Timing strange: Time to put a cork in Savastopol???

No doubt neither the Turks nor the Yank are to pleased with the Russian naval invasion i Georgia.

From the main article:
"The two ships were recently retired from U.S. service, and will be refurbished at American expense."

I'm curious what the US is getting out of the deal.

 

Seems that,

with so much concern over our own (US) ship programs costing so much,

why are we going to pony up the money to upgrade ships we're basically just giving away to someone else anyway?

Seems a little odd we'd spend umpteen million dollars to do so,

yet still fuss about the LCS being behind schedule and over budget.

 

(I'm also curious of where the original author got the idea that

a new-build Perry would only cost $125M to build today: it wouldn't be coming off the slipway

with 1970s/1980s tech at its core.

It would be fitted pretty much with the latest kit that would fit any other comparably-sized hulls,

which right there would drive the price well beyond $125M,

although surely no where near the $500M plus that the next few Flights of LCS will cost per hull.

And even the whole economies-of-scale notion that a 50-sdome ship production run of LCS hulls will bring the per-ship colsts down, I'd still put m oney on it that we'll never see these LCS built at less than $400M, a still considerable leap over the originally-estimated price of ~$240-270M per hull...)

 

I'm curious as to what standards (machinery, electronics & sensors, armament) the two Perrys will be refurbished to,

and I'd be curious also, comparing hull sizes,

why then couldn't Perrys still serviceable within the USN receive, minimally, the same refurb standard, 

if not the complete armament and sensor suites of the basic LCS...?

 

Sounds like nothing more than justification to cut more LCS steel: two less Perry ships means two more we have to make up for somehow at some point.

And yes, I understand the LCS has the speed advantage, but at what speeds to what range?

How does an LCS's economical cruise speed compare to a Perry at its best cruise speed (not an all-out 40+ knot sprint),

meaning for the same speed, who can carry more weapons and sensors farther?

 

(And after all this time, I'm still thinking the USN would've been better off license-producing F100s, or even some other MEKO 200-type design...)