cjg225 wrote:

That's sort of what the Perry-Class FFGs were all about. It was a major mistake to either 1) not modernize them; or 2) not begin designing and fielding a replacement before the Perry-Class was fully decommissioned. The LCS was never going to fill that void.

Unsurprisingly, the glaring weakness in the fleet has been discovered late and is creating a rush to fix it: US Navy Considers a More Powerful Frigate.

Theres already an obvious choice for this vessel that's already in production and unless the USN go stupid with gold plating could be built in numbers quickly. Start building the Coast Guard National Security Cutter, add sonar, missile silos, an air defense radar and paint it grey.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... navy-19020

So, state of the art military vessels are unable to avoid collisions with dumb, slow moving tankers and container ships. Yet some believe it "can't be the USN's fault"? Have I got that right?

While I'm waiting for a full review so we can understand what happened I am in favor of relieving officers at various command level. The Captain (and probably XO) for sure. Is there a DESRON between the ship and 7th Fleet? He/She should also be relieved and it is time for 7th Fleet to be replaced. He will still serve in the Navy while the review is under way, probably past his Earle September retirement date, but he needs to be in uniform during the review, leaving the Navy when CNO or SecNav approves.

If a warship is not in a combat zone I can see no reason to darken ship at night, or turning off radars and other systems. There is no justification for that. The "enemy" knows where the ship is and will be. Easy to find that out as they simply pay the bar girls in various ports to keep them informed,

With the problems this year I think a Captain with solid judgement will decide to go Port & Starboard on the bridge with the XO. 6 Hours on and 6 off in all congested lanes.

In terms of the sleep issue, there is also a deployment issue. For each ship deployed there needs to be 3 ships in their home port. One in deep maintenance, one recovering from their last deployment and one preparing for the next deployment. These days the Navy has to take from Peter to pay Paul. That calls for increasing the number of ships in the Navy (and increase in other services), which results in a delay for any significant tax cut.

Ken777 wrote:

While I'm waiting for a full review so we can understand what happened I am in favor of relieving officers at various command level. The Captain (and probably XO) for sure. Is there a DESRON between the ship and 7th Fleet? He/She should also be relieved and it is time for 7th Fleet to be replaced. He will still serve in the Navy while the review is under way, probably past his Earle September retirement date, but he needs to be in uniform during the review, leaving the Navy when CNO or SecNav approves.

Yes, but not all of the ships that have had incidents in the 7th Fleet AOR this year are DesRon 15 vessels. Antietam is Carrier Strike Group 5 and Lake Champlain is actually Carrier Strike Group 1, which is 3rd Fleet, but Lake Champlain was chopped to 7th Fleet at the time. Not sure if it was seconded to DesRon 15, CSG 5, or neither.

I'm going to have to apologize because I am doing this in a big hurry before I scoot off to another duty assignment, but just now on my own website one of my staff asked me in the mod area if I had seen that there was s report about a malfunction in the steering gear on the McCain (spelling wrong?) and I had not seen the report, nor do I have time right now to find it. BUT, I wanted to get something here in this thread. It might very well be some folks are all over that McCain crew on duty that morning without a full understanding of what caused that accident. I assume, not knowing ships (but we have backup systems in our birds) -- so I assume there should be a backup system for the ship's steering gear and there may be fault in something not being done by the book with regard to the backup, but I am posting right now in a hurry -- sorry -- because this 'crew too tired' stuff seems to be beyond the left field fence. I mean, let's give those guys a bit of a break, okay.

Sorry for the rush.

Ken777 wrote:

While I'm waiting for a full review so we can understand what happened I am in favor of relieving officers at various command level. The Captain (and probably XO) for sure. Is there a DESRON between the ship and 7th Fleet? He/She should also be relieved and it is time for 7th Fleet to be replaced. He will still serve in the Navy while the review is under way, probably past his Earle September retirement date, but he needs to be in uniform during the review, leaving the Navy when CNO or SecNav approves.

If a warship is not in a combat zone I can see no reason to darken ship at night, or turning off radars and other systems. There is no justification for that. The "enemy" knows where the ship is and will be. Easy to find that out as they simply pay the bar girls in various ports to keep them informed,

With the problems this year I think a Captain with solid judgement will decide to go Port & Starboard on the bridge with the XO. 6 Hours on and 6 off in all congested lanes.

