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The Military

German Navy Experiences 'LCS Syndrome' In Spades As New Frigate Fails Sea Trials (arstechnica.com) 222

Posted by BeauHD from the fix-it-again dept.
schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica, highlighting the problems the Germany Navy is facing right now. It has no working submarines due to a chronic repair parts shortage, and its newest ships face problems so severe that the first of the class failed its sea trials and was returned to the shipbuilders in December. From the report: The Baden-Wurttemberg class frigates were ordered to replace the 1980s-era Bremen class ships, all but two of which have been retired already. At 149 meters (488 feet) long with a displacement of 7,200 metric tons (about 7,900 U.S. tons), the Baden-Wurttembergs are about the size of destroyers and are intended to reduce the size of the crew required to operate them. Like the Zumwalt, the frigates are intended to have improved land attack capabilities -- a mission capability largely missing from the Deutsche Marine's other post-unification ships. The new frigate was supposed to be a master of all trades -- carrying Marines to deploy to fight ashore, providing gunfire support, hunting enemy ships and submarines, and capable of being deployed on far-flung missions for up to two years away from a home port. As with the U.S. Navy's LCS ships, the German Navy planned to alternate crews -- sending a fresh crew to meet the ship on deployment to relieve the standing crew.

Instead, the Baden-Wurttemberg now bears the undesirable distinction of being the first ship the German Navy has ever refused to accept after delivery. In fact, the future of the whole class of German frigates is now in doubt because of the huge number of problems experienced with the first ship during sea trials. So the Baden-Wurttemberg won't be shooting its guns at anything for the foreseeable future (and neither will the Zumwalt for the moment, since the U.S. Navy cancelled orders for their $800,000-per-shot projectiles). System integration issues are a major chunk of the Baden-Wurrenberg's problems. About 90 percent of the ship's systems are so new that they've never been deployed on a warship in fact -- they've never been tested together as part of what the U.S. Navy would call "a system of systems." And all of that new hardware and software have not played well together -- particularly with the ship's command and control computer system, the Atlas Naval Combat System (ANCS). schwit1 adds: "Perhaps most inexcusable, the ship doesn't even float right. It has a permanent list to starboard."
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German Navy Experiences 'LCS Syndrome' In Spades As New Frigate Fails Sea Trials More

German Navy Experiences 'LCS Syndrome' In Spades As New Frigate Fails Sea Trials

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  • AI (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:27PM (#56092541)

    what they need is AI to fix all the issues, or maybe some sort of apps. if all else fails try hostfiles.

    • Yes. I can already predict the optimal solution the AI finds:

      Build one "stock" airplane, with control systems linked to the AI for remote control. Arm it with a full loadout of air to ground missiles. Bomb the hell out of all the decision-makers until they come up with sane specs, keep repeating as necessary.

  • Das Boot (Score:4, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:27PM (#56092545)
    Ist nicht so gut.
    • Given all the problems listed in the article, you really have to wonder how Germany won the war.
      • Eh? I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Germany didn't 'win the war' (at least the last two major world wars). ;)

        • Modern Germany never won a war. The second German Reich won the German-French war. WW2 was lost due to bad tactics, a bad strategy and the inability to understand that you are not ten times more efficient than others in fighting and production of weapons. In short believing in the superiority of one's group does not make it superior. However, this inability helped to get rid of the fascists then. Maybe that helps for other fascists in future.

          • WW2 was lost due to bad tactics, a bad strategy and the inability to understand that you are not ten times more efficient than others in fighting and production of weapons.

            And yet the Axis STILL put in a strong showing. To be fair, though, it would have ground to a halt much sooner without the aid of the USA. We sold the Japanese the aluminum that got made into Zeroes, we sold fuel to the Nazis well into the war (supposedly the act of one man, but we knew it was going on and let it continue, then seized the assets, thus nationalizing both the cash and the blame), IBM built the machines that managed the concentration camps and the service contract was paid directly to Armonk N

      • They didn't since 1870. That's why there's that old joke (told around the 1950s) where three veterans, a young one, an old one and an ancient one sit together.

        V1: I fought in WW2 and got the Iron Cross second class.
        V2: I fought in WW1 and got the Iron Cross first class.
        V3: I fought in the war of 1870/71, didn't get a medal, but at least we won.

