Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Going the way of the Sloop of War

Hot on the heels of one of my last posts I was happy to see this story about the future of the "crack-pac" ships, the Frigates.

I can't really agree with it anymore than to say that I was excited at the idea of just joining the deep water cutter program that the coast guard is using. Its the perfect idea and fits so well instead of this horrid mangled mutant that the LCS is. I used to be excited about the LCS ship platform but over the last few years and reading multiple articles quoting the vocal equivalent of shoulder shruggin coming from Admirals fleet wide, I can't say I'm behind it anymore. The NSC(pictured left doing what looks like a near perfect williamson turn) is an amazing platform that would fit the bill. It can sit on station for a minimum of 60 days while the LCS can only last about a week underway without getting topped off. Also, I saw a better functioning ship in the FSF Seafighter. In fact, after reading up a bit more the sea fighter has a ridiculous range on it which would make it a perfect base instead of the LCS.


I can't fathom the kind of thinking that happens at the top, I guess when you have carrier and nuclear sub drivers at the top you throw budgets out the window and don't see the practicality of a small efficient "dumber" ship. They dream up this budget busting tech monster LCS. Let's not start with the DDG 1000 program... The navy could already have 3 NSC's underway with the amount of money already fed to the DD 1000.


No comments:

Post a Comment