145 Comments

I wish I could say you were wrong.

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"which gives me an idea for another post..."

i.e. give them to Ukraine like we gave Omaha's to the Soviet Union?

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I'm convinced that LCS-even can be put to use in SOUTHCOM and AFRICOM. LCS-odd...I'd try to put those to work as domestic disaster relief ships.

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tried and failed. These ships are made for patrolling the great lakes or the Black Sea.

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I don’t think any Sailor should be placed into harms way in any LCS.

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Thats one way to ruin the Ukrainians success and kill/loss ratio...

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maybe? They need coast guard-like ships that don't travel far, can zip around fast, and shoot missiles. Done and done. a 57mm BOFORS cannon is fine for taking out surface drones. And, to be honest, the current ACTUAL Unrainian kill/loss ratio is nothing to brag about.

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Idk...a cruiser, a few landing ships, a corvette, and a couple subs... I dont think theyre doing to bad for not having a navy!!

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Yeah, they've taken out 1/3 of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. I'd say that's not bad for not having a Navy. I'm sure there's military planners here that are losing sleep over the threat of drones.

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I may be out on a limb but I'd venture a guess that there is some solid connection between LCS/lack of performance/promises never kept/lightly gunned/over-worked crew/lack of morale and the current recruiting crisis. Hard to take pride in a losing, badly mismanaged program. Especially one with bad optics. At least the Zumwalt class started out looking like a warship.

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To me, Zumwalt looked like a new age attempt at a warship.

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founding

Honest legit question...

How well has that fiberglass covered wood "tophamper cap" for lack of a better term.. ) held up?

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I presume you are talking about a part on the LCS. My answer is, I haven't a clue. Fiberglass sailboats stand up pretty well to blue water ocean passage. Unless the part you are talking about is directly exposed to the pounding of waves, I would expect it to stand up fairly well, if your construction description good.

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founding
Apr 10·edited Apr 10

Actually on the Zumwalt...

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2012/06/ddg-1000-zumwalt-wooden-ship.html

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/ddg-1000-zumwalt-stealth-warship

I own a vintage (same age as your usual Flight I DDG) LPTB (Little Plastic Toy Boat)...

Balsa core rot and subsequent delamination

from water intrusion...generally from fasteners...is a thing

https://youtu.be/yhu-GlRb0wY?si=-qwBLRIIsWFqLd8b

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The fiberglass boats I have seen have no core, per se. The fabrics are laid up and molded with the epoxy resins completely soaking the fiber. I've seen the same thing in Aircraft. Cessna has the TTX several years ago, which they got from Lancair when they tried to produce certified aircraft. The method calls for a lot less hand work, but both sailing yachts and aircraft are far smaller then Zumwalt.

Fiberglass boats have osmotic blistering problems as they stand. If a wood core is used, the best I can say is they aren't getting a good bond with the resins thoroughly saturating the fiber cloth. IN a sailing vessel, you have to exercise great care around chain plates and other things that pierce the hull to insure there is no leakage around them.

I've seen many wood slat canoes that used what used to be the Gudgeon Brothers system. You build the canoe of wood slats, then you start working the fiberglass cloth onto the boat and painting it with resin as you go so that it is fully saturated and produces a solid bond with the wood. It works well, and produces a beautiful boat.

The major problem I can foresee with something like a Zumwalt is flexural bending of the large members. You don't see anything of the like in a sailing yacht or wood slat canoe. If the bond to the wood is not very, very good, then I can see delamination taking place. As an Engineer, I can understand why they chose that sort of construction. It lightens the weight carried up high, and so increases the righting moment, which makes it more stable. Fire, though, would be hell. Fiberglass will burn, and produce toxic fumes when doing so. The fire problem alone would be enough for me to veto such construction in a ship bound for combat.

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Here are the world's largest fiberglass ships vs the Zumwalt composite deckhouse. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RjQAW2FPNOmsIF7pb00SenL1tI95AGZI0K1ONCThSw4/edit?usp=sharing

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founding
Apr 10·edited Apr 10

"The fiberglass boats I have seen have no core, per se. The fabrics are laid up and molded with the epoxy resins completely soaking the fiber. "

From the very beginning of fiberglass boat construction, while the hulls were solid fiberglass...nearly all deck structures were cored...

And for the last 20 years nearly now, hulls have been built using a vacuum infused core method. This saves both material, and weight.

https://www.marlinmag.com/new-boat-construction-techniques/

When it comes to "Vulnerability Reduction", the biggest Achilles Heel has been totally unprotected sensors.

A simple proximity fused shrapnel charge detonated in the "top hamper" delivered by drone would (will) be an easy mission kill.

Good example was the Cole...

https://www.hazegray.org/features/cole/damage13.jpg

And a mission kill thats not an easy fix ...