        • Funny enough, you can tell that joke today with the US, using Afghanistan, Vietnam and WW2 and some other medals...

  • Perhaps They Meant Port? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:28PM (#56092555)

    Perhaps most inexcusable, the ship doesn't even float right. It has a permanent list to starboard.

    Seems to me it's floating right.

    • Perhaps most inexcusable, the ship doesn't even float right. It has a permanent list to starboard.

      Seems to me it's floating right.

      LOL... Why yes... Yes it is.

      My guess is that it turns all right too..

    • They paid the listing price...

  • priorities (Score:3)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:30PM (#56092563) Journal

    since the U.S. Navy cancelled orders for their $800,000-per-shot projectiles

    Can't afford it. We've got a massive parade to put on.

    • Fretting over a parade? Even the mighty /. is infected it seems.

      • Re:priorities (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday February 09, 2018 @03:06AM (#56093943) Journal

        Fretting over a parade?

        Absolutely not. I love parades. I think the idea of the latest military hardware rolling down the street while members of the armed forces are forced to salute a guy who dodged the draft with four deferments, including one for bone spurs in his foot and who compared avoiding STDs to his "own personal Vietnam" is exactly what this country needs right now.

        In fact, he was classified 1-A in 1968, but re-classified as 4-F in 1972 after his dad bribed some New York draft board officials.

        Plus, military parades are always super-gay and gay stuff cheers everybody up.

  • Engineering Design is easy.... (Score:3)

    by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:37PM (#56092583)

    It's the integration and fielding that's difficult.

    I've always thought that the really hard part of any complex system deployment was the integration work. It's often overlooked and under planned in the original project plan and when it is planned, the inevitable sliding to the right of the schedule causes integration to get squeezed into impossible schedules. I've worked integration efforts where the original unlikely to succeed 6 month schedule got compressed into two weeks.

    I'm guessing the schedule slipped to far right, management wanted their bonus so it got fielded before it was going to work, so failure came as no surprise to the system integrators. Of course it failed acceptance, it failed our tests too.

    • Re:Engineering Design is easy.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:46PM (#56092625) Journal
      Re "It's the integration and fielding that's difficult."
      The Dreadnought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] generation faced such generational change issues. How did the UK change so quickly and have so few issues?
      The UK gov supported a very good engineering company with the best leadership and top experts.
      The private sector made their parts on time and ensured all the parts delivered worked for their nations navy.
      Most of the better bands have the ability to do that "integration and fielding" as they have experts who can do that job.
      Want good parts? Pay for the parts from domestic experts and only hire the best domestic staff to work on mil projects.
      Stop using political trade deals with other less skilled nations boat builders to create a low cost navy.
      • The private sector has been known for milking its nation's military budgets for decades. The interaction between the military and the large national conglomerates has a history of bribery, kickbacks, late deliveries, budget overruns, and underperforming results.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Thats why the "Dreadnought" example is so good. The UK got its best engineers to build a new system that worked on time.
          The engineers took pride in building a new design and ensured it worked.
          They had to hand the working design over to the navy and did so knowing they had done a good job and had put real effort into the work.
          The trick is to find your nations very best private sector engineers who know what they are doing and to support them.
          Get political with the design and the navy is left with a fer
          • Unfortunately this doesn't happen often, because the politicians who are supposed to set up and fund the surveillance are the same who would end up on the receiving end of the bribe. Also, politicians tacitly support kickbacks when it's a company from their nation who is paying an official in a foreign country in order to receive a contract from its government.

    • Re:Engineering Design is easy.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:52PM (#56092653)

      Underestimating the weight and the thing listing aren't integration problems, they are a symptom of a system rotten to the core.

      That they fucked up software engineering when they so utterly fucked up something so much more easily predictable is no surprise at all. The weight and balance should have been known before they started construction, how the fuck do you fuck that up?

      • Re:Engineering Design is easy.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @08:04PM (#56092697)

        ECO's.... The bread and butter of arms makers.

        Oh? You want the toilets to flush? Well why didn't you say so before in your specifications? We can make that happen for only the small price of $$$$, sign here.

