Would Littoral Combat Ships have helped out in the Strait of Hormuz?
>>65068451The answer to that is a resounding maybe
>>65068451No, because they're not intended for air defense and the mines were never what was stopping shipping.
>>65068451One of them is still there and has been laying low since all this started. Find me any article that says what the USS Canberra has been doing for the past 2 months, much less a picture.
>>65068462>No, because they're not intended for air defenseWell then that means the ship has no value. If it can't do literally everything then we should just get rid of it.
>>65068570Are they those that snap in half if you go fast or the water is slightly choppy?
>>65068568Apparently it's off the coast of India right now.https://www.cruisingearth.com/ship-tracker/united-states-navy/uss-canberra/
>>65068451Sure, if Iran had actually been successful in mining the strait. Otherwise, not so much.
>>65068579Independence (pictured in the OP) is the one where cracks were identified in a few of the early hulls and they were all modified to reinforce that spot.Freedom (the monohull) is the one where the transmission would explode if you tried to go over 14 knots, and the Navy hated them so much that they tried to retire the entire class rather than pay to cut them open to replace the transmissions.
>>65068581Couple of issues with that:The data is 3 days old.Its based solely on AIS, which really can't be trusted in this circumstance.I'm not saying I know for sure where it is, but the last place I would actually expect it to be is what is being broadcast on open channels.
>>65068878>The data is 3 days old.Check again homie, that shit is from a year ago.
>>65068451For minesweepers, they aren't bad vessels.
>>65068451Based on how it looks I want to love it but given all the problems I just can't.
>>65070444What problems?
>>65068451Who have plague doctors ever helped?
>>65069038Don't minesweepers need to be non-magnetic to not set off the mines?
>>65073132No, since it's not 1942 and we don't literally sweep mines with drag chains anymore.
>>65073132There are really smart bottom mines out there these days that can go off based on anything from magnetic signature to passive sonar to the faint change in water pressure caused by a ship passing nearby, and use tricks like high-rate-of-bearing-change to tell if a target is close enough or ship-counting to get the middle ships in a convoy.All of this high-tech bottom-mine stuff--which almost sank Princeton back in '91--makes driving minesweepers into minefields extremely risky, non-ferrous hull or not. So, the USN has been wanting for a long time to switch to using helos (for Ye Olde Floating Mines) and USV/UUVs for bottom mines, with the ship deploying them staying several NM outside of the minefield. That means that hull materials become somewhat moot.That's all well and good, of course, but on the other hand, the MCM module for LCS has had a lot of problems over the years. We've had threads the last few weeks arguing over whether the current MCM module actually measures up to what was originally promised two decades ago. Jury's still out, partly because the USN doesn't seem to want to let potential enemies know too much about the actual strengths and weaknesses of the systems.
The future is going to have autonomous AI mines that move and setup around the globe. The ocean will be unusable
>>65068451No, only reason the strait is "blocked" is because of Insurance.
>>65068451Yes, that is in fact exactly the role they were intended for.People SEVERELY underestimate the amount of damage the failure of the LCS program did to the Navy.The lack of small ships to take over routine duties ended up defaulting those jobs over to the big ships, which wore them out faster so some of them had to be retired, so there were fewer ships, so the left over ships had to pull double duty, so some of them wore out and had to be retired and so on and so forth. It's a death spiral everyone is looking at and nobody wants to talk about. The new frigate program was supposed to fix that by urgently pumping out an imported, ready made design, but that was also mismanaged into just another disaster.And now that the actual kind of warfare the LCS was actually intended to do is current and relevant it's even worse.The Zumwalt program also did its share of damage, but the LCS was really the big one.
>>65068451They could be used to deplete enemy ammo.
>>65068451Depends on if Trump is willing to risk losing one and is ok with expending a shitload of SMs to keep it.
>>65073235They can't take over routine duties, they don't have a sonar or air defence nor do they cast a presence in the area. All they can do is patrol in safe waters at the cost of $470m each. Awful, awful ships.