In terms of the sleep issue, there is also a deployment issue. For each ship deployed there needs to be 3 ships in their home port. One in deep maintenance, one recovering from their last deployment and one preparing for the next deployment. These days the Navy has to take from Peter to pay Paul. That calls for increasing the number of ships in the Navy (and increase in other services), which results in a delay for any significant tax cut.

Wasn't Trump supposed to be isolationist ? Why not simply reduce the deployments ?

CH47A wrote:

I assume, not knowing ships (but we have backup systems in our birds) -- so I assume there should be a backup system for the ship's steering gear and there may be fault in something not being done by the book with regard to the backup, but I am posting right now in a hurry -- sorry -- because this 'crew too tired' stuff seems to be beyond the left field fence. I mean, let's give those guys a bit of a break, okay.

If your heading is commanded by a numerical input and you are holding a 350deg heading and you are asked to change to a heading of 080 because of traffic on your port. Then you turn your heading numbers down to 080 instead of up past 359 to 080 then you are going to make a 270deg turn to port onto a collision coarse with traffic instead of a 90deg turn to starboard.

Okie

Aesma wrote:

Wasn't Trump supposed to be isolationist ? Why not simply reduce the deployments ?

He keeps experiencing new situations - just like Afghanistan. Remember how he was against more troops going there?

Now his actions and personality do move us towards being isolationist simply because other world leaders don't want to be near him.

He also has a Congress that is more patriotic than he is - on both sides of the aisle. I doubt if any in Congress is pleased with Trump's retreat from world leadership.

Okie, I hope I'll be forgiven, but as you chose to quote me I have to indicate to you that I do not understand how the information you posted relates to a malfunction in the steering gear. Could you please explain that? Thank you.

As for the information I was given some hours ago as I was in a big hurry to exit that location, I now have it.

It is from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/uss-mccain-7th-fleet-commander-dismissal/index.html

And the first two lines further down the page under "Investigation" are as follows:

The McCain suffered a steering failure as the warship was beginning its approach into the Strait of Malacca, before colliding with the tanker, a Navy official told CNN.

The official said it was unclear why the crew couldn't use the ship's backup steering systems to maintain control.

Much more unclear why you would not turn on your AiS and warn civilian ships of your position and possible problems.

Kiwirob wrote:

cjg225 wrote:

That's sort of what the Perry-Class FFGs were all about. It was a major mistake to either 1) not modernize them; or 2) not begin designing and fielding a replacement before the Perry-Class was fully decommissioned. The LCS was never going to fill that void.

Unsurprisingly, the glaring weakness in the fleet has been discovered late and is creating a rush to fix it: US Navy Considers a More Powerful Frigate.

Theres already an obvious choice for this vessel that's already in production and unless the USN go stupid with gold plating could be built in numbers quickly. Start building the Coast Guard National Security Cutter, add sonar, missile silos, an air defense radar and paint it grey.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... navy-19020

The NSC is already half a billion dollars per ship (it's actually a lot more, with an average per unit cost of $695 million), and adding more systems, plus hardening the ship to fully meet military specifications will also drive up the costs.

seahawk wrote:

Much more unclear why you would not turn on your AiS and warn civilian ships of your position and possible problems.

AIS is not meant to be a primary method of collision avoidance, it is only meant to be a supplement to your standard visual watchkeeping, audio exchanges, and your navigational radar.

CH47A wrote:

I mean, let's give those guys a bit of a break, okay.
.

Rudder malfunction.
In a multi screw ship ( and especially in the highly trained and attentive navy environment ) that should not develop into a major issue, right?

What I find noteworthy is that initially published collision times invariably seem to be later than the real collision ( giving the impression the civil ship veered into the US Navy ship while the course change was a result of the collision.).

Then media are rife with bullshit bingo like "merchant ship was running under digital autopilot" ( insinuated hackable! ) and never is positional data released from the Navy.

All this IMHO indicates "knowingly self afflicted and trying to wag the dog of reality".

ThePointblank wrote:

seahawk wrote:

Much more unclear why you would not turn on your AiS and warn civilian ships of your position and possible problems.

AIS is not meant to be a primary method of collision avoidance, it is only meant to be a supplement to your standard visual watchkeeping, audio exchanges, and your navigational radar.

