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German Navy Experiences 'LCS Syndrome' In Spades As New Frigate Fails Sea Trials (arstechnica.com)

schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica, highlighting the problems the Germany Navy is facing right now. It has no working submarines due to a chronic repair parts shortage, and its newest ships face problems so severe that the first of the class failed its sea trials and was returned to the shipbuilders in December. From the report: The Baden-Wurttemberg class frigates were ordered to replace the 1980s-era Bremen class ships, all but two of which have been retired already. At 149 meters (488 feet) long with a displacement of 7,200 metric tons (about 7,900 U.S. tons), the Baden-Wurttembergs are about the size of destroyers and are intended to reduce the size of the crew required to operate them. Like the Zumwalt, the frigates are intended to have improved land attack capabilities -- a mission capability largely missing from the Deutsche Marine's other post-unification ships. The new frigate was supposed to be a master of all trades -- carrying Marines to deploy to fight ashore, providing gunfire support, hunting enemy ships and submarines, and capable of being deployed on far-flung missions for up to two years away from a home port. As with the U.S. Navy's LCS ships, the German Navy planned to alternate crews -- sending a fresh crew to meet the ship on deployment to relieve the standing crew.

Instead, the Baden-Wurttemberg now bears the undesirable distinction of being the first ship the German Navy has ever refused to accept after delivery. In fact, the future of the whole class of German frigates is now in doubt because of the huge number of problems experienced with the first ship during sea trials. So the Baden-Wurttemberg won't be shooting its guns at anything for the foreseeable future (and neither will the Zumwalt for the moment, since the U.S. Navy cancelled orders for their $800,000-per-shot projectiles). System integration issues are a major chunk of the Baden-Wurrenberg's problems. About 90 percent of the ship's systems are so new that they've never been deployed on a warship in fact -- they've never been tested together as part of what the U.S. Navy would call "a system of systems." And all of that new hardware and software have not played well together -- particularly with the ship's command and control computer system, the Atlas Naval Combat System (ANCS).
schwit1 adds: "Perhaps most inexcusable, the ship doesn't even float right. It has a permanent list to starboard."

7 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    what they need is AI to fix all the issues, or maybe some sort of apps. if all else fails try hostfiles.

  2. Das Boot by jfdavis668 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ist nicht so gut.

    1. Re:Das Boot by IronDragon · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's as intelligible to someone who doesn't speak German as "LCS Syndrome" is to an English speaker who expects the summary to support the headline.

      It's not German. You can tell by the joke hidden inside it.

  3. Perhaps They Meant Port? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps most inexcusable, the ship doesn't even float right. It has a permanent list to starboard.

    Seems to me it's floating right.

  4. Master of all Trades? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Funny

    The new frigate was supposed to be a master of all trades -- carrying Marines to deploy to fight ashore, providing gunfire support, hunting enemy ships and submarines, and capable of being deployed on far-flung missions for up to two years away from a home port...

    ...ahd invading France.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:Master of all Trades? by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Funny

      Re "carrying Marines to deploy to fight ashore"
      Some German ships planning a little excursion to Poland, doing a Polish "Battle of Inchon" with their Marines to keep Poland in the EU?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  5. It is proud German engineering. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Funny
    The ship builder is owned by the same conglomerate that owns Volkswagen. They share the vehicle control software development team.

    They German Navy testers forgot to turn on the "generate fake data" mode during the acceptance testing. Soon it will be corrected and all the data will match the expected data so very perfectly. Just watch.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact