The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: Distributed Numbers?

Interesting. One of the alarm bells you were ringing was that the San Antonio LPDs were a huge waste, and the Marines needed smaller ships. Now, they want smaller ships. You claim they won't win any war. So, what you were calling for then, and getting now, with your 20-20 hindsight vision is useless after all?

You criticise everything. Even stuff you previously advocated for.

20 years ago was 2005. The immediate, proven threat was from Al Qeda 4 years prior. China was still playing around with old Soviet ships. "Island hopping" around the environs of the China Seas was on no one's radar, not even yours. You didn't start talking about smaller Marine Corps landing craft until you read about the LAW concept. I knew at the time what you were talking about. I read the same material. Even then, no one was talking about replacing LPDs with that LAW. They still aren't. No one is going to dump all the LPDs to build this new LSM. We're after both.

You're a visionary. Rather than tell us what we can't do, tell us what we can. And if it's so hopeless at this point, then what's the harm in building these? We've already lost anyway. Anything we do, we're going to lose, right? So, who cares?

Previous Message

Sorry but LSMs and the jingo words that are being thrown about will not be winning any war in the Pacific. The war that has not happened was lost over 20 years ago. Navy made so many bad decisions in acquisitions and vision it is finished in the Pacific. Some of us were ringing the alarm bells then but…

Previous Message

The Secretary of the Navy HAS approved the change...

https://www.twz.com/sea/this-will-be-the-navys-new-medium-landing-ship

"The Navy announced the LSM decision today in a video on social media that includes statements from Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, and Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith."

“As I announced last week, we are fundamentally reshaping how the Navy builds and fields its fleet. Today, I’m taking the second major step in that effort, selecting the design for our Medium Landing Ship, an operationally driven, fiscally disciplined choice that puts capability in the fleet on a responsible timeline,” Secretary Phelan says in today’s video.

If you read the whole thing, you find the Army design you mentioned was only ever considered as an interim, not the actual production product:

"The Navy has also talked in the past about acquiring some number of interim LSMs from Bollinger Shipyards, possibly utilizing a design the company developed for Israel called the Israeli Logistics Support Vessel (ILSV). The ILSV was itself derived from an open-ocean optimized subclass of the General Frank S. Besson class Logistics Support Vessel (LSV) that is in service now as part of the U.S. Army’s obscure watercraft fleet, which you can learn more about here."

We will see what happens. Both this LSM and unmanned surface vessels have been under consideration for several years now. Both are part of the move to a more distributed fleet, which has been shown (as an alternate choice) in the fleet structure since 2023, or so. It could be seen that we were moving this way, and that it was coming. What has surprised me is the speed it came at. One moment, the literature made it look years away. Then, suddenly, "we're doing it."

We need it. A distributed, networked force is the only solution to generating the needed numbers for a war in the Pacific. I doubt anyone is more hopeful than myself that this works. If it gets screwed up, I know of no alternatives, and we will go in with the existing force, which will not be adequate. There is a lot on the line.

Previous Message

The US Army (Isreali version) of the LSM has been dropped and the Dutch version has been chosen. All the usual suspects are building the ships.
MAYBE the only saving grace is that any changes have to be approved by the Secretary of the Navy personally.
I think Bollinger is involved in the OPV debacle, but we'll see what happens.