Even if you switch off the (active) AIS transponder and only use data from passive listening
you have all the relevant information available concerning traffic around your position.
( position and its precision, course, speed, rate of turn, destination, size ( actually the ships extension around the GPS antenna).

Do US Navy ship actually have an AIS ( and can it work as a passive listener) ?
Historically they used to have issues with interfacing to the civil world of things. That still the case?

ThePointblank wrote:

seahawk wrote:

Much more unclear why you would not turn on your AiS and warn civilian ships of your position and possible problems.

AIS is not meant to be a primary method of collision avoidance, it is only meant to be a supplement to your standard visual watchkeeping, audio exchanges, and your navigational radar.

And large commercial vessels are not the most nimble plattforms either, so every bit of distance you give them to react, helps. Especially in a crowded shipping lane like the harbour entrance of Singapore.

I have heard your response quite a lot from persons close to the USN, still when looking at the AiS monitoring sites, you can see RN, Dutch Navy, Turkish Navy, Danish Navy, Swedish Navy, German Navy and even the US merchant marine turning on their AiS when operating in areas with a high density of ships like the strait of Gibraltar or the British channel.

Ad yes, navy ships have AiS transponders: https://pilotonline.com/news/military/n ... 97887.html

ThePointblank wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

cjg225 wrote:

That's sort of what the Perry-Class FFGs were all about. It was a major mistake to either 1) not modernize them; or 2) not begin designing and fielding a replacement before the Perry-Class was fully decommissioned. The LCS was never going to fill that void.

Unsurprisingly, the glaring weakness in the fleet has been discovered late and is creating a rush to fix it: US Navy Considers a More Powerful Frigate.

Theres already an obvious choice for this vessel that's already in production and unless the USN go stupid with gold plating could be built in numbers quickly. Start building the Coast Guard National Security Cutter, add sonar, missile silos, an air defense radar and paint it grey.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... navy-19020

The NSC is already half a billion dollars per ship (it's actually a lot more, with an average per unit cost of $695 million), and adding more systems, plus hardening the ship to fully meet military specifications will also drive up the costs.

But if you build 40-50 hulls the price would drop considerably, the CG are only building 9 NSC's.

seahawk wrote:

Ad yes, navy ships have AiS transponders: https://pilotonline.com/news/military/n ... 97887.html

Are they fed from the MIL GPS source or from a bespoke "civil" GPS?

there is one way that I can think of on how to create at least the environment
for such a collision ( you still need to be careless to no end, but ..):

Spoof civil GPS. This will hit all merchant ships in an area as it is unselective.
( no danger to merchant marine as all traffic is displace by the same amount.)

If the Navy ship while passively watching AIS data is referencing its own position via
the less easy to spoof Mil GPS data channel/frequency a naive observer
could deem a path taken without risk while the real ships around him are
displaced by some distance potentially moving them into his (real) path.

Kiwirob wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

Theres already an obvious choice for this vessel that's already in production and unless the USN go stupid with gold plating could be built in numbers quickly. Start building the Coast Guard National Security Cutter, add sonar, missile silos, an air defense radar and paint it grey.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-bu ... navy-19020

The NSC is already half a billion dollars per ship (it's actually a lot more, with an average per unit cost of $695 million), and adding more systems, plus hardening the ship to fully meet military specifications will also drive up the costs.

But if you build 40-50 hulls the price would drop considerably, the CG are only building 9 NSC's.

The hulls alone are around $441 million. Add in all of the current government furnished hardware, and the installation of such, that's where the bulk of the costs come from. And now, you propose adding more weapons and combat systems to the ship, plus integration.

Fewer ships cost more, since the development costs are factored across the existing 9 hulls the price is higher, build significantly more and with the additional addons I don't see how it would end up more expensive than a clean sheet design. It's by all accounts a good hull, already frigate sized and signicficanlty better then the LSC junk the USN has been building and want to turn into patrol frigates.

ThePointblank wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

The NSC is already half a billion dollars per ship (it's actually a lot more, with an average per unit cost of $695 million), and adding more systems, plus hardening the ship to fully meet military specifications will also drive up the costs.

But if you build 40-50 hulls the price would drop considerably, the CG are only building 9 NSC's.

The hulls alone are around $441 million. Add in all of the current government furnished hardware, and the installation of such, that's where the bulk of the costs come from. And now, you propose adding more weapons and combat systems to the ship, plus integration.

