Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Brumby
Major
I would look at it from LM's perspective as a business case. I would suspect the margins are more attractive with Combat system, VLS and radar rather than hull building which is likely to be slim due to competition. The former is basically a captive market for LM.
As long as they can deliver within a price point of $900 million it will be a good achievement. China supposedly built the Type 055 for that price. I am very sceptical of that as I strongly believe in the principle that you get what you pay for. Cheap and good don't usually go well together.
In China you will get more for your dollar without sacrificing quality.
The Type055 is as good if not better than any ship of its class serving in other navies.Oerhaps you should visit the 055 thread.
Given China's living standards, $900 million might have the same economic effect as $3 billion in the US.
From the Chinese perspective, the gross high costs of modern Western warships would look inefficient and wasteful, might also be due to corporate padding, so they can pay CEOs, CFOs, stockholders, lawyers and lobbyists, marketing and so on.
Here's another thing---Chinese shipyards can more than survive making and selling commercial shipping. Except for making "Lakers" and Jones Act ships, US commercial shipbuilding is long been dead --- it was dead long before China rose as a commercial shipbuilding power --- thanks to the European, Japanese and Korean shipbuilding industries. The result of this is that the US shipyards --- once again, except for those making yachts, Missouri barges, Great Lakers and Jones Act ships --- rely exclusively on military contracts to survive when Chinese shipyards don't. The cost of shipyard survival is tacked to every USN warship when this portion is much lower for a Chinese warship.
The Freedom class happens to based on a Fincantieri super yacht. Fincantieri owns Marinette Marine, which is where the Freedom class is made. The design of the Freedom class is more Fincantieri than Lockheed Martin. LM is a partner, not the owner of the Freedom class design, and given Fincantieri's experience and record in ship building --- they are the largest shipbuilder in Europe and has made over 2,000 ships --- they would have the upper hand in ship design.
But now Fincantieri chooses to push the FREMM design --- a design they partnered with France's Naval Group --- and if FREMM wins, it will be built in the same yards as the Freedom class. So this is in effect, a company that has its foot on two of the FFG(X) contestants but has its heart in only one.
As for LM, they help provide the combat systems for the entire FFG(X) program regardless who won, which does put them on an awkward position if they also had a ship entrant. The FFG(X) program has already stipulated what radars you have to use (Raytheon's EASR), weapons and other equipment, so every entrant has the same playing field. LM still makes the Mk.41 but Raytheon is the ones providing the radar this time, despite the SPY-1 being LM.
With radar and armament on a level field, this leaves the hull as the main area of competition. Given that the requirements are uprated, such as the 16 to 32 VLS to strictly 32 VLS, this begins to favor larger hulls. The Freedom class based offering only had a 16 VLS plus a novel BAE missile launch system. The power requirements of a fixed faced AESA is going to require bigger generators and additional refrigerators for the cooling requirements. That also favors larger hulls. At this point, this is not looking good for the smaller entries. The other big ship entry --- the EMMF design Navantia partnered with General Dynamics and Bath Iron Works --- has already submitted its concrete plans, along with Fincantieri and its FREMM design. But Austal, with its enlarged Independence class entry, and Huntington Ingalls, with its design based from the Legend class Coast Guard cutters, has yet to submit their final designs, and it may also be curtains for them.
I won't be surprised that like the LCS, you might end up with two winners of the program, allowing Fincantieri to build the FREMM on Marinette Marine, while Bath will do the EMMF frigate.
And there is still a hidden factor in this.
LM partnered with BAE for the winning Canadian entry.
You make excellent points there is simply no way for the LCS derivative designs to compete with the size and power requirements plus the are both crappy designs to begin with that Really have way to many issues to begin with, Lockmart won't have any problem anyway remember who is building the mk41 and the radar (Please) as to Legend class No One Knows anything because they are really hiding it very well but it doesn't seem to match up either.
So IMHO there are 2 possible 3 competitor's Fremm, Navantia, and aforementioned T26 or a 4th possibility as Jura Sates Cancellation
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kwaigonegin
Colonel
Jones Act is an antiquated law. It has served it's purpose and usefulness when it was enacted but these days it just hampers the economy but the shipbuilding lobby of course wants it w/o caring about the country as a whole. American taxpayers are the ones paying for it due to this antiquated law because everything gets passed on to them.
Commercial US shipbuilding is pretty much dead in the water, no pin intended.. Whether we like it or not buying ships from SK, China etc is the best way to go to move energy within the US. To revived and start building tankers and big haulers carrying coal, oil, gas etc domestically would cost 4/5 X more than buying a similar ship somewhere.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
The Issue was the Propulsion system requirements. The FFG(X) demands redundancy and relocation of the main system. Lockheed Martin’s Freedom class meet all the systems requirements but that one. It would have demanded a total redesign of the ship, and they had already redesigned twice. Same is true for all the other entries FREEM included.
On Mat 28, 2019, last Tuesday, Lockheed Martin announced it WOULD NOT submit this, or any other full design for the FFX(G) program. This cuts the bidders down to four. The FREMM based design, the Hobart/F-100 based design, the Austal based design, and the Huntington Ingalls Legend Class Cutter based design. This was a surprise to me. At this point, I believe the Hobart or the Fremm would be the best, but now would rather see the Hobart because it is already an AEGIS based design. Surprises never cease.
USNI said:
Jura The idiot
General
the USN has been commissioning aluminum scrap in the form of LCSs for more than ten years now,
and the USN has been operating without lighter surface forces for more than five years now,
so I of course won't be surprised if they cancel the FFG(X), as I predicted Oct 30, 2018, and
I won't even be surprised if they keep commissioning some more aluminum scrap in the form of LCSs, going beyond 35 hulls Sep 18, 2018,
and I wouldn't be surprised if they kept operating without lighter forces in decades to come:
the USN transformation in progress
and the USN has been operating without lighter surface forces for more than five years now,
so I of course won't be surprised if they cancel the FFG(X), as I predicted Oct 30, 2018, and
I won't even be surprised if they keep commissioning some more aluminum scrap in the form of LCSs, going beyond 35 hulls Sep 18, 2018,
and I wouldn't be surprised if they kept operating without lighter forces in decades to come:
the USN transformation in progress