Yes, I Can Say Nice Things About LCS
mark your calendar
Regulars here know I am a big supporter of the underdog, and in naval warfare few things are more of an underdog than Mine Warfare (MIW).
Effective, deadly, affordable, and few things will terrify a ship faster than its crew yelling “MINE”!
Forgotten and neglected in peace, absolutely devastating at war.
Regulars also know that I love nothing more than dragging the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), AKA Little Crappy Ship (as popularized on this blog two decades ago) around.
Where do they intersect where the former negates the latter?
Friend to the blog, guest and occasional guest host for the Midrats Podcast, MIW SME, and altogether hail-fellow-well-met Matthew Hipple’s recent article, LCS Stands for ‘Let’s Close Sea-lanes’, out in the latest edition of Proceedings.
He covers a variety of ideas, but his answer for the yawning capability gap for minelayers by leveraging a few advantages the Independence Class LCS have…got my attention, especially because he’s been thinking about the same challenge I was pondering this summer: Taiwan.
In a conflict in the western Pacific, the U.S. Navy needs more options to trap China’s numerically superior maritime forces within the hellscape from Tsushima to the South China Sea. More effective tools for closing sea-lanes and airspace in the littorals would free resources for elsewhere. Novel weapons are necessary but insufficient. A platform dedicated to sea denial is needed.
…
The warehouse-size mission bay with already billeted minemen and a two-deck-high stern door could host new mine-laying and mine-storage systems. In 2020, Denmark’s SH Defence introduced the Cube System, a universal conex box mounting for mission systems, including mine laying and connectible mine-feeding systems. A single Cube mine feeder magazine could hold about 50 bottom mines or 30 moored mines.
Any fight in the Western Pacific will be an all hands effort. As I have said for two decades in my critique of LCS, don’t tell me “She won’t be asked to…”.
No. We don’t have a large enough Navy to have the luxury of not sending our ships into harm’s way or invest Sailors, fuel, and time with ships that cannot bring the fight to the enemy. LCS will be put in the fight. If there are ways we can leverage her good aspects, like speed and “square footage”, then we would be adding error on top of error not to make the best of her.
Eventually smart people would find a way to get a return on our investment in LCS. Matthew has better ideas than most.
Tip of the hat as well for pointing eyes towards The Cube. The Cube is about more than MIW. Real interesting video.
Final little Easter Egg for everyone.
In case you missed it, one of the best openings of a military film involved offensive minelaying, in the 2008 Russian film, Admiral.
Curtis LeMay was miffed at having to diver B-29s to mining operations. Later he admitted begrudgingly that those B-29s mining missions really paid off.
While mine laying might be a future role for LCS in undisputed sea lanes, it’s difficult to believe its pathetic air defense capability would allow it to survive for long enough to dispense many mines. Submarine minelayers would probably be a safer bet. No discussion of mine laying is complete without taking about mine clearing which is by far the more difficult job.