        Oh? What? You want the ship to turn right AND left? Again, I'm sorry, but that's not part of the original specification. We can make that happen though, just cough up some more cash and sign here... And, just to make sure, you don't want it to turn both ways at the same time right? Well, we need some $$ to make sure that last ECO covers one way at a time turning...

        • Hey, at least the boat is staying afloat, I bet that wasn't specified either. They are already fulfilling more than the contract demand and still the customer ain't satisfied.

          Talk about entitlement!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Re "they are a symptom of a system rotten to the core."
        NATO contractor policy at its very best. NATO wanted marines, hunting submarines and far-flung missions to support a war like global EU political foreign policy.
        So Germany had to spend big on a navy system that NATO/EU had to approve of to project EU power globally.
        EU political leaders are not navy experts. But it was great for over time and contractors got work. All that money on the table to plan up for "marines" and the Germans helping with far

        • This.

          Don't let your politicians have a say in military matters. Likewise, don't let your military run the country. There is a good reason why they have two different job descriptions.

          If you want to know what happens when the military runs the country, look at all the hellholes that are run by a military junta. If you want to see what a war run by politicians looks like, look at any war the US fought since WW2.

      • Re:Engineering Design is easy.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Friday February 09, 2018 @12:23AM (#56093581) Homepage Journal

        A ship that lists is usually indicative of engines not being placed quite right, as they are easily the heaviest thing below the waterline. The fix for a cruise ship with this condition is usually to fill a compartment with ballast, often concrete. Generally there are some small compartments left unassigned for exactly this purpose. Fill one partly or completely to balance the ship and compensate for inevitable measurement errors in placing the engines. The rest are then available for storage, because it doesn't matter all that much exactly which three tanks (out of four) are available, only that you have three.

        I don't know if a Navy would be accepting of such ad hoc fixes, but the engines being misaligned slightly is so common that the fix is engineered right into passenger ships.

  • To build a "Little Crappy Ship". But in this case, I guess it is a "Kleines beschissenes Schiff"?

  • Master of all Trades? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:44PM (#56092615)

    The new frigate was supposed to be a master of all trades -- carrying Marines to deploy to fight ashore, providing gunfire support, hunting enemy ships and submarines, and capable of being deployed on far-flung missions for up to two years away from a home port...

    ...ahd invading France.

  • LCS (Score:5, Informative)

    by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @07:48PM (#56092633) Homepage Journal

    In case anyone wonders what LCS stands for, it's "Littoral Combat Ship". Not that everyone knows what that means either, but it boils down to a jack-of-all-trades ship that's intended for close-to-shore operations, and not the deep seas.

    And yeah, they're the F-135s of the ocean. Overpriced, delayed, problems doing some expected things, and loved by those who love Swiss army knives, entertainment systems and all-you-can-eat buffets.

    • Are subs considered LCS?

    • Thanks for that.

      Next question - what is "LCS Syndrome"?

      • I believe it means that, similar to the USN effort, promises are made that this new very expensive thing will be great at everything. And it turns out to be very expensive and not very good at anything.

        To get more concrete... The thing about a littoral craft is the environment is potentially very hazardous, since shallow water puts you in reach of a dizzying array of threats, including ones affordable to tinpot dictatorships. So if you are not really really good at kicking ass against everything all the

      • Re:LCS (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09, 2018 @04:38AM (#56094125)

        LCS syndrome backgrounder.

        LCS is "Littoral Combat Ship". This is an idea that seemingly has some merit, but the ships have had many problems.

        There is a tendency in the US armed forces to keep making things bigger, and fancier, and thus more expensive. The biggest navy ships (aside from aircraft carriers which are a special case) are the destroyers, which cost something like $2 billion per ship. They need a lot of crew as well, and thus are expensive to operate.

        So the Navy started thinking that the Cold War was over, maybe we don't need every ship to be super awesome, and it would sure be handy to have a lot more ships. If you need a ship to interdict drug shipments, a destroyer is serious overkill... Thus the LCS.

