Tuesday, November 12, 2013

LCS: Representing the USA in WESTPAC in Style!

LCS is, perhaps, not a great way to show the flag.

Via Michael Fabey at DefenseNews;
Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom is in need of yet another set of repairs in order to leave its Singapore pier and get to sea, U.S. Navy officials say.

The ship has been plagued by problems during its first Western Pacific deployment.

Speaking Nov. 11 about the most recent incident, Lt. Cmdr. Clayton Doss says that “while USS Freedom (LCS-1) was pierside in Singapore on Nov. 10 conducting steering checks in preparation for the next day’s underway, the port steerable waterjet feedback cable stopped sending signals to indicate the waterjet’s position. Until repairs are accomplished, the crew cannot steer the port waterjet remotely from the bridge.”

“These checks were conducted two days earlier without any issues,” he says. “The system appeared to be working properly up until this problem occurred. The ship has requested technical assistance to replace the damaged feedback cable.”
Explain how we are impressing anyone with this ship again?

I said from the start ... this ship should not have left C3F AOR. Especially in a part of the world where you do not want to lose face - this continues to be just ... well ... what you would expect a LCS deployment to be.

Bad marketing, bad PR. Maybe one day an OK ship --- but Singapore was not the place to work out a first in class problematic ship.

Hat tip MS et al

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