The Independence variant LCS-18, USS Charleston, just
completed a 26 month overseas deployment.
That’s incredible! More than two
years at the tip of the spear. They must
have done lots of realistic exercises and live fire events to demonstrate their
readiness and maintain the honed edge of readiness.
… the ship successfully launched a Rolling Airframe Missile (SeaRAM) during an at-sea, live-fire exercise … [1]
While deployed, Charleston was embarked with the Naval Strike Missile … “We do have a typical load-out that we maintain throughout the deployment,” Knuth [Cmdr. Matthew Knuth, gold crew commanding officer] said of the NSM. “That said, we did not do any live fire testing of the missile.”[1]
Let’s add up the live fire testing of the various weapon
systems over the 26 month period. This
involves high level math and large numbers so, don’t worry, I’ll do it for you.
1 RAM + 0 NSM = 1 launch
That’s the raw data.
Let’s do some analysis and calculate the average weapon firings per
year.
1 launch / 2.2 years
= 0.4 launches per year
There’s your Navy.
Prepared for anything and, why not?
They did enough live fire exercises to be supremely proficient at combat
launches and utterly confident that their equipment and systems would work
under any of the 1 or 0 conditions that were tested.
The LCS, as you know, operates with a 2-crew, Blue-Gold,
manning system wherein the crews rotate on and off the ship. Just out of curiosity, I wonder which of the
two crews got to do the 1 RAM launch?
The other crew, of course, would have spent two years with the ship and
never fired a weapon. How’s that for
readiness and training?!
At the end of the 26 month deployment, this ship and its
crews were the epitome of trained maritime warriors based on all the live fire
exercises they did.
Idle thought: Did
anyone even look inside the NSM canisters to see if there were actually
missiles there? They didn’t do any test
launches so one can’t help but wonder …
German soldiers have trained with broomsticks instead of rifles so is it
really that much of a stretch to wonder if we really have missiles on board the
LCS? Just saying …
On a seemingly unrelated note … WWII US torpedoes … Am I the only one who can see the parallels?
____________________________
[1]USNI News website, “Littoral Combat Ship USS Charleston Completes
26-Month Deployment to Western Pacific”, Gidget Fuentes, 21-Jun-2023,
One might hope they gathered more signals intelligence than they gave the opposition. I would rather see more ships headed to test ranges than deployments, however I might let the LCS be the one deploying to let the bigger fish practice more. Biggest loss is they still don't seem to spend time learning what the ship might be able to do.
ReplyDeleteSo, they went on a pleasure cruise for over two years?
ReplyDeletePeople have been questioning for years if all the VLS cells on the various ships are fully loaded. My bet is a big N.O.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, when you've got 96 cells and it's peacetime, having a few empty cells is not an issue. For the LCS, with only 8 canister mounts, it would be an issue if they were empty. To reiterate, I have no knowledge, whatsoever, about the state of the LCS NSM canisters.
DeleteThat was just mischievous musing on my part!
Only thing LCS sort of useful is as a training ship and even that probably is pushing it.
ReplyDelete"as a training ship"
DeleteTraining for what?
Equipment-wise, they have little in common with Burkes, carriers, or amphibs. They apparently don't do combat exercises so no tactical training. They don't do shipboard maintenance so no maintenance training. Maybe some navigation training although with GPS we don't actually navigate anymore.
Sadly, I'm not sure they could even be useful in a training role.
Training to not run into anything?
Delete-LP
"Training to not run into anything?"
DeleteThat would be a good start.
Lutefisk
The USS Charleston is leading the fleet in training maintainers in fatigue crack inspection and repair.
Delete"BZ to our top flight crack stop drilling team" reports the Charleston's Captain.
They are there to "show our regional allies our support to promote democracy and freedom of the seas". Do I sound like one of those positions (that should be a civilian) that is a stuffed shirt blabbing the same idiot comments for the past 30 years? They spent 26 months practicing how to be a target and hopefully how to have that ship run like hell from a real fight.
ReplyDelete"The LCS, as you know, operates with a 2-crew, Blue-Gold, manning system wherein the crews rotate on and off the ship."
