Oren Lieberman, Ellie Kaufman and Brad Lendon – CNN May 12, 2022
The chief of the US Navy defended the service’s plans to scrap nine relatively new warships in the coming fiscal year even as the service tries to keep up with China’s growing fleet. Three of the littoral combat ships slated for decommissioning are less than three years old.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that the anti-submarine ships could not perform their primary mission.
“I refuse to put an additional dollar against a system that would not be able to track a high-end submarine in today’s environment,” Gilday told the committee. He said the main reason for the early retirement was that the anti-submarine warfare system on the ships “did not work out technically.” The decommissioning of the ships would save the Navy approximately $391 million, according to the service’s proposed FY23 budget.
But that recoups only a fraction of the cost of the nine littoral combat ships, which totaled about $3.2 billion.
The USS Indianapolis, USS Billings and USS Wichita were all commissioned in 2019, which means the Navy plans on decommissioning ships that are only a fraction of the way into their expected service life. The Navy also plans to retire six other littoral combat ships, all of the single-hull Freedom-variant, as opposed to the trimaran Independence-variant. Both variants can achieve speeds of 40+ knots.
Under a 2016 Navy plan, the Freedom-class variants were all homeported Mayport, Florida, mainly for use in Atlantic Ocean operations. The Independence-class variants were homeported in San Diego, and designated for mainly Pacific operations.
The decision amounts to an embarrassing admission that some of the Navy’s newest ships are not fit for modern warfare.
The most like reason for decommissioning these very expensive boats, is that they know the Russians can cripple them. It’s been the case that the basic US software used in ships and planes, is wide open to Russian electronic warfare. These ships are packed with tech, and were supposed to be the transition from manned to AI control. Has the US backed off?
Zelensky can only talk to foreign powers remotely, because the Russians allow it. Just as Russia has maintained power, water, telephony, and the interweb. The reason, because its not an invasion or war, its still an SMO, although, this is likely to change over the next couple of weeks, when Russia must decide what their next moves will be.
It won’t save the taxpayer a penny.
The USA has no chance of keeping up with anything in the long term, because BLM are free to burn the towns if there is any attempt at Law and Order, and the ADL are free to call the back-bone of the country vicious antisemites, and all and sundry are free to hate actual Americans for their “White Privilege”, some wordplay that most people can’t unravel. In China the Han won the war of the ant-people and march where they want.
Yet more failures of modern ‘digital’ ‘technology’ (the shortcomings of ‘sampled’ and ‘filtered’ data… interpreted by. software predicated on such shortcomings)..
Hubris mixes poorly with imbecility..
of course such poorly ‘designed’ things are costly to maintain and ‘run’ and require physical resources and highly capable imbeciles to function not merely fiat currency and corporate corruption.. neither of which will be possible for the American sinking ship…
NB: analog is infinitely more analogous.. ask any capable electric guitarist..
and his…
valve amp.. and unpotted pickups..hehe
If anyone believes that naval combat ships are necessary other than to be used for regional conflicts are out of touch with reality.
Space orbiting weaponry which has been quietly established is where the winners and losers will be decided.
Keep in mind for some inane reason Globalists don’t believe peace through strength, the believe in peace through death.
Stealth technology always seemed a failed concept to me. Planes are one thing but the idea high flat hulls cannot return a radar signal looks like wishful thinking. Maybe the whole project was just a boondoggle?
Carl, here you go and if you think this is ‘it’ then c’mon man! This is the old 57 Chevy. version. They slapped on a new coat of radar deflecting paint, some lightning bolts, a few antennas and voila! Though obviously high-tech and lethal in reality it’s an antique, lol. >a href=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eduardo-Sepulveda-5/publication/330199162/figure/fig1/AS:722566788431874@1549284755417/F-35-with-loyal-wingmen-UCAVs-Source-US-Air-Force-3.ppm>Here they are with Daddy.
(for public consumption only)
Here they are with Daddy.
(for public consumption only)
I say send them to Ukraine so Russia can use them for target practice.
Comrade A – “The Amerikanos are sending their latest Lavitoral Combat Ships to the Black Sea to help Ukraine fight against the motherland”
Comrade B – “‘Dis is very good, vee can now test our latest Russian anti-ship missile, the P-270 Moskit Sunburn and prove to the world the glory of the Russian superior firepower”
Comrade A – “Let us drink Vodka in celebration, vee have huge stockpile from boycott”
And that’s not the whole story.
It has been nearly a decade now that aircraft carriers have become a thing of the past and completely obsolete, gone are the days when US shuffled governments around the world by just “moving” their aircraft carriers! Not only these large and slow targets can be destroyed by cruise missiles, they can now even be destroyed from far greater distances with ballistic missiles. Not to mention the vulnerable deck filled with fighter jets and ammunition, one small drone with a small bomb can accurately take out what matters on the command tower or cause massive cascading fire on the deck similar to those famous incidents, these can essentially render the entire Aircraft Carrier as “mission unworthy” for a long time!
Furthermore the fighter jets carried by the aircraft carrier are also a thing of the past, you must understand we are in the cybernetics era and Drones are going to completely replace manned fighter jets. Drones have been recently used in air to air combat as well and this is expected to advance rapidly.
In shallow waters such as Persian Gulf, missile and torpedo speed-boats are king. In open ocean, other than submarines, multi-purpose vessels that carry missiles and drones are the future.
And US or Russia are not necessarily ahead in these new areas!