The USS Wichita is fighting for her life.

Not in combat, but in Congress.

The Navy plans to decommission the Wichita a mere three years after it joined the fleet, because it has the naval equivalent of a cranky transmission.

The Wichita was built by Lockheed-Martin at a cost of about $360 million. It’s part of the Freedom Class of “littoral combat ships,” built for shallow-water missions where larger warships can’t go.

The ships were designed for high speeds and to use “plug and play” modules to accomplish multiple missions, including surface combat, minesweeping and anti-submarine warfare.

But problems have surfaced in the complicated propulsion system that meshes power from two gas turbines and two diesel engines to support speeds reaching 45 knots.

The anti-sub module also had issues and was canceled in favor of shifting that capability to larger ships.

There have been no publicly reported propulsion issues with the Wichita, but problems arose on at least two other Freedom Class vessels and the Navy has determined the design flaw runs throughout the class.

Several military-focused publications have reported that the Wichita is on a list of ships that the Navy plans to scrap in its 2023 budget cycle, because retiring them is more cost-effective than repairing them.

That would free up roughly $4 billion of funding for more capable warships.

But the cost to our civic pride is incalculable.

The Wichita is the first ship named after a Kansas city since the nuclear sub USS Topeka was commissioned in 1989.

The Wichita flag is the ship’s battle ensign and its motto is “Keeper of the Sea” — a nod to our Keeper of the Plains statue by Blackbear Bosin, the enduring symbol of Wichita pride.

The Wichita City Council and Sedgwick County Commission gave $50,000 in local public money — augmented with additional tens of thousands in private donations — to help outfit the ship with amenities for its roughly 100-member crew, including exercise equipment, video games, laptop computers to communicate with families back home, even a barber chair.

A large delegation of local officials, business leaders and veterans trekked to Florida for the commissioning ceremonies in January, 2019.

Standing on the deck of the ship, then-Mayor Jeff Longwell pledged Wichita’s undying support for the ship and crew.

“Our community truly stands ready to adopt this ship, adopt them as our family,” he said. “We’re excited about being a part of them and making sure they have a support network from Wichita, Kansas.”

Sen. Jerry Moran, the keynote speaker at the commissioning, tied it to local Kansas values: “People of strength, love of country, people who persevere, people who demonstrate every day hard work,” he said. “I’m confident the crew, the crew of the USS Wichita, will demonstrate those traits regardless of the challenges that lie ahead.”

Wichita hosted the commander and a contingent of sailors from the ship at a Navy Days celebration in 2019 and has plans to do it again in September, now that the COVID-19 pandemic has abated.

The decision to scrap the Wichita and her sister ships is not yet final.

Bloomberg News reported that the Navy is facing pushback from some representatives and senators in congressional hearings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Perhaps the Freedom Class can be saved.

The Navy reported four days ago that the Wichita just completed joint exercises with the Dominican Republic’s navy for interdiction of drug smuggling.

That makes sense. If the ship broke down chasing drug runners around the Caribbean and had to be towed back to port, well, that wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened in the Navy.

But it’s increasingly clear that the Wichita is unfit for the close-to-shore warfare and sub chasing roles it was built for.

And we have to be OK with that.

Decommissioning USS Wichita would be sad, no doubt.

But sending our young men and women into combat on a defective ship would be inexcusable.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uss-wichita-slated-scrapped-navy-190858013.html

Additional Info:
All Freedom Littoral Combat Ships in Commission Tapped for Early Disposal

The nine in-commission Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships the Navy is proposing to decommission as part of the FY 2023 budget. US Navy Photos

https://news.usni.org/2022/03/29/all-freedom-littoral-combat-ships-in-commission-tapped-for-early-disposal

I hear Russia is in need of a new ship.

It should go to the scrap yard.  Do not save those things, but make sure the program managers from the government are on it when it heads to the yard too

At least there was 10% for the big guy!

Scrap it. They shouldn't have built it.

Look at your tax deductions at the end of the month and remind yourself that money went to the employees and shareholders of L-M.

$360 million. Yeah, just junk it.

Give it the Ukraine, we seem to like giving them war implements.

Did anyone get fired over the underwhelming performance of the LCS platform? Forgot the iron for a second, the Navy must to fix the processes that resulted in this outcome.

No thanks. Scrap them all. We need more other things.

What's wrong with the process? LockMart got the funds as planned. You're not one of those people that thinks the American military is about national defense are you?

