The captioned wolf is Lucifer (also referred to as “Tex”). Lucifer is a British wolfit (howls with a Nottingham accent), belonging to our fellow blogger, Juliette.

SEND THE LCS

The US Navy may have found a use for the Littoral Combat Ships. Keep in mind that they are essentially worthless in combat against an enemy navy, but against the boats and ships used by drug cartels, they can be effective, and their helicopters can expand the footprint of an LCS searching the Pacific or Caribbean.

They have been sent like a swarm, supported by larger destroyers, into the ocean to search for drug ships, low profile “drug submarines” that are not technically submarines. Just purpose built low profile craft, usually propelled by a diesel engine.

I hope that going forward the LCS can find value in being more than a ship with a radar reflector attached to attract incoming missiles (designated target/bullet sponge).

LIFE AS A FEATHER MERCHANT

From the front lines of selling COVID-19 tests and PPE…

The US is slowly starting to get the message. Globalstrategiesmedical.com is selling to countries other than the US primarily because the product moves quickly and for the most part, US government entities require tons of red tape. If India will buy quickly, India gets the wares. Same with anyplace else.

USGOV put the word out that it is buying ventilators at 2019 prices only…and how many of the world’s supply will go to the US? None. I saw on a press briefing that USGOV will pay $25K for a ventilator. My COST on an SH300 is almost $50K. An S1100A ventilator at COST, FOB China is nearly $60K. Somebody needs to wake up or be content with not having orders filled. I’d love to buy gold at 1978 prices too, but nobody will sell me gold for $200 oz.

I’ve been doing this for a week now and it’s crazy, but it’s very interesting.

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14 COMMENTS

    • The crews are great. The ships are not capable of much but maybe they’ll come into their own fighting against narcos? They have small crews that are ok for short duration missions but not for combat and not enough for adequate damage control. I could go off on a big rant about how worthless the ships are in a Navy mission. However in a counternarcotics mission of relatively short duration, they might work out. The manning levels have to do with how many people were designed to fit on the ship. They have blue/gold crews (two crews per ship) to help with crew burnout.

      • And even then, much (most?) real maintenance is done in port by contractors. The original crew complement was way too small. “Automation will ease the workload.” Yeah, right. As long as everything is 100%. Automated damage control is the one that kills me. Did it not ever occur to anyone who signed off on it that your automated damage control system is one of the things that will be damaged, perhaps fatally, right off the bat? I sure wouldn’t trust it not to do exactly the wrong thing, the worst thing, in a situation the designers didn’t think of. I guess it doesn’t matter with LCS, though. The Navy’s pretty much said that if they get hit, abandon ship. Those who still can, anyway. But chasing drug smugglers? Yeah, they’re up to that. Unless the narcos are real frisky and have some RPG-7s. They might cripple an LCS. Well, probably not, but, yeah, as lightly built as they are, and as tightly packed with engines…

      • From all I’ve read, the crews really are great, but you’ve got to be pretty good to get that slot. The original berthing was too sparse for the workload. They had to squeeze in more crew even at the expense of some of that gee-whiz modular quick-change system space they had. For a long time, though, LCS duty was almost shore duty for some of them. What a fustercluck of a shipbuilding program.

        • Some LCS platforms had reserve crews. I don’t know if that has changed, but you’re right, it’s shore duty. Go out to sea where – and do what? Sure, they can sail down the St. Lawrence River, or transit up and down the Pacific Coast like a Coast Guard Cutter. The anti-drug mission (sort of a Coast Guard mission) is one that they are well suited to perform. But they’re really not as good as the 418′ National Security Cutters, are they?

  2. Wasn’t the original concept, if I remember right what I read, back in the 90’s, by a Navy Officer named Pournelle, was to address the lack of ships suitable specifically for shallow water close to shore interdiction OP’s? Not a do everything warcraft, as in the sense of an AirFarce multi role fighter aircraft.
    Key word concept. Or is that having to do with no concept?

    • The LCS was a melding of ideas. The concept called for mission flexibility by using modular weapons and modular systems that would plug-and-play as needed. The ships were also going to deploy SEALs on over-the-horizon missions. It turned out that the modular systems were, and are, vaporware. The LCS is too acoustically loud to be of use to SPECOPS, it burns a lot of fuel and has short legs and very light weapons systems. The navy could have adopted one of several FFGs from allied nations that are larger, multi-role, and could be built in the US under license. But it didn’t go that way. There are two hull forms because the committees couldn’t settle on one.

      • Sounds like you guys needed something like long range stealth PT boats, twin hot rodded super diesels, with drop tanks instead of torpedo tubes, quad 50’s on each axis with continuous feeds from ammo bunkers, couple belt fed grenade launchers, a stinger launch rack, you launch over the radar horizon, off of Q ships, or like slung from a air refuel-able Sea King?
        Go all off the shelf technology.

    • He’s a magnificent beast…and fits in with the theme of this blog, Jules. Thank you for providing the graphic.

  4. We’re back to this… The LCS navy floats out to the Caribbean, sinks some DIY subs then gets towed back to the Rio Grande and sunk in place as weapons platforms.

    Border Wall Security in time of Plague.

    Result.

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