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2010/october/naval-systems-ten-years-later-cole-antenna-back-service

So, as worthless as the Zumwalt is, her "top hamper cap" which could not only reduce its RCS, but also protect very vulnerable antennas, waveguides, etc., is an idea worth pursuing.

And speaking of how composite Lancairs hold up ( As an A&P, I nearly got involved helping build one years ago)...check this out:

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/lancair-makes-a-emergency-landing-on-us1.146810/

Also, it will be interesting to see the analysis of the recent ANA A-350 hull loss to fire...

It was the first predominately composite airliner that has been lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG4otjMEiao

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founding
Apr 10·edited Apr 10

Being pedantic, but at least with some local flavor...

"I've seen many wood slat canoes that used what used to be the Gudgeon Brothers system."

You meant "Gougeon" (gudgeon of course being a rudder "hinge" part that mates with a pintle... but I'm sure you know that ...but others here who are nonboat people may not...)

Anyhow, they took the boat world by storm with their epoxy West System...

https://www.westsystem.com/app/uploads/2022/10/GougeonBook-061205-1.pdf

The brothers were Lake Huron boys... I know folks who used to sail and pal around with them...

https://gougeon.com/gougeon-brothers-boats/

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I dive into this once in awhile. Turns out Balsa doesn't really burn so it has that going for it among its other qualities. Doesn't transmit heat, doesn't reflect radar. Keep in mind that is only on the sensor portion of the deckhouse on the first 2 ships.

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founding

What happens to the RCS when its wet and dirty?

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Apr 9·edited Apr 9

That whole decade was full of people being visited by the good idea fairy. The Army's FCS (Future Combat System) was a disaster that was eventually canceled after $32 billion were spent. It turns out that land mines don't care if your basically unarmored light vehicles have accomplished information dominance or not. On the bright side, the Army didn't spend more tens of billions over the next decade and half producing death trap combat vehicles. It did produce BFT, which is very cool as long as you can count on ViaSat not being blown up or people using your satcom traffic to RDF units.

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I’m was an Army military tourist, so pardon my ignorance. Wasn’t there a movie set during WWII that touched on similar littoral themes? It was called something like “They Were Expendable”.

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I recall those long-ago 1990s. I was "there" -- as much as any one person can be anywhere in our Big Navy. I recall discussing this newfangled LCS thingy w NAVSEA reps. Two of the major, driving ideas (from the Top!, no less, betraying the ignorant strategic culture of the era) -- were... USA "won the Cold War" and nobody anywhere could/would ever mess with us again, so we could afford to think small and even minimal. Meanwhile, people are expensive, so eliminate as many warm bodies as possible, down to the mess cranks cuz everybody can boil a bag of nutritious gruel, yes?

.

All this while USNavy was BRAC-ing away 200 yrs of institutional knowledge of how to design and build ships. Willy-nilly, govt closed facilities and laid off countless skillsets necessary to think-design-engineer-oversee difficult naval tasks. Oh, and what remained of the contractor base, post-Last-Supper, assured its govt "partners" that absolutely, no-kidding, private industry could pick up every bit of slack and deliver the goods.

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Manning reduction, I can see. The Japanese Mogami-class frigates have a crew of 90.

FWIW, go look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogami-class_frigate Be prepared to start crying afterward.

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Concept 2015, contracted 2017, laid down 2019, commissioned 2022. Seems pretty reasonable for any competent navy.

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6 in the water, 4 commissioned with the Yahagi due to have been commissioned last December but no news. Still, 4 handed over within 7 years from contract?

Competent naval construction industrial capability, and yes, competent Navy managing things.

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It will be interesting to see if it can take a punch and keep fighting. The displacement of an OHP and half the complement. That automation better be both good and robust because you will only have 50% of the oxygen consumers to do damage control.

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The Navy is not a business, nor should we try to run it like a business. It does not make a profit, there are no dividends to be paid to shareholders. There is no business plan for war at sea.

The privatization mania resulted in our offloading warship design and production to corporations who are not necessarily loyal to the United States. We should never have divested the Navy of the tasks of shipbuilding; and the LCS is a product of that bad, policy decision.

If we had Naval Shipyards, folks could play with the ideas the LCS was trying to implement, and could call "bullshit," when presented with vaporware. But, we don't and we can't. Unlike decades past, when folks who designed and built actual warships had a seat at the table, nobody in the USN has the necessary experience. Our Navy will not improve until we return to building warships ourselves.

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put some people "who actually have been to Sea and who expect to fight the next war there" at the table rather than the folks who have job offers already.

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Sure, but I'd much rather have the meeting chaired by a person who has overseen the building of a warship from plans to slipping down the ways.

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"by a person who has overseen the building of a warship from plans to slipping down the ways"

"successfully"???

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Hopefully.

But, the lessons of a failure can be better than the lessons of success. If a US Naval shipyard build a LCS, I don't think we would have more than one.

