of the LCS class ships to FF," Mabus said, as frigates have been designated. "It will still be the same ship, the same program of record, just with an appropriate and traditional name."

The change will take the tarnished LCS designation out of the lexicon, but it will also settle a matter of tradition that Mabus said has been on his mind recently.

"We've started designating ships with some interesting acronyms that seem to have come out of the Pentagon instead of our naval traditions," he said.

Ships like the joint high speed vessel (JHSV), the mobile landing platform (MLP) and the afloat forward staging base (AFSB) all buck Navy tradition, where the first letter in an acronym describes what kind of ship it is.

For instance, CVN denotes a nuclear-powered carrier. Similarly, the 'L' in a designation connotes an amphibious ship.

"It's not an L-class ship. I hear 'L,' I think amphib. Everybody else does," he said. "And I have to spend a good deal of my time explaining what littoral is."

Mabus said the remaining ships on the LCS building plan will be designated FF, and he's deciding whether to rename the current ships with another acronym.

The announcement comes days after Kauffman, the Navy's last Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, left Norfolk for its final underway. That ship fell under the FFG acronym, for guided-missile frigate.

While the LCS program has been thought of as a replacement for the frigate fleet, the littoral part didn't square up with the frigate's role as a small surface combatant.

The LCS can do the job, Mabus told reporters after his speech.

"They don't look like traditional Navy ships sometimes, and I think that's one of the issues that traditionalists have, but if you look at the missions — if you look at what a frigate is supposed to be able to do — that's what this ship does," he said.

Describing it as a "fast" frigate could refer to its top speed or a smaller crew size, down from the 17 officers and 198 enlisted on the FFG.

Boosting the fleet

Beyond the frigate news, Mabus' speech to the surface warfare officers and industry members focused on shipbuilding and the service's track record through his five years in office.

"I've lost track of the number of times people have come up to me and told me that our fleet is shrinking," he said.

It's simply not true, he continued. The fleet shrunk from 316 ships in 2001 to 278 in 2008, he said. In the five years before he came in, he added, 27 ships were put under contract.

Since he took the helm in 2010, he said, 70 more have been put on the books. Among the achievements he cited were buying two fast-attack submarines and two destroyers a year, as well as commissioning the amphibious assault ship America; the next America-class ship is to be procured in fiscal 2017.

Lessons have been learned, he said, from the construction of Ford, the next-generation flattop whose revolutionary systems have also led to huge cost overruns; the Ford is estimated to cost $13 billion.

"It's pretty clear that CVN 78 is a prime example of how not to build a ship," Mabus said. "We started designing it while we were building it, too much technology that was not proven trying to be pushed into the ship."

However, they've reined in the program, bringing both Ford and its successor, Kennedy, within congressional spending caps.

Despite the looming threat of budget cuts, which could come as soon as October, Mabus said, it's important to keep the momentum going.

"Even as we deal with the possible impacts of sequester, now is not the time to give up on the progress we've made with our shipbuilding," he said. "I don't believe we ought to pay for one Navy ship with another."