by Craig Hooper on November 29, 2010
If Congress acts upon the dual-buy or, if not, the Navy just ends up approving a down-select to build LCS-1 Freedom-class boats (perish the thought!), Italian managers will be in charge of a major U.S. naval shipbuilding program. You see, though most cialis buy people know that Marinette Marine is owned by the Italian company […]
by Craig Hooper on November 19, 2010
As the Navy works to cajole a lame-duck Congress into approving the Navy’s proposal to build 10 variants of each LCS model, it is interesting–and potentially educational–to observe the shipbuilders who have skin in this fight–the recently divorced General Dynamics/Austal team, and the Marinette/Lockheed team. Marinette Marine: Puttin’ on a show! In Wisconsin, Marinette, after […]
by Craig Hooper on November 12, 2010
The lesson of the LCS “Unselect” is this: What Undersecretary Robert Work wants, Undersecretary Robert Work gets. (A corollary lesson is that Sean Stackley (perhaps atoning for his role as LPD-17 Program Manager from 2001-5) is the guy who actually does Work’s dirty work, but more on that at in a later post..) It’s worth […]
by Craig Hooper on July 8, 2010
As many of you know, I’m occasionally contributing to the military.com universe as their resident Naval Analyst. In today’s post, I wonder what will happen if, over the next two years, the 7,804 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells in the surface fleet suddenly acquired a Prompt Global Strike capability? It’s just a DARPA project now, […]
by Craig Hooper on June 8, 2010
In theory, the LCS platform is meant to be used hard–handed off to new crews quickly, and then sent on deployment after deployment–but, in practice, well, um…not so much: The Freedom has been at San Diego since finishing up her maiden deployment April 23. A number of minor problems cropped up during her cruise, including, […]
by Craig Hooper on February 12, 2010
As the Littoral Combat Ship program faces an abrupt down-select to a single hull, the Navy must brace for some nasty litigation. The spurned party–either Lockheed or General Dynamics–will be poised to contest the selection process. With little in the way of “real world” operational data available, advocates of either platform will have ample grounds to poke holes in the […]