Kiwirob wrote:

Fewer ships cost more, since the development costs are factored across the existing 9 hulls the price is higher, build significantly more and with the additional addons I don't see how it would end up more expensive than a clean sheet design. It's by all accounts a good hull, already frigate sized and signicficanlty better then the LSC junk the USN has been building and want to turn into patrol frigates.

It's just concurrency. Works so well with the F-35, or so I was told by a Canadian poster once...

CH47A wrote:

Okie, I hope I'll be forgiven, but as you chose to quote me I have to indicate to you that I do not understand how the information you posted relates to a malfunction in the steering gear. Could you please explain that? Thank you.

The news releases have been as full of hyperbole. Everything from Russian hacking to malfunction. The key statement is they continued to a port with the normal steering.

I have a bit of a clue how double redundant systems work. There will be a data record of what inputs were made. The steering system just did not go berserk, there are just multitudes of redundancy to prevent that.

*********

I can not tell you if they were sexting, texting, playing video games, asleep at the helm or just the incorrect input on the bridge.

********

WIederling wrote:

All this IMHO indicates "knowingly self afflicted and trying to wag the dog of reality".

Wlederling put it a little more eloquently than I would.


Okie

ThePointblank wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

The NSC is already half a billion dollars per ship (it's actually a lot more, with an average per unit cost of $695 million), and adding more systems, plus hardening the ship to fully meet military specifications will also drive up the costs.

But if you build 40-50 hulls the price would drop considerably, the CG are only building 9 NSC's.

The hulls alone are around $441 million. Add in all of the current government furnished hardware, and the installation of such, that's where the bulk of the costs come from. And now, you propose adding more weapons and combat systems to the ship, plus integration.

Say there is a cost of a fully loaded, totally up to date tech wise and loaded with food, fuel and weapons at a discounted cost of $1 billion each. Sounds expensive until you realize that the top fought for a continuation of the $40 Billion tax CREDIT for the oil industry. Personally I believe that 40 new Frigates are more important to the country than. cash handouts to a profitable industry that can make a lot of money without the credit.

BTW, the cost of the hull sounds a bit expensive. How much is a 777 going to cost an airline?

You forget the role of the US navy is to keep oil cheap. So if the tax credit does the same thing, without needing to pay crews etc., then it's a good deal.

Okie, I hope you'll have patience with a fool like me. I asked once and then I saw your answer and I am trying to wrap my head around what you seem to be contending. Yes, I have a lot of empty space inside my head and am not good at this "wrapping" business, so I have to go check the folks that can show qualifications to discuss certain matters, like driving a ship.

For example this fella:

Shawn VanDiver is a 12-year Navy veteran, faculty at three universities, and serves on several boards focused on human trafficking, national and international security, and emergency management. He is the Co-Director of the Truman National Security Project San Diego Chapter.

Who, a few days ago, wrote a very good piece for folks like me to better understand how this ship driving stuff is done.

Here’s How Navy Crews Watch For (And Respond To) Collisions At Sea

But that is a piece on a site I might get in trouble quoting here, so let me go to CNN, because you seem to be indicating that CNN is feeding the public a bunch of bovine excrement when they state an official informed them there was a steering malfunction of some sort, and you may be right.

BUT you are then stating that a whole bunch of shenanigans might be going on — (very cleverly disguised to give us the "might be") — might be going on while these United States Navy personnel are doing their job. Now I would be very, very hesitant to be accusing Naval Officers and Seaman and whomever of not being professional in their work, so I first go searching for all sorts of information about what exactly their jobs are.

And now we'll turn to CNN.

HKT June 19, 2017
CNN: How do Navy ships operate?

Rear Admiral John Kirby, retired, seems to have been a prime source of information for the CNN article. Let me quote a bit here:

Vessels approaching shore or heavy traffic use more feedback to adjust position minute to minute, he said. As a vessel gets farther out into lighter traffic the crew uses less feedback to modulate its position.

"It's a multifaceted, multilayered application of a series of sensors in real time that are providing feedback not only about where your ship is but where other ships are," he said.

On a destroyer, the information flows into the Electronic Chart Display and Information System, which interfaces with the ship's GPS receivers and navigation sensors, such as speed and wind indicators, to give watchstanders a computerized real-time view of position and movement.