ReplyDeleteI thought they got rid of the double crewing.
They got rid of the 3:2 crewing concept and adopted a 2:1, Blue-Gold as described in the linked article.
DeleteWhen I read "Brave Ship, Brave Men" it mentioned how pre WWII the ships would leave San Diego for a few days a week to train, etc. Is a Blue-Gold crew concept essentially doubling the crew requirements compared to that model?
DeleteJust wanted to say that I just finished "Brave Ship, Brave Men" on CNO's recommendation.
DeleteWell worth the time, excellent story.
Lutefisk
"Is a Blue-Gold crew concept essentially doubling the crew requirements"
DeleteAbsolutely it is! The Navy tries to claim that the LCS has reduced manning but they fail to note that they have two crews per ship! That doubles the manning!
No doubt that LCS is a strategic blunder while its many upon many technical failures are only additional.
ReplyDeleteAs Navy is retiring LCS (each cost roughly same annual maintenance budget as a Burke), there is no need for extra care.
Money is only secondary, precious time loss is really fatal to Navy as there is no useable frigate now.
The article does not say how much the ship was underway. Using weapons while welded to the pier is--difficult.
ReplyDeleteI'm a firm believer in train as you intend to fight.
ReplyDeleteShips should sail out of port as if they are going to war.
They should be practicing emcon.
They should be in combat formations.
Their should be in realistic task forces as would be used in war.
Deployments should be typically of 30 days or less to remove the need for crew comforts that would not be used in wartime.
Ships should be forward based; 3 carriers and their escorts home ported in Japan, a major naval base at Mindanao, a force at Perth (assuming the government of those countries would allow).
Every day at sea should be combat training.
Lutefisk
"Deployments"
DeleteI have argued that we should not be conducting deployments at all. We should ONLY be conducting specific missions. What value do you see in non-mission-specific deployments?
"3 carriers and their escorts home ported in Japan"
That's a LOT of naval assets concentrated in one location that's just a missile's stone throw from China! You do recall Pearl Harbor, right?
There are two possible outcomes to basing assets in Japan:
1. They get 'Pearl Harbored' in the opening hour of a war.
2. They get interred for the duration if Japan ops to remain neutral.
Are you sure you want assets in Japan?
"We should ONLY be conducting specific missions. What value do you see in non-mission-specific deployments?"
ReplyDeleteI think we are getting tripped up here by my imprecise use of language, mostly from my non-navy background.
In the army we went to the field where we would function like wartime and practice specific things that we needed to do training on.
I see the navy deployments as the same, just short field problems to practice specific training tasks.
The Japan concerns that you have are really valid.
But I look at the big map and I don't see a lot of options for forward basing carriers.
I'm also not really sure what is the value of having a single carrier forward deployed, like we have right now. If war breaks out, what is the purpose of a single carrier?
Three carriers is a real force that can do something.
I don't think Guam could support a three-carrier battle group. Hawaii and Australia are a long ways from the training area, which I would say is the Philippine Sea and South China Sea generally speaking.
It would take several days to reach the training area from Hawaii or Australia. With shortened deployments I'd be reluctant to spend so much time plowing furrows in the Pacific on a regular basis.
I think Japan is in for a penny in for a pound with us. The Pearl Harbor scenario is concerning, but if they disperse the 40 or so ships they'd be tough to knock out at once. And hopefully we'd have some indication of a threat ahead of time and react accordingly.
On the good side of this, this carrier group could be on station in the Philippine Sea on very short notice, say for a threat against Taiwan for example.
I think it's worth the discussion, although the Japanese might not allow it anyway ...I don't know where they stand on things like that.
Lutefisk
One of the great advantages of the LCS program which many people fail to appreciate is that when we scrap them after only a few years of service the hulls can be recycled and the aluminum used to build a brand new LCS.
ReplyDeleteThis process can continue indefinitely with no loss of hull quality and will greatly assist the Navy in its progress towards a zero carbon fleet.
I seriously doubt that the PLAN has even begun to think about this sort of thing, so congratulations to our far-sighted Navy brass.