>>65073429I don't think you understand just how bad it is, or what the problem is. The problem isn't just that it can't do that, the problem is that it was supposed to do that with the whole multi mission/modular/whatever concept. It's not just that the ships are a waste of money, it's that the opportunity cost of building this garbage and not something useful made waves that spread outwards and put the rest of the navy into overdrive which caused echoing knock on effects.So when a ship breaks down because it's been on an extended deployment, the LCS is one of the biggest contributing factors to that fuckup, just silently ruining everything from the background.
>>65073132The other replies you got are absolutely right. However:That aluminum hull that everyone is always bitching about is actually less magnetic than a steel hull.>That's all well and good, of course, but on the other hand, the MCM module for LCS has had a lot of problems over the years.I wouldn't call "a lot of problems." Its just that a few elements required for development time than was initially predicted. People seem to forget or gloss over how ambitious the LCS Project was and how much of it (more or less) went right. The idea that it took a few extra years to figure out an entirely new method for dealing with mines based entirely on a technology that wasn't mature and being fleshed out in realtime in concurrence with the development took slightly longer than the original planners expected is so kind of massive failure is...having radically high standards.>>65073235The USN has had a major blindspot for small ships more like a century now. The LCS was the first real attempt to address that. You know those guys in Africa who try build a helicopter despite never having been around them or even knowing anyone who has ever ridden in one?>>65073425Unironically, yes.>>65073429>>65073447Pretty sure you two are talking about different things. Maybe use less pronouns?
>>65073612>The USN has had a major blindspot for small ships more like a century now. The LCS was the first real attempt to address that.OHP you retard.
>>65073632Ah yes, the largest possible small surface combatant possible that was started back in the early 70s (over half a centurey ago) that required RN input and is the only project anyone can ever point to.I'm not saying the OHP doesn't exist, I'm saying that its an anomoly in a prolonged period of the USN not doing a great job with small ships. If you want, I can give you the other two: Knox and Pegasus, both from around the same time.
>>65073429>All they can do is patrol in safe waters at the cost of $470m each. Awful, awful ships.Meanwhile, they're being replaced with a ship that has NO mission package support and and only patrol in safe waters at a cost upwards of $700m apiece.
>>65073632>OHP you retard.The 4200t OHP? You mean the class that displaced as much as a pre-WWII cruiser, with two helicopters, 40 medium missiles, 2x triple torpedo launchers and an automatic 3 inch dual purpose gun. That one?I really like OHPs, but the fact that Americans bring them up to show they totally don't have a problem designing and building low capability and low cost ships pretty much just immediately proves the point that they do.
>>65073733Anything too small to carry a helicopter is not operationally relevant in the modern world.
>>65073733>You mean the class that displaced as much as a pre-WWII cruiser, with two helicopters, 40 medium missiles, 2x triple torpedo launchers and an automatic 3 inch dual purpose gun. Also easily refitted with an additional 32 ESSM.Meaning the 4200 ton midget can outpunch state of the art modern British destroyers.
>>65073712Before Knox, there was Garcia.Before Garcia, there was Bronstein and Claud Jones.Before those, there was Dealy, and before that, you get into small boys that fought off Samar.It seems like a fairly continuous line of DE/frigates up through the OHPs.
>>65074375Oh, I should add:Before Pegasus, there was Asheville.Before Asheville, there were multiple PGM classes, dating back to WWII.
>>65068451I Littorally don't know what this ships role is
Imagine if they had called it the Configurable Multimission Corvette and not fucked around with Freedom at all.
>>65068568>Canberraon smoko u cunt
>>65074474I don't understand your Aussie jibberjabber but I salute you regardless.
>>65074460Add to that dropping the asinine 40kt+ (50kt+ preferred) requirement and replacing it with a requirement for a couple Mk 41s, and you'd have something.
