The $362 million warship the US Navy just decommissioned wasn't even in service 5 years

[Kennah]

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-lcs-warship-just-decommissioned-after-short-service-life-2023-8

The US Navy officially decommissioned a warship with a reported cost of $362 million this week after less than five years of service. It was meant to serve for 25 years.

USS Sioux City, a Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship, was commissioned into service with the Navy on November 17, 2018. Roughly four years and nine months later, the ship's crew took down its flag for the last time during a ceremony at Naval Station Mayport in Florida on August 14.
...
The goal of the LCS program was to build a fleet of small, agile surface ships that could cheaply tackle a wide range of missions and operate as both light frigates and near-shore patrol vessels, but the ships have long failed to meet expectations.
...
Facing these problems, the Navy has pushed to divest of these platforms to save money on repairs and upgrades and is looking to new platforms like its upcoming frigate to execute key missions the LCS was unable to handle, such as anti-submarine warfare. The Sioux City is just one of a number of Littoral Combat Ships the Navy seeks to decommission.

[AntivaxHunters]

1. Think of how many people....

we could house & or feed with that sort of money.

[Xavier Breath]

8. True, but it would never have been spent on them.

They would have found another boondoggle to spend it on. Fuzzy dice for all the F35s or some equally stupid shit.

[Chainfire]

2. It is not like it is real money...It was tax dollars.

[flying_wahini]

3. Can they take it to Maui to house people there.

Staff it with a crew to cook clean medial triage…..?

[Historic NY]

4. But they kept building them

They built five more after this, the last the St. Louis in 2020. What a waste, I guess they are trying to unload them for pennies on the pound.

[link:https://news.usni.org/2022/03/29/all-freedom-littoral-combat-ships-in-commission-tapped-for-early-disposal|]

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Jobs program

So much of this military spending is nothing more than a jobs program.

[Hotler]

11. +1. And to siphon tax payer dollars to the military industrial complex. Got to keep those companies

flush with cash. Got to keep those stocks up, a lot of politicians and 1%er's count on it.

[Happy Hoosier]

12. But Democrats usually support jobs programs, right? ;)

For the record, I fully support Government investment in the development and technology and maintaining a manufacturing base to support a strong defense.

There is plenty to fault in military R&D but I don;t agree that "much" of it is "nothing more than a jobs program." For example, as someone who works primarily in tactical aerospace technology, most (but not all) of the criticism of the F-35 program is uninformed garbage.

MOST of the projects I've worked on over the years have been worthy, at least IMHO. Where they fail is usually in poor managment, quite often to the Government deferring too much to the contractors who often place company profit ahead of what's best for the Country. I mean, companies need to make money... I get that. But IMHO, the Government needs to cultivate and maintain technical expertise in order to hold the contractor's feet to the fire.

I'm kind of appalled at how oftern in the past (this is less common now, but it does still happen) the Government allows Contractors to retain the rights to data associated with defense systems. Quite often, they own the data interfaces. The Government does this because it does not have the technical expertise to meaningfully own the docs and data, but it means that the Contractor retains an iron grip on anything to do with the system in question. This leads to "vendor lock" and (you guessed it) bloated costs.

There is a signficant effort underway in DoD to reduce this vendor lock. As you might imagine, many of the Big Boy vendors are less than enthusiastic about it, but some are starting to see the benefits of collaboration. We'll see.

In THIS case, the idea behind the ship was a decent one, but it is an example of where the Navy simply gave too much leeway to the contractor. They allowed the program to pass milestones it had no business passing. The program should have failed much earlier than it did.

The thing is failure happens in R&D. It's part of the process. But we must be willing to declare failures when we see them.

[Silent Type]

6. I'm fine with cutting our loses, but this incompetence is embarassing.

[Freethinker65]

7. So I assume it can be retrofitted and used in some other capacity????

[Happy Hoosier]

9. The ship is junk. It'll be scrapped.

The ship was trash. I know a guy who was supporting it (working on the stability control system) and he is someone whose opinion I trust. He think s the ship is utter junk.

Most of the features promised for the ship either did not work at all, or significantly underperformed.

The Navy quite rightly decided to cut their losses and get these pieces of junk out of service and move on to better designs.

We spent a lot of money on these failures, but no sense in throwing good money after bad.

[Kennah]

17. I've read the ships have a lot of rust because smaller crews was one of the selling points

So they don't have crews to do maintenance because ships rust.

[Happy Hoosier]

22. YES!

That was one issue he brought up. Another was that a lost of the engine was supposed to be completely automated, so they didn;t have enough lighting in the engine room spaces for when human mechanics were required.

They eventually doubled the size of the crew, and THAT was a problem becuase there wasn;t enough berthing space for the additional crew.

Scrap 'em. JUNK.

