Thursday, May 23, 2013

Actual Brown Water Combatants

Keep those expensive Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) out of the littorals. You want green and brown water vessels? Send the Cyclones.

Ah, the sweet smell of sanity (via my Jane's email updates):

The US Navy (USN) will forward deploy five more coastal patrol (PC) boats to US 5th Fleet in Bahrain with plans to move its remaining fleet from Virginia to Florida, officials told IHS Jane's on 14 May. Cyclone-class PCs USS Tempest (PC 2), USS Squall (PC 7), and USS Thunderbolt (PC 12) are scheduled to arrive in Manama by the third quarter of 2013[.]

Insanity is expecting LCS to operate close to shore. Patrol craft like the Cyclone class are cheap enough to risk in the littorals if we can't patrol them with drones.

But the Cyclone's are wearing out.

Why not build a new class of this type with the room to mount Griffin missiles to give the little ships a little more range?