When we built ships, the shipbuilders could supervise the building of ships by private companies. Now that we can't build ships, nobody has the skills need to run herd on the private yards.

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The problem with finding a person that has seen all phases of a given ship flow from design through delivery is that we transfer program managers far too fast. I would settle with basing the fitreps of acquisition PMs dependent solely on quantifiable progress and benefit to the nation. Such measures can and do exist. OTOH, there are several people who have seen all of the phases of ship design and construction, but not in regard to a single ship class. I can say that I have, but I’m also retired.

Regarding the current three year delay of Constellation - The originators of all large “public works projects” (which is all that shipbuilding programs mean to Congress these days) lie, either about budget, or completion dates, or both. Some years back, a Danish professor showed that in quite irrefutable terms, and my research proved it to be true for DoD acquisitions.

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You are opening the door to another area where the nation should be unified, and that is the concept of meaningful, yet cushy, shore duty.

Naval Shipyards gave ratings a comfortable place to live with their family, to hold down a 9 to 4 job, and develop expertise in the operation of machinery by building said machinery.

The sea service has a need for retention that the Army simply does not. Soldering is a young man's game. Four years is a good term of service. Soldiers don't get than much better as they age; twenty-two is peak age for a rifleman. Sailing ships at sea is different. The seaman possesses technical expertise; subject matter mastery. A good sailor gets better as he ages.

We want to retain sailors in a way we do not retain soldiers and marines. Life at sea can be punishing. We need good shore duty for good sailors. Naval Shipyards gave us that.

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Tanks, and IFVs are very complex systems. There is a reason that staff sergeants are vehicle commanders. The back-end maintainers and logistics for them, helicopters and air defense make up more of the Army than Infantry does IIRC.

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Even an infantry unit needs a grizzled old sergeant or two. But, high turnover is good for an Army. It is not good for a Navy.

It is high time that we realized that the Army and the Navy are not the same.

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What if you recognized that defending the Global Commons is defending the trade of other nations to the ruin of ours?

One nation in particular whose East Sea fleet is located in Ningbo CN?

What if the weight of facts at last tore the scales from your eyes that whatever you tell yourselves DC is a business and that business is selling us out?

You are headed for Tsushima Straits but say whatever about the Tsar, he was not in bed with Japan.

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"DC is a business and that business is selling us out"

DNC+RNC have entered the room

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Same as it ever was since before the birth of the republic. The difference being that the parties would almost exclusively direct graft and earmarks to their district to build bridges, lay asphalt, put up dams, gift industries with lucrative contracts that would beget jobs and facilities expansion. Now 2/3rds is mandatory redistribution programs and the graft coming out of discretionary spending goes to building gender support clinics on one side and country of origin labeling for mutton on the other.

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US national defense has succumbed to the same illness US healthcare, banking, housing, transportation infrastructure, and much of (ultraprocessed) food and agriculture has. It's become a conduit for extracting as much wealth from the American people to Finance as possible. Actual defense is a much-subordinated purpose. Like with healthcare, banking and the rest, this has come about through the lobbying which motivates congressional and executive institutional corruption.

Empires fall because their essential faults kill them.

Free market and the private sector über alles, right?

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founding

Omaha class were fine when they were built, though pretty much 4th rate by WW II. LCS is 4th rate now.

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Right you are. The LSC was crap when it was now. The Omahas, according to the Cdr's link, they were more than fine. First oil-fired boilers!

Their problem was the passage of time and the corresponding advancement of technology.

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Apr 9Liked by CDR Salamander

I get your meaning Captain. 4th rate in the Royal Navy back in the 18th century was a two-decker ship of the line with 46 to 60 guns and a 350 man crew. I'd call the LCS "unrated", like a sloop or cutter. Larger but slower and with less firepower. ...unrated like some poor E-2 with a crappy ASVAB stuck with the titivation of bilges and heads.

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founding

Heh. Roger all. At the risk of misinterpreting our host, I think he meant 4th rate as in pretty low on the totem pole of effectiveness vice Nelsonian rating systems. That is how I meant my comment anyway.

Titivation of bilges and heads is, though somewhat inglorious, absolutely vital in my opinion.

