Do you remember the main selling point of the Constellation,
as originally stated? It was to use an
existing (parent) ship design with absolutely minimal modifications so that
commonality would be high, thereby keeping costs low and schedules short. Instead, the Navy heaped on so many changes
that commonality dropped from 85% to 15% at the time of cancellation. We saw what happened to cost and schedule, as
a result.
For the National Security Cutter (NSC) frigate, the Navy’s
main goal is to get AMERICAN hulls in the water as quickly as possible without
worrying about lethality or combat effectiveness. Setting aside the absurdity of the lack of
lethality and combat effectiveness, the only way hulls can hit the water
quickly and cheaply is to maintain maximum commonality with the parent NSC
design. Of course, the greater the
commonality, the less the firepower and lethality … but, I digress.
Unfortunately, we’ve already seen many changes to the parent
design. The forward superstructure is
being modified, stern platforms added, weapons changed, electronic warfare
added, sensors added, presumably a new combat software system, etc. and those
are only the changes we know about and only the external, visible changes. Each of the listed changes requires
modifications to the internal structure, ducting, cabling, bulkheads, layout,
runs, utilities, etc. Changes have a
cascading effect far beyond the main change.
Further, the NSC is not built to Navy standards so, presumably, like the
Constellation, the Navy will make significant internal structural changes for
increased survivability just as was done to Constellation. My slightly educated guess is that the
commonality is already down to around 50% and it’s only going to get worse as
the design progresses. The Navy will
continue to make changes. They can’t
help themselves. It’s who they are and what
they do.
Affordable and fast production? I think cheap has already left town and quick
is buying a bus ticket out as we speak.
Down selecting to one LCS would have been a better idea than these back to back debacle and that is saying a lot. It is obvious we need a clean sheet design. Reworking the NSC is just consuming resources we could be spending on that.
ReplyDelete"It is obvious we need a clean sheet design."
DeleteTo do what? This is where the Navy always fails. They build just to build, with no clear idea why. So, what is your mission focus for a clean sheet design? AAW, ASW, mine warfare, ASuW, recon, something else?
Once you have a mission focus then, and only then, can you begin the clean sheet design process. Without that mission focus, you're just building randomly and hoping whatever you build will be useful ... and it never is.
So, do one level better than the Navy and tell me your mission focus!
ASW. The ship will always be in a fleet. This is not a DE.. AAW should be done by Burke and DDG(X). Recon should be done with aviation and subs. MCM also deserves its own class.
DeleteDoctrine it should be part of a sub hunter group, which consists of a helo carrier, and an AAW ship, Maybe 3 to 5 of these, need wargame and play with it to determine ideal number.
With that in mind we don't need it to embark a helo. We don't need aegis. We need it to be quiet, have bow sonar, towed array, 16 VLS to carry torpedoes. 4 point defense weapons. If can fit 32 VLS great. But I wouldn't lengthen ship to do it. The urge to make it do everything must be fought.
Link 16 and ability to add ESSM cue off the Burke sounds nice, but just adds to the cost. This ship is going to play tag with submarines. It must be attritiable.
"ASW"
DeleteA clear purpose! That's what I like.
Just a thought or two for you. If VLS is for VL-ASROC, 16 cells is plenty. It is incredibly unlikely that any single ship would ever 16 torpedoes in the course of a single mission (reload after the mission) and, as you stated, it would be part of a group which would also have torpedoes. A group of four such vessels would have 64 torpedoes between them in addition to whatever the ASW carrier and helos would have so likely well beyond 100 torpedoes for the group. Given how rare sub encounters are, that's way more than enough. In fact, a very good argument could be made for just 8 cells per ship.
Regarding VL-ASROC, this is a woefully inadequate weapon. We need a crash program to develop a longer range VL-ASROC to really take advantage of the weapon and the ship.
With a mission focus and the sketch of a CONOPS, one could now begin an INTELLIGENT and USEFUL warship design.
