Why America’s Littoral Combat Ship is NOT in combat
What went wrong with the Littoral Combat Ship and did we learn any lessons? Despite the very different appearances and machinery of the two LCS variants, the Freedom and Independence classes were built to have the same overall capabilities. First among these were speed and maneuverability in shallow seas. Both variants have drafts of less than 15 feet, which is the amount of the ship beneath the surface. To pursue and catch small boats at high speeds, the LCS’ can dash at over 40 knots, potentially even 50 knots if some rumors are to be believed, making them the fastest non-nuclear surface ships in the Navy.
The LCS achieves this by doing away with conventional propellers to move the ship, using high powered waterjets instead to make the vessels really scoot when they need to. Both ships weigh around 3,500 tons though with significantly different dimensions. The Freedom class has a length of 378 feet while the Independence is 418 feet in length as well as 46 feet wider than the Freedom class. This places the ships right in between the corvette and frigate sizes on the ship type spectrum we mentioned earlier, reflecting their focus on multi-mission coastal operations.
#NAVY #WAR #SECURITY
Credit to : Task & Purpose