XBradTC

Yep, though he has some faint praise.

We need to be upfront with each other about what this represents:
– First, this is an admission that we have a surface warship that cannot fight a surface battle. As we have discussed for roughly a decade here, LCS will be asked to do missions the transformationalists wished would go away, but those with a respect for historical reality knew would not. Even if the short range NLOS was made flesh, the LCS would still …
– Even with this bolt-on weapon, LCS is at best a “shoot and scoot” platform in a surface battle. Once its missiles are gone, it has nothing else to effectively fight anything from a light corvette up. That is OK, if you don’t mind having a ship the size of a WWII destroyer with with a smaller gun, fewer ASCM and less speed than a 1970s Pegasus Class hydrofoil.
– Low observability is gone. You can do a lot with an arc welder, bags of cash, and electrical cable duct-tapped to the deck, but when you do that, your RCS dramatically increases. You are also screaming beacons throughout the electromagnetic spectrum as you coordinate your non-integrated weapon in to a coordinated attack or at least getting a targeting solution locally or through your RC/manned helo.
– Irony is that Harpoon and NSM are not “littoral” weapons. They are designed for open ocean fighting for reasons your JAG can explain to you in detail. So, just CS not LCS.
– LCS was an exquisitely designed platform without much “white space” to make up for its many conceptual flaws. As such, no VLS, just bolt on and hope. This is something that will work, and in that note, we should be satisfied with.

One of the most annoying aspects of the entire LCS program is that the United States has considerable experience building highly capable light warships optimized for the littorals. Just not for us.

How about a lightly manned corvette of about 1300 t0ns, with a 33 knot top speed, and a range of 3500 nautical miles? A CIWS, and a considerable ant-ship missile battery, as well as a very respectable point defense missile system? Toss in a helo as well for good measure? Air search radar, surface search radar and a hull mounted sonar, and a towed array sonar? Torpedo tubes as well?

The Israeli Sa’ar V class corvettes have been in service for over 20 years, and have been regarded as quite successful. And while they’re an Israeli design, they were built in Pascagoula, MS.

Of course, a US variant would probably need considerable changes. For instance, the Barak 1 or Barak 8 missile would be changed out for the RIM-162 ESSM. 

But the fact is, the US knows how to build worthy small fighting ships. We just embarked on an intellectually flawed program to build an LCS that failed to see the world as it is, and through the momentum of the procurement system, can’t really be killed.