        The LCS was supposed to cost around a quarter of a billion dollars (i.e. 1/8 as much as a destroyer), have a small crew due to lots of automation, and be able to do several different jobs. Oh, and be able to operate in shallow waters and even rivers (thus the "littoral" in the name). The "do several different jobs" part was going to be due to swappable "mission modules". You have lots of mine-sweepers, don't need so many, and need one more anti-submarine ship? Take a mine-sweeper LCS into port, pull off the mine-sweeping mission module, dock on the anti-sub module, and swap crews.

        Also, two shipyards submitted one design each. And the Navy decided not to choose one, but to request roughly equal numbers from both shipyards.

        Critics pointed out that these ships were not nearly as tough as older designs. Also they were designed with rather limited attack options (including a total lack of "over the horizon" attacks). The whole point of the LCS is that you can send them off by themselves to do odd jobs, but against any opponent stronger than a drug smuggler they would get in trouble fast.

        And China and Russia are starting to look like we could end up at war with either or both. The LCS was designed to fight drug smugglers and maybe speedboats but not modern navy ships.

        On top of the problems with the design, the ships themselves have been trouble-prone. Engine trouble, corrosion problems, all sorts of issues.

        And of course they cost way more than promised, about double. So they are about a half billion dollars or 1/4 the cost of a destroyer. Also, they need more crew than the original plan. And, the fast swapping of modules doesn't seem to work very well, so current plans are to build the ship, attach one module, and that ship will use that module for its whole service life.

        Now the US Navy has decided that they really need a new "frigate". They are calling it "FFG(X)", i.e. new experimental frigate class. This would be a ship less expensive and capable than a destroyer, but more capable than an LCS (definitely designed to be able to fight modern navy ships). The companies making the LCS ships are saying "hey, we can up-gun these things... just bolt on more weapons and stuff." But now the ships would be way over design weight, and one of the good things about them, the fast speed, would be compromised.

        So the Navy is looking at other options for the frigate.

        You know you can trust me because I'm a total armchair expert who has never been in the navy and doesn't know what he's talking about. But I read a lot of stuff. Anyway IMHO any acceptable frigate must have VLS cells... that's "Vertical Launch System" and the LCS ships were designed without them. Destroyers have lots of these. If the new frigate has a few, they can be loaded with a mix: some missiles for attacking targets on land, some missiles for defense against attacking aircraft, etc. A frigate with air defense, ship to ship defense, and some land attack missiles can be sent off on missions by itself. Even better if you send a couple of them to watch each other's back, I guess. The point is to keep using the Navy standard VLS modules and missiles, not some wacky new standard peculiar to the new frigate.

        Read more about the FFG(X) proposals:

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arth1 ( 260657 )

          The biggest navy ships (aside from aircraft carriers which are a special case) are the destroyers, which cost something like $2 billion per ship.

          No, cruisers are generally bigger than destroyers, and so are battleships (not that there are any battleships left in active duty).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Trogre ( 513942 )

      So do they perhaps mean "F-35" syndrome?

  • Ba dum. (Score:3)

    by Pascoea ( 968200 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @08:22PM (#56092759)

    It has a permanent list to starboard

    Yeah, most guys can sympathize.

  • It is proud German engineering. (Score:4, Funny)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @08:28PM (#56092781) Journal
    The ship builder is owned by the same conglomerate that owns Volkswagen. They share the vehicle control software development team.

    They German Navy testers forgot to turn on the "generate fake data" mode during the acceptance testing. Soon it will be corrected and all the data will match the expected data so very perfectly. Just watch.

  • History repeats? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YukariHirai ( 2674609 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @08:36PM (#56092811)
    Going into World War 1, just about every power had at least some major equipment that was horrendously inadequate or impractical in some way. And/or just plain outdated. If we're as close to World War 3 starting as many people think we are, that's the situation now, between the new equipment like these faulty ships, the F-35, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re 'between the new equipment like these faulty ships"
      War Is a Racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Same thing after WWI, because by then, the new experimental machines didn't really have to work well.

      There's never a good or bad time for a fuckup. SSDD!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dargaud ( 518470 )
      I'm becoming convinced that the next WW will be fought by nail-sized drones, carried to their target by suit-case-size drones, carried to their target by automated airplanes and/or missiles. All remotely controlled with a high degree of autonomy for when there's jamming. City insurrections will be a thing of the past... As will basically any opposition even mellow.

