BONUS EPISODE: The Dumb Story of the Littoral Combat Ship

As of March 2026, the Navy is saying these will be used to de-mine the Strait of Hormuz. Can’t wait.

Listening to this episode in March 2025, and I'm thinking... DOGE. Trouble is Munchkin would LOVE this because of the "automation" and "modularity." I wonder what the original ship that inspired this shitshow is doing?

Second time 'round on this one, I think. Clearly the solution to the speed problem is to make it nuclear-powered. This will have zero negative consequences.

You could do the LCS today and make it work. How? We drop the tonnage by ~150 long tons, replace the modular weapons system with a "chemical-based reusable tube-launched unguided projectile with modular, multi-mission-capable ammunition." Increase the crew complelent to 395, since if it's gonna be a jobs program, we might as well have it go all the way down, and build 175 of the things. I call it, the "Fletcher Class" and it will solve all warfare in the future. And we can put ChatGPT into it by making the officer corps extremely fuckin racist.

Balkan Gundam would be 100 babushkas merged together armed with a giant curling iron, and shooting hypersonic slippers. They make the best cevapi and baklava though.

I was a pipe welder on the Freedom class at Marinette Marine. The engineers would submit redlines for us a year after the installation on some systems. Like black out piping and steering hydraulic lines. So we'd have to come back and cut out the piping and reinstall it 🤣 This was on the Milwaukee, Detroit, Little Rock and Sioux City.

I’m not sure if you’ll see this Joe but an episode on the f35 would be HOT fire

I worked on an oiler and refueled these things at sea a few years back. 3 separate times, 3 separate ships, and they broke down each time in the middle of the evolution. Very, very bad. I also served with a senior officer, who recently passed away on one of these ships, that told me specifically how hopeless the whole LCS program was. Such a disaster.

I went on a museum tour in Derry. Turns out the siege museum is ran by an orange lodge.

It's been a while since I've listened to the bonus episodes, but if I knew you guys did an episode on these things I would have upgraded my patreon tier sooner. I luckily worked on real amphibs like the LSDs, but now as a a contractor I assist on these POSs for network systems. It's not that there 2 different models but nothing on these in they're own class has a systems baseline. I currently help the Fort Worth and they have shit that doesn't appear on any other boat, and sometimes has been abandoned by the manufacturer themselves. We spend most of our attempting to reverse engineer this crap to even get them functional. Last note, FW was just about to put out of its misery and get DECOMed but got rejected.

Is there any data available on how much the development of the LCS was hindered due to constant giggling during design and engineering meetings whenever someone called it the clitoral combat ship?

I love episodes about failed ridiculous war tech, and I know not everything should be a series, but it'd be great to have more of them specifically with Francis and Shocks.

oh god I just looked up the LCS and its god-ugly.

So in the Royal Navy's experience, smaller ships are just *worse*- more vulnerable, less seaworthy, carry less weapons and carey less electronics.

Love the Navy’s reverse Perry; “Please give up the ship”

I broke open the electronic lock on my apartment building so many times in protest in Guangzhou. Every time the power went out we were trapped in the apartment building with the first floor windows locked, so I would kick open the door, break the lock, and tell them not to install that kind of lock again. Then they would install it again, and I would break it open again. Happened about four times, I think, then I moved.

I commissioned an Arleigh Burke in the 90's. Pre-comm duty was a good time ..until we moved aboard. Than shit started to suck. Fast forward to 2017 LCS 10 Gabrielle Giffords was commissioned in Galveston Island. I thought, "hey, I'm going to check this out". Commissioning ceremonies, at least mine in NY, was a pretty alright time. One expects a sailor to typically have a salty resting bitch face fixed to their heads all the time, especially in a precom duty post move-aboard, but these guys progressed it to "go fuck your mother" face. I met a chief petty officer standing pier watch, which funny as shit an e7 had to do that, and boy was that man a salty little monkey. Now I know why. I laughed my ass off through most of this podcast. Why? Because fuck 'em that's why. I have my DD-214.

joe’s current intro blurb sounds incredibly millennial-coded

Francis + Shocks + Joe == S Tier Entertainment

honestly kinda surprised no one made a joke that the lcs was a stealth class cause men can't find it

the LCS has been purchased by Epic Games

Zoo crew is the best

God, I'm so happy you did this one.

Austral is Australia

I fucking love the Zoo Crew!

In reference to tanks being in parks I remember seeing a clip of someone flying a 65mm Quadcopter into a tank barrel accidentally

It's like somebody designed a ship with the explicit goal of being a money sink. I'm impressed.

So what I'm hearing is the littoral combat ship was the Navy version of what all the Tech Bro idiots are trying to do with AI

I saw LCS 25 out on sea trials a lot since I live in the area of Marinette where they made them. Don't see a ton of large naval ships in the bay of Green Bay, I'll tell you that much. I work with a guy who was a Chief in the Navy a good number of years ago who works for the company who makes these ships and he described them thusly: Pieces of shit.

I'm taking welding classes right now so hopefully the scrap metal will end up at local community colleges at least.

One of the lcs’s ran into an issue because its hull was allergic to salt water

Littorally destroying their own crews.

The ddg-1000 was axed because they designed the ships to have the Vls on the edge of the ship (pvls) when missile defense became all the rage they realized they’d have to redesign the thing

New idea: US Navy ekranoplans.

Do the Navy’s A-12 aircraft next. Spent $1billion dollars and all the Navy got for that was a wooden mock-up.

Being told we can’t have healthcare or well funded teachers while spending 200 billion dollars on a boat that the navy literally doesn’t want is just the government flexing on us.

Re: combining gear, it's even stupider than you describe. Because these fucking things are designed to be so damn fast, they need to run two sets of engines to reach max speed, 1 set is diesel engines, 1 set of Gas Turbines. However these two different types of engines need to drive the same propellers so you need a complex gear mechanism to transfer power... which keeps breaking all the time.

There's a fucked up boat. There's Shocks and Francis. All I need is popcorn. Shocks's thought process: boats and law and boats and law and boats and law (to the beat of "boots and cats") add an occasional siren and "woo!" And you've got a dance hit at Ibiza.

Whose gonna say it?

This is actually much sooner than I expected you to cover this topic, I thought I was gonna have to wait till 2044.