“I’d argue that a Cyclone class equivalant would be exactly what you need.”

It’s an organizational thing. Since the CG was moved under the DHS there’s less cooperation than before. Subsequently more work has fallen to the Navy due to their omnipresence. The Navy needed another design because of lessons learned. We’ve retired the last three classes of surface combatants on average 11.2 years…

Yeah use those CGs to hock down those Colombian drug runners and stop those pirate skiffs!

I’m fine with that, but that means the ship needs an anti-air radar (which are much more expensive). Although I would probably advocate for a deck mounted or non-VLS solution, just because you need to give VLS 2 decks and ton of reinforcement in a design.

“Of the four you listed, certainly counter piracy, drug interdiction and anti-submarine (surface) warfare all could be prosecuted with a large caliber (57-76mm) gun.”

From what I’ve been told, tank armor equivalency translates directly to solid armor thickness. In other words a 2 foot thick armor belt should preform identically to a 2 ft equivalent which is really several plates in various geometries.

It’s an increase of 3 ships to winner, but the reality is that both bidders know damn well that the Navy can’t change a thing on those designs or they’ll open up an opportunity for those bidders to ding them for non-recurring engineering costs. So the Navy will ask for 16 ships with minor mods that’ll essentially keep…

DietDrPhil summed it up rather well, but I’ll add on anyways.

As much as I respect Tyler’s work he doesn’t have a clue about the differences between US and European shipbuilding (survivability standards, lethality, Operational Availability, etc.). None of those ships are more survivable, nor are they cheaper. They may have more missiles and bigger guns, but that doesn’t equate…

The fact that they ended up with two designs was purely political and has nothing to do with modularity. Modularity was one of the tenets of the design when we thought it was going to be down selected to one builder. You’ll continue to see modularity in form on the next two classes. Stanflex,

Minehunteing, counter piracy, drug interdiction, anti-submarine warfare. Which of those requires (or can even leverage) a large caliber gun? Not to mention the NSC is a POS in it’s own right (their asses keep wanting to fall off). And remind me again about the NSC’s armor? Better yet, tell me about all the armor on…

It’s not really a top end thing. The current fleet of ships are running WAY more than they were designed to be. The Navy needs more ships to be in more places to meet it’s requirements. Even worse, a lot of the expensive warships that were designed for very advanced warfare (CGs, DDG, SSNs) are performing things like…

They’ll be fortunate to break even. LM and Austal will make building the rest of the LCS extremely expensive.

“This isn’t that hard. 4-6” of armor will defeat 98% of deployed anti-ship missiles”

THIS! For all the lethality criticisms the LCS got, it answered the Navy’s need of presence. The next class of ship will be around 6,000 tons and we’ll be lucky to get 15 of them.

“I thought interchangeable parts was a good thing...I guess not so much.”

This one actually blew my mind. Most times when you see an actor and later discover that they served you’re not all that surprised. This though, this was not that situation.

Go to internet hell (aka Reddit)!!!

Minor correction, congressmen don’t have clearances. They can be read in on certain things, and certain committees have increased access to classified material (e.g. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence). However, candidates running for president that don’t hold congressional office don’t have this sort of access.

It went from having a 30mm gun to a .50 cal. That’s a pretty bad relaxation of requirements. It’s not so much about protecting the Marines on board, but rather eliminating defenses once disembarking.