Cyclones Upgraded

My thanks to DJF for the heads-up on this item.

Two shipyards in Norfolk, VA, are being awarded separate contracts for dry-docking and miscellaneous structural, electrical, and mechanical repairs on two Cyclone class PCs, USS Hurricane (PC-3) and USS Monsoon (PC-4).  The contracts are for $14M and $18M, respectively.  By comparison, the original construction costs were around $11M each although that was 15-20 years ago with the ships being built in the 1990’s.  Still, to spend that kind of money on vessels that were supposed to be recalled from duty in 2010 due to hull fatigue damage is astounding.  The ships were designed for a 15 year life.  Recall that this is one of the classes of ship that were supposed to be replaced by the LCS.  That being the case, why are these ships being upgraded rather than retired?  Is this an admission that the LCS can’t fill the role?  Is it a simple recognition that the Navy has allowed the fleet size to shrink too far and more vessels, regardless of type, are needed?  Is it a statement that smaller patrol vessels fill a vital role and the Navy’s decades long neglect of, and contempt for, small patrol vessels was unwise?  Is the Navy getting back into the small patrol vessel business?  Who knows?!



Cyclone Class PC - A Longer Life Ahead?



Will the entire class be upgraded over time or is there some special reason why only these two are being attended to?  Again, who knows?

What’s clear is that someone in the Navy made an extraordinary decision in this time of severe budget constraints to pour money (a pittance by new construction standards, to be sure) into ships that are at or past their rated life, should have been replaced by the vaunted LCS, and have been all but ignored by the Navy for the class’ entire lifespan.  That’s saying something profound as regards Navy thinking.  I just don’t know what the official thinking is. 

Fact or Fiction?

Fact or Fiction?

Here’s a few interesting tidbits that I’ve heard but been unable to independently verify.

- The LCS started as an industrial technology and concept demonstrator.  The manufacturers never intended it as a functioning warship but the Navy insisted on pushing ahead with it.  This explains some of the puzzling design aspects.

- The Navy’s current lack of armor in warships stems from the immediate post-WWII belief that future combat would involve nuclear weapons and the subsequent recognition that no amount of armor would stand up against atomic bombs. 

- Cyclone class PCs were built for Special Operations forces who then rejected the ships after they were built for reasons not completely clear.  That left the Navy with a class of ship they didn’t want and tried repeatedly to get rid of.

- The Burke Flt III is going to have significantly improved passive armor protection.

- The Burke DDGs were originally intended to have remote mine hunting vehicles and, indeed, several were built with it.  That capability was then dropped.  Supposedly, the reason it was dropped was to prevent a threat to the procurement of the LCS from people who might ask why the LCS was needed if any Burke could conduct mine countermeasures.

- The entire Spruance class was SinkEx’ed to eliminate them as a threat to the then newly developing Aegis program.  At that time, the Spruance with a New Threat Upgrade (NTU) would have rivaled or surpassed the Aegis system in performance.  The Navy decisively eliminated the threat to the favored program.

More JHSV

Well, the JHSV topic generated more discussion than I anticipated!  Here’s a few follow up thoughts.

Relative to an amphibious transport or a cargo ship, the JHSV offers only a small capacity.  Its benefit lies in the ability to deliver its cargo to otherwise inaccessible ports and, debatably, its speed.  Whether there is a valid need to deliver cargo to marginally accessible ports in the rear of a combat zone is also debatable.  And, before anyone types out a response, whatever future uses the JHSV may be adapted for, the fact is that it cannot perform combat zone deliveries currently.

I can see a possible need for movement of cargo (men and equipment) from a larger ship to a marginally accessible port but it seems like a better option would be to design an actual cargo ship to do that.  In that regard, as a simple unloading vehicle, the need for high speed seems highly questionable.

Moving on, the origins of ship classes fascinate me.  Understanding the factors that lead to a ship class’ design is always highly informative and, yet, often lost in the subsequent discussions about the merits and costs of the class.

The LCS, for instance, originated not due to a perceived need for a littoral combat vessel but because the Navy was faced with the end of the Cold War, resulting budget cuts, and a perceived lack of mission.  In other words, the Navy was facing a very real possibility of becoming the neglected step-sister of the services.  In response, you may recall that the Navy commissioned several studies and papers to try to enumerate a role in the post-Cold War era and largely failed.  They then latched onto the concept of “littoral” (though that was a spurious concept as we’ve shown in previous posts) and used that to sell Congress on the need for a new vessel.  Hence, the LCS was born.  The Navy simply wanted hulls in the water (to ensure its slice of the budget pie) and didn’t really care what they looked like or could do.  They’d worry about that later.

By comparison, I have no idea what the origin of the JHSV was.  There was no compelling need spelled out by the Navy and I can see no other budgetary imperative.  If the need was so compelling, why did the Navy so readily downsize the class with little fuss or argument?  If the need wasn’t compelling, as I suspect, than what was the real impetus for the class?  If anyone has any thoughts on this, please share them.

