And how long before the plans are for sell on e-bay?

I’ll bet the Chinese had a copy of the plans before the Navy got them.

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The Navy wanted four LCS craft initially, two classes of two ships each, but the builders went so wildly over budget that the second pair have already been canceled. I’d be amazed if any more will even be laid down, not to mention completed.

Pee-wee league speedboats have never been the Navy’s strength. The PT boats had an uninspiring record in WWII; the most famous example of a PT in action was John F. Kennedy getting his PT-109 sliced in two right out from underneath him by a Japanese destroyer. The common joke by PT skippers was this apocryphal after-action discussion:

PT skipper #1: “Did you fire any torpedoes?”

PT skipper #2: “No, I was too busy dodging yours.”

The Pegasus-class PHMs of the 1980s were another ill-fated stab at flea-bite boats designed for littoral operations. Four were built, but that was it; they never lived up to expectations and they were quickly and quietly decommissioned.

The Navy is having serious problems with its shipbuilding program these days. The builders are turning out ships with serious quality control problems; the Navy contributes to massive cost overruns by literally redesigning ships while they’re still being built.

The LCS idea isn’t going anywhere. If we really want a “brown water Navy,” We’d have been better off to just dust off the plans for the old WWII PT boats. Not that they’d be any more effective, but at least we could afford to build more than two of them.

On May 4th, 2008 at 3:57 pm, e8n2 said:Twin 5″ turrets fore and aft ought to be de riguer for any combat ship that isn’t a carrier. Otherwise it will fare worse than Taffy 3 did in the Battle of the Philippine Seas.

That one 5″ gun can pump out lots of rounds REALLY fast. It’s missiles can ruin an enemy ship’s day in no time.

After Alan Bond won the 1983 America’s Cup, he hoisted the boat up and allowed people to take pictures of the winged keel.

Dennis Conner said afterwards that Bond’s hubris allowed Team Dennis Conner to save literally decades’ worth of R&D that would have been spent trying to figure out how to replicate the keel.

Anyway, the pictures posted here are basically a blueprint showing the Chicoms how to duplicate the Littoral design.

Expect miniature copies in your local Walmart in time for the all-important Christmas shopping season; real-life copies should be seen off the coasts of Taiwan & the Philippines circa Q2 2009.

Winemkr- Very disturbing article, and resembles the same kind of bureaucratic, meddling crap that went on with the MRAPs.

Heck, the ship I was attached to, a CARRIER, was launched 27 October 1984 and was put in commission on 25 October 1986…just under two years…..we’re talking about a CARRIER as opposed to a MUCH smaller LCS….and it CERTAINLY takes alot longer to outfit a carrier than it does an LCS…especially a nuclear carrier….

What gives?