Just what you've described would be so much more useful than the NSC-FFG.
Well done!
@Robtzu. I agree, I think we just need a cheap, plentiful ASW that could show the flag, do all the training with other nations,etc BUT what I'm afraid of is we will get the inevitable "it has to survive against every threat known to man" and after that, we get AEGIS, minimum 32 VLS, probably 48, all the fancy toys, 2 helos, little ASW and there goes your cheap ASW escort......I'm not sure the USN can help itself anymore and probably can't do "cheap".
ReplyDeleteIMO, USN only wants to do high end AAW and BDM. And we all know that's expensive......
"USN only wants to do high end AAW and BDM"
DeleteSetting all other problems aside, do you see the gaping flaw in that concept? It's purely DEFENSIVE! Navies don't exist to defend. They exist to offend. Their ultimate purpose is offensive. Defense is what you do to enable the offense.
The Navy has become far too defensive and terribly lacking in offense.
In the Navy's defense, there are these things called 'Congresscritters' that are often pushing some of this idiocy. Part of how Zumwalt got saddled with two giant guns is Congressional insistence that Naval Gunfire Support continue. Even if the USN maintains its own discipline, it will have to stay strongly on-message to keep Congress from pressing for these things to sprout massive numbers of superfluous weapons and capabilities.
DeleteThe President of Ingalls literally said that he was asked to take the existing bits of NSC #11 and slap them together into a frigate. Hull #1 isn't going to be the tear-up and rewrite you think it is. That is both good and bad. Whatever was bad about the NSC will remain, if only on that first ship. The good news is that you will get a ship in 2028. As a program manager I once worked for said, "the Army wanted vehicles fast, real bad. They got real bad vehicles fast..." I've also seen pictures of an NSC under construction. The stern, aft of the flight deck, is one module/superlift/whatever they call it at Pascagoula. So, no changes forward of that to close in the boat deck.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is how much discipline can be maintained in a putative 'Flight 2'. That's where the temptation to tinker will come in. How much power will they try to add? The existing 4 MW is just enough to add rotating single-face SPY-6. Go for EASR, and you're probably blowing the budget. The Legends already had the USN's EW system. Can they avoid adding the full-on SEWIP? Those are the questions that will sink this thing.
Are you aware of the extent of changes already called for and that will appear on the first ship? I've listed them in the post. As of this moment, to the best of my knowledge, the NSC-FFG will NOT be an NSC with minor changes. It will be a fairly substantial alteration. Of course, this is all still just paper specs, at the moment, so we'll have to wait and see what actually gets built but it's not looking good.
DeleteAs an engineer, who's worked a lot of programs, the things you're talking about actually ARE minor. Closing in the boat-deck, if you don't plan to add CAPTAS, is just basically filling in the hole where the interceptor boat used to go and slapping a metal plate over the top. Slapping that 'shelf' on the front of the boat is just a few days of CAD and some finite element analysis to make sure the bulkheads beneath are fine with the load. Considering the ship was designed with the intent to add VLS, I don't see that much difference to the underlying structure. As I said, the REAL trouble will come when they try to turn this into a real program. Right now, Hull 1 is just a demonstrator.
DeleteIf you haven't yet, take a look at the concept renderings of the NSC-FFG that are online. You'll see many of the changes just from the external appearance.
DeleteI have. See above. I was so deep into this thing that I actually tried to find structural pictures of the NSC itself. I've worked in defense a LONG time. This first ship isn't a tear-up. The real trouble will come with USN attempts to turn it into a useful ship. Right now, hull 1 is a demonstrator, useful for basically tooling around in the Caribbean.
DeleteAs your conversation with the other gentlemen in this thread suggested, the USN needs to figure out what this thing will be. How quiet does it need to be? If not too quiet, slap Prairie on. That's just an air-compressor and some perforated plates. If it needs to be hole-in-the-water quiet, this thing is already sunk. That's where the problems are going to lie. Ship 1 isn't anything special. You're overthinking it a little, I think.