Quote:
Originally Posted by Llarry
A couple of U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ships are retiring this month after fewer than ten years of service. Thus cementing the LCS or "little crappy ship" as one of the major shipbuilding screwups in recent memory.
Then-CNO Admiral Vern Clark initiated the LCS program in 2001 and it was seen as a program to build 55 low-cost warships through the 2020s. One of the key features was that the ships were minimally equipped with small crews but would be supplemented by mission modules for anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures or surface warfare. The modules were a flop. As usual the whole program went over budget and was delayed.
Another unique characteristic of the program is that TWO competing designs were chosen for production. The Lockheed Martin Freedom-class design (with odd hull numbers) is a steel monohull ship of 2,800+ tons full load. The Austal USA Independence-class design (with even hull numbers) is an aluminum trimaran ship of about the same displacement. 16 ships of each class were built and the final ships are being commissioned as the earlier ships are being decommissioned. Disgraceful! Billions of taxpayer dollars largely pissed away. I suppose long-retired Admiral Clark still gets his fat retirement check each month, though, so there's that. (And I suspect that Admiral Clark is not the only villain in the story, either.)
Oh, look at the time! It's time for this old retiree to take his meds! 
Edit: Further sleuthing reveals that ships of both classes are still under construction! Flushing of $100 bills down multiple toilets proceeds at full speed. The total number of ships built/building is actually 38. |
Sounds like the FAA and the multiple millions flushed developing their sector suite program. I had one scope (technically a repeater) and one row of progress strips to watch. Someone with fewer brain cells than I decided that I needed a monitor to see what was proposed, what was taxiing, what was rolling down the runway and finally one to work the actual traffic. I don't know how they figured out that diverting my attention from one (the strips could be "ignored" as the pertinent information was in the data block), "monitor" to 4 wasn't progress, but they decided to cancel the program. We didn't really care about proposed flights anyway, we separated KNOWN (as in airborne) aircraft, not proposed
The gummint is really good at flushing millions upon millions of our money down the money pit.