We’ve documented instance
after instance where the Navy has flat out lied. The lies cover a wide range of topics but the
common theme is that they lie when the truth won’t get them what they want. To be fair, I guess that’s kind of the reason
for lying, in general.
They lie about weapons
performance, they lied about the USS Fort Worth’s Singapore Ticonderoga class cruisers, and so on.
The latest lie is about the
LCS shock testing that was recently performed on the USS Jackson and USS
Milwaukee. What did we read from the
Navy? The tests went very well – even
better than expected. Now we find out
that the tests weren’t exactly what was described to us. The shock tests were only partial shock tests
conducted at a greatly reduced shock load.
The Navy neglected to mention that, didn’t they?
I’m not going to debate
anyone about what a lie is. A lie of
omission is still a lie. Deceit is a
lie. The Navy omitted telling us that
the shock tests were vastly scaled down.
The Navy deceived us into believing that the LCS was fully tested.
What really happened? As ever, we have to depend on Director,
Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) to tell us the truth. Here’s the DOT&E comments as reported by
USNI News website (1).
Note: all emphasis added
“Full ship shock trials on both variants of the
Littoral Combat Ship proved the ships are survivable and will only need
“relatively minor modifications,” according to Navy written testimony to the
Senate Armed Services Committee, but the Pentagon’s top operational tester
warned in his written testimony that the shocks
were performed at reduced severity due to concerns about excessive damage
to the ships.”
The tests were performed at
reduced levels because the Navy knew the ships would be severely damaged by
full testing.
Here’s the Navy’s lie.
“Stackley, [Sean Stackley, head of Navy acquisition] along
with commander, Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, wrote that “the LCS
Program Office accomplished all FSST test objectives within budget, for both
ship variants, demonstrating that the ships and ships’ systems are able to
survive the degrading effects of an underwater shock event.”
DOT&E’s assessment is a
bit different.
“Gilmore’s [Director, DOT&E] written testimony
tells a different story. He wrote that ahead of the trials he “approved the reduced severity trial geometries for
LCS-6 because of serious concerns about the potential for damage to non-shock hardened mission critical
equipment and ship structure.” He added that the Independence-variant
aluminum hull could suffer more damage than a traditional steel hull, and that
the combat system and main propulsion system on those ships were not hardened.
“To further mitigate potential equipment damage and personnel injury, some mission systems were removed, other
equipment was modified to improve shock resistance, and construction
deficiencies were corrected,” he wrote.”
This statement reveals all
kinds of things – things that I’ve stated over the years and now have
unambiguous proof for.
We find out that the much of
the LCS equipment is not shock-hardened.
Aside from having told you that for many years, this also puts the lie
to the Navy’s attempt to claim that the LCS was built to some kind of Level 1+
survivability standard. As demonstrated
in a previous post, Level 1 explicitly calls for shock-hardening and now we
have proof that the LCS is not shock-hardened and, therefore, does not even
meet Level 1 survivability let alone some made-up Level 1+. Here’s the relevant quote from OpNavInst
9070.1 which defines survivability levels.
“Level I represents the least severe environment
anticipated and
excludes the need for enhanced survivability for
designated ship
classes to sustain operations in the immediate area
of an
engaged Battle Group or in the general war-at-sea
region. In this category, the minimum design capability required shall, in
addition to the inherent sea keeping mission, provide
for EMP
and shock hardening, …”
Lies! Beyond shock hardening, the LCS is also not
EMP shielded – again, a failure to meet even Level 1 standards.
We also see from the
statement that some equipment was removed prior to testing. I’ve been told that the 57 mm gun was removed,
among other equipment. In addition, some
equipment was modified for the test in order to allow it to survive. The Navy didn’t mention any of that, did
they?
Moving on, what happened
when stronger shocks were attempted on the Milwaukee
“Gilmore directed the Navy to use stronger shocks for the
Milwaukee test, with the third one reaching two-thirds the shock severity
the ship is built to sustain.
“The Navy conducted the first two shots from August
29 through September
23, 2016 , starting the trial at the same shock severity as
other modern surface combatants. However, the Navy stopped the LCS 5 trial after the second shot, thereby not
executing the planned third shot due to concerns with the shock environment,
personnel, and equipment,” Gilmore wrote. “The Navy viewed the third LCS 5 trial as not worthwhile because the Navy
was concerned shocking the ship at the increased level of that trial would
significantly damage substantial amounts of non-hardened equipment, as well as
damage, potentially significantly, the limited amount of hardened equipment,
thereby necessitating costly and lengthy repairs.”
Gilmore’s summary
assessment?
““Neither shock trial resulted in catastrophic
damage, yet both shock trials exposed critical shock deficiencies, which I will
detail in an upcoming classified report,” he concluded. “These deficiencies,
which were only identified in the shock trial, can now be specifically
addressed and corrected by Navy engineers to make the ships more survivable.”
The Navy flat out lied and
deceived us into believing that the LCS was fully tested like any other
warship. Far from a success, the shock
trials were an abysmal failure, apparently.
Now, here’s the really sad
aspect of all this. There was no need
for the Navy to lie. A reasonable case
can be made that a small combatant does not need to be built to the same
standards as a full-fledged warship.
It’s actually quite reasonable to expect a small vessel to be unable to
withstand the same stresses as a full-fledged warship. No one would object to such a conceptual
design philosophy. Of course, that leads
to the question of whether a half billion dollar vessel the size of a WWII
Fletcher should be considered “small” but that’s another issue.
This entire issue is due to
the Navy’s attempt to portray the LCS as a warship. They painted themselves into a corner. They can’t, on the one hand, claim that the
LCS is a warship and, on the other hand, not hold it to the standards of a
warship. By trying to deceive us into
believing that the LCS is a warship they created the controversies over
survivability and shock testing.
“Oh what a tangled web we
weave when first we practice to deceive.” – We all learned that as children but
the Navy appears not to understand it.
_______________________________
(1)USNI News website, “Navy
Says LCS Shock Trials Had Positive Results; Pentagon Still Has Concerns”, Megan
Eckstein, 2-Dec-2016 ,
https://news.usni.org/2016/12/02/navy-says-lcs-shock-trials-positive-results-pentagon-still-concerns