[brush]

23. Are they even ocean-going and can keep up with other ships in the open ocean?

I keep hearing they operate close to shore.

[Happy Hoosier]

24. They were intended as "Littoral" ships...

... meaning that they were intended to operate close to shore.

They designed to be shallow-draft, realtively fast, and meneuverable. Although they were designed for Littoral operations, they were intended to be ocean-going, and capable to cruising with battle groups.

Turns out they are none of those. They've been limiting underway speeds to no more than 30 kts (designed to be able to do 50!) and typically a lot lower. Faster than that causes cracks in the hull.

JUNK.

[Kennah]

31. I've read they were intended to be less detectable

And while that may be true, US Navy ships tend not to operate off by themselves. They are usually part of a larger group of ships, others of which will be very detectable.

[Brainfodder]

10. Hey Trump I think we got your new home just about ready?

[EYESORE 9001]

14. We'll name it the Leakin' Lena

Beany & Cecil reference.

[Bayard]

13. Could Ukraine use it?

Or is it not worth the effort?

[EYESORE 9001]

15. That would be like donating a recalled product to Goodwill

[Kennah]

18. New Russian sub?

[orthoclad]

16. "National Security"

The US spends more on its military than the NEXT TEN COUNTRIES COMBINED.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

As a percentage of global military expenditure, the US is number one at 39%. Countries 2 through 11 total out at 38%. China, #2, spends 13% of the global total - 1/3 of what the US spends.

What exactly are we defending against, and for whom?

We're told to imagine that these other countries are a threat to our security. Personally, I think we have FAR greater domestic threats than any of these other countries, like Mux, Zuckerthing, Koch and ilk.

For example, the people who crippled our response to covid cost three times as many US lives as were lost in WWII (a total of 429,000). The US leads the world in total covid mortality and is near the top in deaths per capita. Richest country in history, eh?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

It was Facebook illegally collaborating with Cambridge Analytica that threw the electoral college to Trump in 2016.

Does China send US sheriffs to evict US renters? Does Russia seize people's homes for medical debt? Does India give 98 year old newspaper owners heart attacks in illegal police raids?

We need to take a closer look at what "security" means.

edit: copied to https://www.democraticunderground.com/114231696
Hospitals Sued Thousands of Patients In North Carolina for Unpaid Bills, Report: Property Liens

[Kennah]

20. "What exactly are we defending against, and for whom?" Space aliens, of course

[orthoclad]

21. Well, since we have wide ocean borders and friendly neighbors,

we gotta watch out for those space lasers. Go Space Force!

Cuba's gonna invade Colorado.

[Celerity]

25. the petrol-dollar matrix + forced treasuries buying

The US can print basically unlimited debt because the USD is the word's reserve currency, and it is required to fulfill most petrol contracts.

The US needs to have global force protection to keep the racket up (at gunpoint if necessary), to make sure that people/nations keep having to use the USD and also invest in US treasuries (buying up the massive US debt).

[harumph]

26. Yes. Valuation depends on credibility.

Credibility depends on the ability to project force worldwide. This subject is taboo. You won't
hear that discussion in "serious" circles.

[orthoclad]

30. General Butler said it well

"War Is A Racket", by two-time Congressional Medal Of Honor winner Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

The original RICO

edit: text here. Worth a read -- it's short.
https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

[TheRealNorth]

19. It's okay....

Because I am sure that some of the money from the deep pockets in Marinette, WI, and Mobile, AL that the contract filled got funneled back to the Republican parties in AL and WI.

[pfitz59]

27. These are built in Alabama, you know Turberville-landia?

Scrap the whole program and see how the anal blockage howls!

[UTUSN]

28. Hah! - My Navy "saves" on other ones! (sarcasm)

My LST in Vietnam was built in 1945 and had been out of service (I don't know if fully decommissioned) a couple of times, then was in Korea before Vietnam. When I got on it in 1967-8 (and it stayed until '71), it was rusted and leaking. After it was finally decommissioned, it wasn't scrapped, but rather was sold to some country in Central or South America for continued use as "something". So the Navy squeezed its money's worth out of this one.

All we got left was the Ship's Bell that is at a Marine base in California.

[Wonder Why]

29. Blame the admirals. They'll accept any ship that has a nice looking wheel

they can stand next to for the pictures or to lash themselves to when the auditors come in.

In the '70s when I was in the A.F., we had to visit Lockheed to confer on a project. They were building a destroyer for the Navy and they talked about it. They said the Admiral insisted it have a big wheel (which had a tiny electronic circuit behind it to digitize the setting. In the bridge were lots of floor to ceiling racks of steel with electronic circuits in them. Those circuits were so small, they wouldn't fill a single rack but they looked impressive. It looked just like the older ships. It wouldn't surprise me if they had a tall wooden mast with a crows nest where they sent the youngest guy up in the worst weather (from which he would always fall in the movies).