And from what I have studied so far I understand there are more than half a dozen individuals in each of two areas of the ship devoted to the driving of that ship at any given time and you assert that any one or two or three of those individuals is engaged in some sort of shenanigans, like ... Well, let me just use your words here: "sexting, texting, playing video games, asleep at the helm" - - - And, yes, I read that you wrote you cannot tell us they were doing those things, but is clear to even a country bumpkin like me that you were implying they might be. I better leave that implication from you to some Navy folks to respond to, but I thought it might not be such a bad idea to offer some specifics here about what is going on when those folks are driving a ship around.

By the way, one more piece of information, if you are like me and really want to understand all parameters of a serious issue, like this.

Section 13 below:

13. ABSTRACT (maximum 200 words)
Fleet maneuvers, or division tactics (DIVTACS), are achieved by a series of precision shipboard movements directed by an Officer in Tactical Control. Much like a precision drill team, DIVTACS training requires multiple ships underway in close proximity, often a rare commodity. Costs to conduct live training range from several Thousand (per evolution) to several Million dollars (to repair ships after a collision at-sea). Computer simulation opens the door to maximizing DIVTACS training, while mitigating risk.

The Navy spends in excess of $60 Million per year on simulation-based training. Currently available simulators provide a DIVTACS capability by connecting several simulators together via a LAN. These simulators are cost prohibitive ranging from $100,000 to Millions of dollars per unit. They are manpower and maintenance intensive requiring dedicated infrastructures, drastically limiting deploy-ability and reliability.

Open source applications are gaining considerable leverage in the commercial market and offer significant cost-reductions. This thesis explored the possibilities of open source development by providing a proof of concept division tactics simulator. Additional considerations were given to the extension of the simulator for use in surface tactics in general and areas of future research.

That is from a Naval Postgraduate School thesis and you might be able to view this document by following this link:

THE DESIGN OF A STAND-ALONE DIVISION TACTICS SIMULATOR UTILIZING NON-PROPRIETARY (OPEN SOURCE) MEDIA AND ITERATIVE DEVELOPMENT
by Ryan B. Ernst / March 2006 / Thesis Advisor: Rudolph P. Darken / Second Reader: S. Starr King

BUT I am not 100% sure that will work for you. It seems to sometimes be a bit tricky to get to. Public release was approved.

Kiwirob wrote:

Fewer ships cost more, since the development costs are factored across the existing 9 hulls the price is higher, build significantly more and with the additional addons I don't see how it would end up more expensive than a clean sheet design. It's by all accounts a good hull, already frigate sized and signicficanlty better then the LSC junk the USN has been building and want to turn into patrol frigates.

I agree with your logic, the cost of the F-35 has been climbing because as the cost of the individual a/c and its builds / updates grows, the number of units purchased decreases, which then adds another cost factor increase.
The Coast Guard requested 9 hulls, so far we have not heard much if anything about cost overruns, if that amount is tripled the unit cost of the hull will drop from 441 million, bearing in mind that cost was based on the initial 9 hull purchase which would include supplier cost, yard anticipated work loads and a host of other lead time items.

I see two issues affecting cost:
1. The Navy goes hog wild and starts putting enough "stuff" on the frame that it morphs into a mini-Aegis Destroyer or even a Zunni versus a Patrol Frigate
2. It will not be expensive enough to allow enough Captains to go around saying they drive billion dollar boats.

On point 2, previously the only billion dollar boats in the Navy were Carriers and SSBN's, now it also includes SSN's and Destroyers, size might be smaller but as they say, money talks and ******* walks.

Disclaimer: I have no sources for item 2 other than my X-Files Conspiracy infected mind.

par13del wrote:

the cost of the F-35 has been climbing because as the cost of the individual a/c and its builds / updates grows, the number of units purchased decreases, which then adds another cost factor increase.

Huh?

The cost of the F-35 has been coming down.

salttee wrote:

Huh?

The cost of the F-35 has been coming down.

You mean since Trump became president?
Yes, that is in recent times, so let's forget about the reasons why the purchase amount has been falling.

par13del wrote:

You mean since Trump became president?
Yes, that is in recent times, so let's forget about the reasons why the purchase amount has been falling.

Price has been falling because volumes are increasing and fixed cost needs have reduced. Just as it has been planned to do.