JHSV

The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) is beginning to join the fleet and ComNavOps is beginning to wonder what these vessels will be used for.  The stated purpose is intratheater high speed transport of troops and vehicles.  Does this make sense? 

First, let’s take a quick look at the few specs that are available.

Class Size = 10 ships

Speed = 35 kts – 45 kts

Range = 1200 nm

Troop Capacity = 300 seated airline style or 100 in berths

Weight Capacity = 600 tons

Crew = 22 civilian mariners

Cost = $250M each, $2.5B program

Aviation = flight deck for a single medium helo, no hangar

So, back to our question.  How will this vessel be used and does it make sense?  Clearly, this is a non-combat vessel, built to commercial standards, and crewed by civilians.  Thus, the JHSV is not an amphibious assault vessel of any kind.  That leaves peacetime transport.  Do we have a pressing need for high speed transport of a relatively small number of troops during peacetime operations?  I’d be hard pressed to come up with a scenario where that was required. 



JHSV - What Purpose?



I suppose we could also consider its use in a wartime scenario where it operated far in the rear of the naval front lines and acted as a shuttle.  Again, though, is there a pressing need to quickly move 100 – 300 troops far in the rear of a battle zone?

I can see a use for the JHSV as a humanitarian aid vessel but that’s not really a Navy mission.  OK, actually it is an official mission but it shouldn’t be.  I’ll make that a topic for another day.

In short, I don’t see the pressing need for this ship.  Help me out, readers.  What demonstrated need does this vessel fill?

Idled Carriers Update

We noted, here, that the Navy is planning to idle four air wings with the result that some carriers will be idled since they won’t have any air wings.  It appears that the affected carriers will be Stennis, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Roosevelt.  We’ll keep watching this.

The Navy's Best Run Program

Regular readers of this blog know that ComNavOps is often highly critical of Navy leadership and with good reason.  The litany of failed and failing programs and policies is a long one.  That said, I’d now like to take the opportunity to examine what appears to be a well run program, the X-47B unmanned carrier aircraft.  It’s as if someone in Navy leadership looked at all the mistakes of the LCS/LPD/JSF and decided not to repeat them!

To summarize briefly, the X-47B is the first step in development of an unmanned and largely autonomous carrier aircraft capable of surveillance, strike, and perhaps someday aerial combat.  It's been referred to as the UCAV or UCLASS for those more familiar with those abbreviations.



X-47B - Doing It The Right Way



Unlike the LCS which the Navy committed to replacing a third of its battle fleet with before the first one was even completed, the X-47B is being developed slowly and deliberately with no commitment beyond a few prototypes.  Consider the developmental timeline.  The Navy awarded a six year contract to Northrop Grumman in 2007 to produce two prototypes.  Six years!  Only two prototypes!  That’s a careful, methodical program being executed responsibly.  Again, unlike the LCS which committed to production before any of the requisite technologies had been proven (and they all failed miserably), the X-47B is methodically going about proving its technologies at the prototype stage.  Autonomous aerial refueling, carrier launches and recovery, control software, carrier integration, and so forth are being tested and proven now, before any commitment to production runs.  If and when production occurs the aircraft will be a well known commodity with clearly recognized capabilities and limitations. 



We’ve all commented that the prudent course of LCS development would have been to develop the modules first, using surrogate platforms.  If and when the modules were deemed ready for production the LCS itself could have been built in short order.  In fact, this is exactly what is being done with the X-47B.  For example, the control software needed to perform unmanned carrier landings is being tested using a surrogate Beech King Air aircraft. 

Refreshingly, the X-47B program is not being overhyped and oversold.  Its goals are not magical, fantasy wish lists that can never happen but, instead, are short term, achievable goals that will eventually lead to the desired end product.  Even in the worst case, if it turns out that the ultimate X-47B functionality can’t be achieved, the Navy will not have mortgaged a third of its aerial combat power.  Nothing will have been lost or wasted except for a relatively small amount of research funding.

I tell you, it feels good to be able to praise a Navy program.  Sadly, I have no idea who’s responsible for this mature and common sense approach but they deserve some recognition.  Honestly, this is the best run program in the Navy by a wide margin.

Navy Plans to Idle Carriers

In a Navy Times website article, here, Vice CNO Adm. Mark Ferguson was reported as saying that the Navy plans to shut down four air wings on March 1.  Since a carrier without an air wing is just a giant paperweight, shutting down four air wings means that four carriers will be idled.  The Navy has 11 carriers and 9 air wings.  Depending on the current status of CVW-14 which was deactivated but delayed, it's possible that the air wing count is 10.  Regardless, it looks like some carriers will be staying pierside for a while.

We'll definitely be keeping a close eye on this!