Spin The LCS

You know what “spin” is, right?  In case you’re not familiar with the word, it means to present a piece of information in the best possible light.  In today’s usage, it generally connotes a distortion of the facts that borders on lying. 

Here’s a simple, classic example from the Cold War era.  A Soviet and a US runner race and the US runner wins.  The Soviets report that the Soviet runner came in second while the US runner placed next to last.  That’s spin!  It’s technically true but so distorts the truth as to border on lying.

Bear in mind the definition of spin as you consider this article posted by Defense News website about the Coronado conducting periodic maintenance in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. (1) 

Let’s look at the Navy’s proud claim about the LCS.

LCS Coronado conducted a required maintenance period while forward deployed and in Cam Rahn Bay.  As the Navy proudly states,

“…a demonstration of its ability to conduct maintenance while deployed.”

What the Navy didn’t say was that dozens of Burkes, and gators, and carriers simultaneously demonstrated their ability to not need a scheduled maintenance period in the middle of a forward deployment.  So, a ship that requires many times more scheduled maintenance stops than any other ship in the fleet can either be seen as a maintenance headache and having significantly reduced availability during deployments or it can be spun as a major accomplishment.

The Navy also didn’t mention the enormous amount of money it must have cost to fly Navy technicians, contractors, tools, parts, etc. to Cam Rahn Bay to conduct maintenance that no other ship in the fleet requires.

The Navy also didn’t mention that the LCS maintenance model only works during peacetime.  During war, the LCS isn’t going to be able to pull into Cam Rahn Bay or any other forward base for maintenance.  Even if the ship could, the maintainers, tools, and parts certainly couldn’t.

So, there was a lot of useful and relevant information the Navy could have presented about this maintenance PR stunt which demonstrated one of the many weaknesses inherent in the LCS design and maintenance model but they chose to spin it as an accomplishment, instead.

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(1)Defense News website, “US Navy Littoral Combat Ship Shows Off Maintenance Capabilities Overseas”, Mike Yeo, 15-Jun-2017,

http://www.defensenews.com/articles/us-navy-littoral-combat-ship-shows-off-maintenance-capabilities-overseas

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