Littoral Combat Ship - The Status as of Now

RADM Frank C. Pandolfe, Director, Surface Warfare, N86, OPNAV and I have something in common, we are both very excited about the Littoral Combat Ship and associated programs. His presentation at the Surface Navy Association conference is up on SWONET (and should be on YouTube but whatever). Go here, ignore the certificate warning, and click watch under RADM Pandolfe's picture.

I really appreciated the presentation addressing and creating a new baseline for the status of all the elements of the Littoral Combat Ship. The presentation as a whole was very smart, it gave the best Navy briefing I've seen yet on the Littoral Combat Ship, a very informative update on DDG-1000, and also began the discussion on the DDG-51 Flight III. The briefing left several questions about the DDG-51 restart unmentioned, like "where is the contract?" being a big first question, but overall I thought the entire presentation was very well done.

When the crowd (of mostly ties and jackets) started clapping, I did my own little fist pump at the laptop. I kept thinking to myself this is exactly how the Navy can talk to the very broad audience of Americans that are interested in Navy technology. Unfortunately, it all came crumbling down.

The very first question by the audience came from a gentleman who asked RADM Frank C. Pandolfe if he had read the article on the Littoral Combat Ship in the January issue of Proceedings and if he would address the specific concerns laid out in the article. The article by Commander John Patch is titled The Wrong Ship at the Wrong Time and is publicly available for everyone to read. The article lays out 11 specific problems with the Littoral Combat Ship.

I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone that the answer RADM Pandolfe gave to the question was not good enough. Indeed, I was so jazzed from such a excellent presentation that to see Pandolfe basically punt on the first tough question was depressing. /facepalm

Pandolfe likely could not rattle off the complaints in the Proceedings article, even as he admitted to reading the article and also called the complaints 'time dated.' IT DOESN"T MATTER. Until flag officers consistently and collectively engage tough criticism directly on the tough issues related to their job, the perception that the Navy is ignoring criticism will continue to give the criticism more credibility than it may deserve. The number of flag officers that run towards the problems in the Navy are so few that all of us can name these people by name. The number of flag officers who ignore or fail to adequately even attempt to address criticism is so large it shapes the perception of the whole.

How many times have I suggested that it is time for the Navy's leadership to collectively run towards the fire when their is a problem? RADM Pandolfe's answer left the impression he ran away from the fire and let his presentation go up in smoke in the process. I'm not alone in this assessment, I note that the same impression was left by folks I spoke to who were in the room, and I've heard that examples of that impression were mentioned specifically over at SailorBob.

A few years ago it was easy to ignore tough questions in Proceedings, maybe, but the question itself is yet another example how important the contents of the magazine are to the leadership of the Navy. Everyone reads the magazine - and I mean everyone - and most importantly that everyone includes the people on Capitol Hill. No flag officer and no program can afford to punt questions that get sourced to Proceedings, that would be like a Marine General ignoring an article in the Marine Corps Gazette - it just doesn't fly.

I'm a fan and a friend of John Patch. I disagreed with his article when I read it, but it was easy to see that this article was a shot across the bow of RADM Pandolfe when I read it. At SNA I expected RADM Pandolfe to return volley and crush the arguments. Instead, he flipped the turbines to full and hauled ass out of the danger zone when confronted with the enemy, but just like missiles - the LCS can't outrun it's critics.

So the Monday homework assignment is simple. Watch the video of RADM Pandolfe from SNA, and read the article at Proceedings. The links are provided above. This week I will do what RADM Pandolfe should have done, and take on the criticism of the Littoral Combat Ship laid out by John Patch directly. People don't have to agree with the answers, but the main issue here is that tough questions have been asked and have been allowed to linger... ignored.

Final comment. RADM Pandolfe, you should be writing an article on the Littoral Combat Ship for Proceedings right now, and you should be asking, encouraging JOs on USS Freedom (LCS 1) and USS Independence (LCS 2) to do the same. I've met many of these JOs, they are quite capable. There is so much good in this program that articles on any number of topics should write themselves. This is a good news manpower, training, technology, operational concept, naval warfare evolution, budget, shipbulding, etc... story that can and should be told.