The JHSV Threat to LCS
Sean Meade at the Ares Blog echoes yours truly’s call for replacing the costly LCS for high speed vessels:
The JHSV accomplishes every mission that the LCS is capable with the exception of fire support. In many ways that mission is better performed by other platforms and the US’ orientation toward soft power exercises (especially in South America) will be the ultimate proving ground for vessels of this type. Its high transit speed makes it very enticing as a rapid transport for the Army’s Air Assault Expeditionary Force, Stryker Brigades, and Marine Expeditionary Units. Instead of a piecemeal arrival of forces, the JHSV will allow complete unit insertion for whatever the need may be-either humanitarian assistance or preventative war operations.
In the mothership role, the JHSV could support smaller armed warships that could take up the fire support mission.
Now the military can look on this as an opportunity rather than a disaster. Almost every type of equipment needs replacement in all services. We literally fought the Iraq War with the weapons of the last war, in Iraq. Ships, planes, and armored vehicles (mainly the latter 2) are beyond tired. Continued production of tried and true platforms would help a lot. Keep the Raptors and cancel the JSF. USN should purchase more $50 million Super Hornets as well as the Marines. They could suggest the same for the USAF. Any new R % D should go to uavs and robot weapons which as we proved in the Gulf Wars can be built quickly and in adequate numbers.
As for the Navy, a freeze on all Big Ship construction for the foreseeable future. Not a single class of major warships needs emergency replacement as bad as the land and air services. The USN should concentrate on its littoral fleet, which is the exception to my last statement, and I have written numerous times on its composition (start with LCS, then think much smaller and cheaper). The future of warfare is in the littorals, despite what this article says, and currently we have nothing adequate to combat there, nothing.
We might continue building more Virginia’s but if this proves untenable, it would not be a disaster for the service. I think we need 75 attack boats, but we could get by with 40 to 50 and still maintain a comfortable superiority even against a combined alliance of China and Russia. The SSN-774s we do have, plus the Seawolfs and late model SSN-688s are good enough.
Now do they want to militarize a tactical sealifts ships specs or what? IF the proposal is to use a descoped LCS set of rqmts to procure an upscaled JHSV it get even more perilous.
Folks who don’t know HSVs should not jump onboad something that looks similar. I am not saying the JHSV might not work (double negative), but rather there is a more fundamental part of the process which is being overlooked, to wit:
This all goes back to the basic question what kind of ship does the Navy need and want – decide ship type first, then write TLR and specs.
“Motion Control : Superior Motion Characteristics. Active motion control system with 4 control surfaces”
*snort* ‘Superior’ as compared to…what, exctly?