صفقة الموسم البحريه !
يا شباب كما تعلمون انه بعد اسبوعين ستقرر البحريه الامريكيه شراء 10 فرقطات اما lcs1 او lcs2 وبقيمة 5 مليار دولار يعني الوحده ترسي مع التسليح والتدريب 500 مليون طبعا المنافسه شديده للغايه وكل شركه وضعت عطائها الاسبوع الماضي
التقوا مع بعض المحللين واغلبهم يقول ان النموذج الاول سيفوز لانه يشبه الفرقاطات العاديه بينما النموذج الثاني غريب !
مع ان المواصفات والوسع في النموذج الثاني افضل طبعا سعر النموذج الثاني اغلى شوي في اول سفينه لكن طبعا مع انتاج نماذج كثيره ستقل التكلفه على العموم البحريه الامريكيه ستاخذها بسعر ثابت اي من النموذجين يعني 500 مليون شامل كل شئ
النموذج الاول مصنع من الستيل الفولاذ بينما النموج الثاني مصنع من الالمنيوم لذلك اهو اخف واستهلاك الوقود احسن
السرعه نفس الشئ انتم وش رايكم يا شباب هل توافقون على النموذج التقليدي ام تاخذون نموذج جديد غريب
المواصفات كامله هنا
MOBILE, Ala. -- It's the future of the U.S. Navy, and in the next month or so Mobile will know if the city has a part in making it a reality.
The Navy wants to build 55 littoral combat ships, or LCS, over the next decade or so. That would make the high-speed, low-draft warships about one-sixth of the entire fleet.
Before the end of the summer, the Navy plans to award the first major contract of the LCS program -- a 10-ship deal worth $5 billion -- to either Mobile's Austal USA shipyard or a Lockheed Martin-led group that would build the vessels in Marinette, Wis.
View full size
For Austal, which has built one LCS and is working on another, winning the contract would mean more than doubling employment from about 1,500 people now to 3,500.
The Press-Register interviewed three Washington D.C.-based naval analysts about the contract. All three said that the Navy has been keeping its cards close to its chest during the decision-making process, but two said they believe Lockheed has the edge because the Navy will be more comfortable with a more conventional ship design.
"The Navy is looking for something affordable," said Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute. "It's going to be easier to convince the service that the Marinette ship is going to be cheaper in serial production."
OTHER ANALYSTS
Jan van Tol, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a former Navy captain, also said that he believes Lockheed has the edge. One of the main reasons is that Lockheed's first LCS, the USS Freedom, has been in the water for nearly a year longer than Austal's USS Independence, which was commissioned in January.
"One thing the Navy has to think about is lowering the level of uncertainty," van Tol said. "LCS-1 has more time out in the water. The Navy has more experience with how reliable it is in routine operations."
Jay Korman, a naval analyst with the Avascent Group, said that he believes the two shipyards are neck-and-neck right now.
"The folks I talk to had a sense earlier on that Austal's chances were slimmer, that Lockheed was leading," he said. "Now when I talk to people, I get a mix. I'm at a loss. I wouldn't put my money on an outcome at this point."
SHIP DIFFERENCE
Both sides have one vessel in operation and another under construction.
Both ships can travel up to 45 knots, or about 52 mph, and are propelled by water jets, like jet skis.
Both are heavily automated and can be manned by crews of about 40, as opposed to about 200 for other combat ships.
Both are designed with large, open mission bays that can be outfitted with different modules for different tasks, such as anti-submarine warfare, mine removal or surface warfare. Unlike the Navy's larger multimission warships, the LCS is designed for one mission at a time.
Despite the similarities, the differences between the two ships are stark.
The Lockheed ship is a steel monohull that looks similar to a frigate. The Austal ship is an aluminum trimaran that has been described as resembling a Klingon space ship.
A trimaran is a ship with a central hull and two fins on each side. Because of that, the Austal ship is nearly twice as wide -- about 104 feet -- as the Lockheed design. Because of that, its flight deck is also larger, 7,300-square-feet to 5,200-square-feet for Lockheed's ship.
The Austal ship is so wide that it couldn't even fit through the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes system and the Marinette shipyard.
The Austal ship is also lighter, and company officials believe it uses much less fuel than the Lockheed version, although federal officials have said the Austal-built LCS-2, Independence, hasn't been in operation long enough to corroborate those claims.
Another difference is cost. According to Reuters, Lockheed's first ship cost $637 million, compared to $704 million for Austal's.
TROUBLED HISTORY
Both designs were supposed to cost about $220 million per vessel when the program first landed on the Navy's budget in 2006.
A number of reasons have been suggested for the increased costs, Ron O'Rourke of the Congressional Research Service wrote in a June memo:
The vessels were still being designed when construction began, so any changes the Navy made -- such as making the ships more able to survive enemy fire -- necessitated costly production changes.
The original estimates were unrealistically low, which might have been a Navy ploy to win the program's approval.
The Navy emphasized meeting construction schedules over saving money.
The cost of materials increased during construction.
The cost increases led the Navy to change its procurement strategy last year. At the outset, it planned to have both shipyards competing every year to build their design of the LCS.
But in September, it announced it would pick a single design and give that shipyard a 10-ship contract. In 2012 the Navy would give a different shipyard a five-vessel contract to build the same design.
That announcement led to a major change on Austal's part. For the first two LCS, Austal was the builder but defense giant General Dynamics Corp. was the main contractor. In January, the two companies announced that they would part ways and let Austal bid alone on the 10-ship contract. General Dynamics has indicated that it will be a bidder in 2012.
In his report, O'Rourke wrote that Congress could still overturn the Navy's new strategy and keep both shipyards in the game, but the analysts don't believe it will happen.
"Congress throwing the procurement strategy in disarray would make the whole program vulnerable," Korman said. "I don't think Congress wants that on their shoulders."
WAITING GAME
The two companies submitted their final bids to the Navy last week and are now awaiting a decision.
Cmdr. Victor Chen, a Navy spokesman, said the service plans to choose a winner in the summer, but could not specify a more exact timeframe.
"This is one of the biggest competitive shipbuilding competitions we have going right now," he said. "There's a keen interest in it."
Joe Rella, chief executive officer of Austal USA, said he doesn't have any idea how the process will play out.
"We made a fantastic proposal and gave the Navy a hard decision to make," he said.
All the analysts believe that the shipyard that loses the competition will protest.
"In one room they'll have champagne on ice, in another their lawyers on speed dial," Korman said.
The Navy is cognizant of that, and will be very careful in following its rules to make sure no protest is successful, van Tol said.
Regardless of how the competition turns out, Korman said, Austal already has what could be a $1.6 billion contract to build 10 high-speed military transports for the Navy and U.S. Army.
"The yard is in a good position anyway," he said. "You put the LCS in there, and it's a game changer."
المصدر
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/austal_waiting_on_game-changer.html