Another littoral combat ship breaks down on deploymenthttps://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/10/28/another-littoral-combat-breaks-down-on-deployment/WASHINGTON – The littoral combat ship Detroit is limping back to Mayport, Florida from a deployment to South America in a move that marks the latest setback for the Freedom variant’s complicated propulsion system.
Three sources familiar with the situation told Defense News the casualty is in Detroit’s combining gear, which is a complex transmission that connects power from two large gas turbine engines and two main propulsion diesel engines to the ship’s propulsion shafts, which propels the ship through the water with water jets.
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The Freedom-class LCS has been bedeviled by issues with its combining gear, which is an imperfect solution engineered to meet the 40-knot-plus speed requirement. The ship can make between 10 and 12 knots with just its diesel engines, but to go any faster it must engage the gas turbine engines. The combining gear fuses and transmits the power to the propulsion shafts, but is a system with a lot of moving parts and has proven unreliable.
The string of combining gear casualties dating back to at least late 2015, when the LCS Milwaukee broke down on its maiden voyage to its home port in Mayport, Florida, and had to be towed into Little Creek amphibious base in Hampton Roads, Virginia. ...
IMO, the LCSes are intentional moneypits searching for a non-existant role.