LittleCrappyShips are living up to their name.

What role do these “clitoral” ships even play? They look weak.

What a mismanaged waste of our money

360 million.

To fight drugs.

There aint nobody on earth can convince me that the WOD is cheaper than allowing people to exercise personal choice.

Idk, I think they were a good enough idea, bad execution. There are not nearly enough ships to cover all the things combatant commands want to do. More little boats seems like at least a plausible solution. What would you suggest?

I don’t think civic pride is sufficient reason to keep a US Navy in commission beyond it’s useful life.

Why not name a ship that we could be proud of after the city?

Attached File

"Standing on the deck of the ship, then-Mayor Jeff Longwell pledged Wichita's undying support for the ship and crew.

"Our community truly stands ready to adopt this ship, adopt them as our family," he said. "We're excited about being a part of them and making sure they have a support network from Wichita, Kansas."



'Family'

LOL.
Fine.
Keep her in the fleet, but send them the repair bills.

Don’t scrap them, sell them. At least then the taxpayer will get something back.

They should put a big steel ram on the bow and sell it to Ukrain. I would pay to see it cracking russian ships in two.

Ward Carroll interviewed Congresswomen Elaine Luria and they talked about this.  

The gist was that getting rid of hulls without a replacement ready didn’t make sense, and the proposed replacement frigate was ‘1/3 the capability of a Burke for 2/3 the cost’.

Interesting interview, IMO. They both seemed dissatisfied with how the Navy wanted to spend it’s money.

LCS never had a useful life.

Hell that's a drop in the bucket. Aren't we like 60 BILLION deep in this Ukraine bullshit now?

There's no way they can change engines and propulsion to make it usable for SOMETHING?

Decommission it and sell it to Taiwan or Chile or somedamnwhere and at least get something back.

"But the cost to our civic pride is incalculable."

Then pay for that white elephant with local money.

I could see if it had a distinguished combat record, but...

Attached File

I can only assume these ship's are so beyond working that to save face, we are being lied to about just how much of pieces of shit they are correct?

Yeah, let the mother fucking drug heads kill themselves, but...
If they kill, or injure a family member of mine, or destroy any of my god damn property, I will take care of their fucking urge to kill off their brains, permanently.

In fact, I'm in favor of banning narcan, and giving away free fentanyl.

LCS = Garbage.
I would say give them to the Coast Guard and let them figure out if they can make it into a mission craft they can use.

The Navy could scuttle them off the coast of Florida and make a "Littoral Reef" out of them.

The Navy should have spent the money on more Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyers (DDGs).
When you have something that works why not keep making them.

Actually - THAT is exactly what the whole concept
these are named after something men have always had the hardest time targeting

What I understand from this video is that they are scrapping all 9 ships and then building 6 more?

The new Hamilton class cutters are superior to the Little Crappy Ships, I doubt the CG would want them.

clitorro coffin ships should never have been built in the first place.  Sell them cheap to allies at least that will salvage some of the spent monies.

I tried to come up with a witty way to say that the end of it’s useful life coincided with it’s launching, but my muse failed me.

We should give it to the Taliban.

Dock them in Alaska and park Strykers on them!

That’d be badass!

Hell, I'll take it. Anchor that baby in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and I'll live aboard for the rest of my days.

Nothing to add, but agreement.


The purpose of the LCS was to line the pockets of politicians and contractors. It served its purpose with distinction.

At this point, what hasn't failed on these things?
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-navys-independence-class-littoral-combat-ships-are-cracking

It's in the name, littoral.

I think the concept is great. Execution wasn't so awesome.

45 knots would be impressive,  but I still never understood the point of damn things.

Make that a sinkex and I'll back you ....

From the beginning the project was budget be damned.  Let's build 2 different designs and see which we like more - oh, we have not decided so we need to keep the production lines open and build more before we decide - then here we are, we don't really like either - both are FUBAR.  Let scrap them all now and hope we get a replacement built in the next decade.

Of course, not doing the research but I bet the reason to do this is we needed an xxx ship navy and the cheapest way to do that was decommission ships that were useful and build these small little fuckers to replace them.  If that math works, why don't we replace aircraft carries with RIBS.

Fucking LCS boondoggle.

Naming it Wichita is pretty much advertising what a piece of shit it is.

The people responsible for these abominations should be held accountable.

To the best of my knowledge OHP’s never had Main Reduction Gear issues. WTF?

Fuck civic pride. Scrap it.

Give it to the coast guard.