A Recipe for Failure

Roughly three weeks ago we wrote about the shortcomings of the multi-service F-35A,B,C fighter program. Those stemmed from the mostly unsuccessful attempt to do a great variety of things with a sort-of single platform.

Along comes another example, again from the DOD, of trying to do many missions with one multipurpose vehicle. This time the culprit is the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program. The National Interest reports it is another example of trying to cut corners and ending up, billions later, with something very nearly unusable.

It took the Navy nearly two decades to realize the LCS program had failed. The sailing branch in 2014 cut LCS acquisition from 55 ships to 32. Congress eventually added three vessels, boosting the class to 35 ships.

In place of the 20 canceled LCSs, the Navy plans to buy 20 new missile frigates. The service in 2019 asked Congress for around $1 billion for the first ship in the new class.

In contrast to the LCS in its original guise, the new frigate will be a conventional vessel with a large crew and hard-wired systems.

In those few cases where it turns out something designed for task A also works well for task B, it is normally a post hoc discovery by some insightful operator of that system. Trying for this sort of synergy a priori is very nearly a foolproof recipe for failure.