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July 1966, my second day aboard my first ship, DE-1027, RDSA Flowers and RDSA Jones got introduced to RDC L___. He announced that he hated Mackerel Snappers (me) and Jones (short & roly-poly) and awarded us 12 hours in the bilges to show us what punishment for future misbehavior would be like. 2 hours in the bilges after liberty call M-thru-F. We both ruined some dungarees but boy did the duty section snipes love us. About 2 weeks later after morning quarters was over SN Kowalski read off cleaning assignments. "Flowers, forward head." I got this far in registering a complaint because I had been cleaning the forward head for 2 weeks straight, "But I ha...." when Kowalski punched me in the face. I was the junior E-2 in OI Division. We all promoted together, RDSN, RD3 and I remained the junior guy and permanent head cleaner, Kowalski having left the Service. It wasn't until November 1967 when I made RD2 that I got my cleaning assignment changed. It fell to RD3 Na____n who's PNA-ed for RD2. No hard feelings to SN Kowalski. It was a lesson to me. Hard & unfair, possibly criminal, but a good lesson. I did some inglorious but vital work as an RDSA up to RD2 cleaning crappers and urinals with a green wienie and Comet Cleanser but no rubber gloves. The pay-off was a solid work ethic, a sense of duty and a transfer to a DDG on January 1, 1967 because I was an expendable junior E-5, and became the CIC LPO at 19 on a deployment with no RDC or RD1. My Navy all about opportunity. I loved it.

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I have done at least my share of that inglorious but vital work on three continents, but I must confess I never reaped the same benefits you did.

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nothing with that first syllable can be wholly without value

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The Omaha's were 4th rate but they did their jobs nicely. Operate in the quiet sectors to look for blockade runners, show the flag, give the convoy escorts a bit extra firepower, but their biggest duty was to free up the more modern ships for combat.

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I was part of a SCN briefing in 1993 that accurately forecast the current ship building fandango.

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Oh my. That wake… I didn't see it at first, but once you mentioned it… I'm still aghast at the LCS story. "ASW: none"?!?!

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Apr 9·edited Apr 9

they will stay in green or brown water?

and no CWIS, but 50 cals for boat defense?

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The .50 cals are silly. I've had too many people talk about not hitting anything in gunnery practice. We need an air burst shell and we need to move the people off the deck. The M230LF in the XM914/RWS-6 like on SHORADS and Mantis. Also allows mounting of 2 Stinger or a Javelin.

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was thinking RWS. The LCS was supposed to survive on speed. Even experienced grunts can't hit crap with a 50 on the move against a moving target. you need gyro stab or lots of practice. Neither of which the random E-2 seaperson on an LCS is likely to have

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Kongsberg would love to sell you some CROWS. Though they call that version PROTECTOR RS4 Naval.

https://www.kongsberg.com/kda/what-we-do/defence-and-security/remote-weapon-systems/protector-rws-naval/

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Yeah I'd rather have air burst rounds this day and age. Drones, plus who wants to take all day hitting the target. Plus Stinger or Javelin when you really need something dead, now.

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E-2? I never saw anyone under E-3 aboard an LCS. Considering how long many Navy training programs are, plus the LCS pipeline and manning documents, you'll never see many E-3 and below on them.

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How much better is an E-3s aim?

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Not much better!

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“Its superior speed and maneuverability; low radar, infrared, and acoustic signatures; “ which of the 4 has the lowest acoustic sig?

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LCS was a bean counter’s dream. When the bean counter became the boss it became his own personal nightmare. So the President with zero military knowledge or experience promoted him to oversee a land war in Asia. Guess how that turned out? You can’t make this stuff up.

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I think we see that this ships natural place is on patrol and the fact that the anti surface and mcm gear is on seperate modules is pretty dumb. We know the Iranians toss mines out of the small boats they are shooting from.

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founding
Apr 9Liked by CDR Salamander

"Let’s be honest with each other."

Or...

We can hide in Army cammo, spout corporate platitudes, congratulate each other for being Really Smart Guys"...

While hiding from the press which wants to probe our repeated failures, get webcams removed to hide our lack of seamanship skills, tell Congress to f*k off, choose which Commander in Chief we will be loyal to....

All because, since we are so smart, we are secure in our superior knowledge that the NatSec system is the most perfect it can be and beyond rebuke.

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Friends don’t let friends LCS.

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"Friends don't let friends lose common sense."

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We are now in danger of losing the Frigates to the good idea fairies.

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So the common remark re. frigates is they needed to be redesigned to something something US survivability standards. Is this real? And if so, curious as to what survivability standards LCS was designed to. (just kidding about the second.)

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They stretched the hull, removed the bow sonar dome, reinforced the superstructure for sensors and weapons and added “ship survivability”.

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No. Those are already lost. Were lost from the outset, really.

I cannot emphasize this enough. A modern warship is weapons and sensors. The hull is no longer the big-dollar item. Buying somebody else's hull blueprints, modifying those to suit you, then substituting your own weapons and sensor suite saves not one damned dime.

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But LCS demonstrated that we can't design hulls. At least ones that don't crack like a Liberty ship designed for a 4 year service life.

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Or can’t help but be detected from Space.

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Corporate America can be just as dishonest as government. However, there is only so long you can keep a failing business propped up. Government by virtue of its ability to tax, borrow and print money can go on for decades. Anyone who challenges the official narrative is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or audited by the IRS or gets a visit from the FBI. Magic bullet? WMD in Iraq? Etc.

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