Tugg

Kiwirob wrote:

Fewer ships cost more, since the development costs are factored across the existing 9 hulls the price is higher, build significantly more and with the additional addons I don't see how it would end up more expensive than a clean sheet design. It's by all accounts a good hull, already frigate sized and signicficanlty better then the LSC junk the USN has been building and want to turn into patrol frigates.

Integration of additional weapons systems and sensors, not to mention the need to work on acoustically quietening the ship so it can perform ASW reasonably.

Also, there is a need to boost the speed, as the top speed of 28 knots isn't fast enough to keep up with USN carrier groups (the Perry's are slightly faster), the cruising speed of 9-11 knots isn't great, and you also need the high speed sprint capability for ASW work as well.

The only blue water ship in the USN that can keep up with a CVN is another CVN when they drop the hammer. So I don't think top speed is an issue. The USN will also have to spend up large turning LCS into a GP frigate, IMO the NSC would make a much better frigate than an LCS.

ThePointblank wrote:

Also, there is a need to boost the speed, as the top speed of 28 knots isn't fast enough to keep up with USN carrier groups (the Perry's are slightly faster), the cruising speed of 9-11 knots isn't great, and you also need the high speed sprint capability for ASW work as well.

Do US Navy ships still have towed arrays for ASW, I thought most ASW was being done by helicopter, yes I know a sub is also a part of the group.
The S3 Viking was replaced by nothing, if my memory is correct the need was negated due to a diminished threat and other options.
Is there a patrol a/c on the carrier, if the baby AWACS was a jet platform it could do double duty minimizing or maximizing the number of pilots required, which I think is the bigger issue with a/c on the carrier. Correct me if I am wrong but the carrier today has helo, AWACS and Hornet pilots only, meaning those a/c have to perform all functions.

I'd always heard that the slower FFGs were escorts for amphibs and replenishment ships, not CBGs.

Kiwirob wrote:

The only blue water ship in the USN that can keep up with a CVN is another CVN when they drop the hammer. So I don't think top speed is an issue. The USN will also have to spend up large turning LCS into a GP frigate, IMO the NSC would make a much better frigate than an LCS.

The Tico's and the Burkes can also keep up for short periods of time with a CVN; the top speed of the current carriers usually hovers between 30-33 knots according to what the USN said in 1999:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-028.htm
The Arleigh Burke DDG's are good for 30+ knots, and the Ticonderoga-class cruisers are good for 32 knots. Both classes are also gas turbine powered, which can also drop the hammer if needed, as long as there's enough fuel to keep up with a CVN during flight ops, or to race ahead of a carrier to conduct dash and drift ASW. You need a good margin of speed to keep up with the carriers, otherwise the carrier can easily outrun her escorts, and her escorts could take hours just to catch up.

par13del wrote:

Do US Navy ships still have towed arrays for ASW, I thought most ASW was being done by helicopter, yes I know a sub is also a part of the group.
The S3 Viking was replaced by nothing, if my memory is correct the need was negated due to a diminished threat and other options.
Is there a patrol a/c on the carrier, if the baby AWACS was a jet platform it could do double duty minimizing or maximizing the number of pilots required, which I think is the bigger issue with a/c on the carrier. Correct me if I am wrong but the carrier today has helo, AWACS and Hornet pilots only, meaning those a/c have to perform all functions.

Burkes, Tico's and the Perry's have the AN/SQR-19 towed array and the AN/SQS-53C hull mounted sonar. The AN/SQR-19 towed array is being replaced by the TB-37 multi-function towed array.

Part of the issue with the LCS's ASW suite was that the original ASW suite was meant to be a barrier type ASW system, where the ship was stationary, monitoring a net of underwater hydrophones to prevent enemy subs from penetrating an area. It was switched to an en-stride system which meant that the original ASW system was ditched for a towed hydrophone array, and variable depth sonar. As both the hydrophone array and the variable depth sonar are both Mil-COTS systems, they require modifications to make them fit onboard the LCS.

The LCS is the first ship in a long time to have a variable depth active sonar system as part of it's ASW suite; every other ship used a passive towed system only.

ThePointblank wrote:

I suspect this is very much a training and policies issue, and it could be systematic within the USN. I've personally not heard glowing reviews of seamanship and ship handling skills of USN watch officers from my RCN friends.

It's a training issue. The money to pay for wars in Afghanistan, Iraq etc along with the cost overruns on any number of programs has to come from somewhere. In the USN case it's the training budget.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/wha ... ?page=show