      • Er, so your saying, it's drones all the way down?

      • I'm becoming convinced that the next WW will be fought by nail-sized drones, carried to their target by suit-case-size drones, carried to their target by automated airplanes and/or missiles.

        Sure, unless Cheeto Hitler kicks it off before then.

        I was just talking about this with someone yesterday. Right now, we still have drone pilots. But even they will go away, when we are using swarms of small vehicles. No human will be able to make a useful contribution. Without delays and random aiming drift added, AI already crushes humans at playing RTSes. All that's missing, really, is the sensor packages.

  • Still Better than Canada (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Thursday February 08, 2018 @08:36PM (#56092813)

    At least they get something in the water. Canada issued contracts for new ships years ago and the shipyards still haven't started welding metal yet. It's another case of trying to keep the yards in business over building the proper ships for the Navy. We should have had the basic ship (hull, structures, engines, etc) built in a country that specializes in ship building such as South Korea and then brought them back to kit them out with all of the specialized equipment (RADAR, SONAR, weapons, communications, etc). We could have had ships in service by now.

    • Re:Still Better than Canada (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Leuf ( 918654 ) on Friday February 09, 2018 @12:44AM (#56093619)
      What happens where there's a world war on and you can't get ships sent to you from Asia because that's the war zone and you have no shipyards of your own anymore because it was easier to outsource it during peacetime?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hipp5 ( 1635263 )

      At least they get something in the water. Canada issued contracts for new ships years ago and the shipyards still haven't started welding metal yet.

      Huh? They haven't missed deadlines yet. They're not supposed to cut steel on the new combat ships until early 2020s. They've had to build up the shipyard capacity, and are now building the new arctic patrol vessels as "practice". The first arctic patrol vessel modules are coming together as we speak; I drive by it on the regular.

      Of course, that doesn't mean they won't miss deadlines. I gather there is a lot of uncertainty on the design of the combat ships and that certainty needs to come really soon or they

  • Audi, BMW: "chronic repair parts shortage" ... "newest cars [ships] face problems so severe that the first [of the class] failed"...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Why they didn't just buy the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer [wikipedia.org] which is designed to be configurable for different missions so they could have just ordered it with whatever features they wanted?

      I believe that is exactly what they are now doing.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mvdwege ( 243851 )

        Not quite. The current Bremen class is being built by their neighbours to the West (Royal Scheldt in Vlissingen, the Netherlands)

  • Well this new ship matches other German military acquisitions. Submarines which do not work, marine helicopter which cannot fly over sea (not allowed as they rust and might crash), impercise guns, non working transport planes, drones which are not legal to fly over Germany. In short the only thing that works are tanks, which we sell to the Turkish to murder civilians in Syria.

    • [...]drones which are not legal to fly over Germany.

      So? The military is supposed to work outside of Germany.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by prefec2 ( 875483 )

        True, but it has its base in Germany. So it must cross German territory. Also it must cross other countries territory, and it if German aviation authorities does not allow to fly this thing, it has the same restrictions in other EU countries. Hence, we could move it to the coast of the North Sea and tug it into international waters and launch it from there.

  • Baden-Wurttemberg doesn't even have an ocean nearby!

    • Same reason the USA had an Iowa class Battleship?

      Or the Cleveland class cruiser?

      Or the Atlanta class cruiser?

      Or the Fargo class cruiser?

      Or...Yeah, I could go on for a while....

  • Customer sets up a contract, with semi-sane requirements and sane deadline.

    Contract is approved, but requirements change, deviating increasingly far from sane.

    There are punitive charges for not meeting the deadline. The developer is simply unable to meet all the requirements of the contract in full, on time.

    Solution: As deadline comes, wrap up and release the half-made, definitely not ready for market product that "technically" meets all the requirements "on paper" - everything works, but nearly nothing wor

  • A Note to the Editors: it would be appropriate to italicize the name of a particular vessel - Baden-Wurttemberg, Zumwalt - as the Ars article did. I know that Slashdot submitters are all about copying and pasting from articles, with nary a bit of added value (like explaining the acronym "LCS"), but y'all could at least avoid making things worse by preserving formatting.

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