A Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a type of relatively small surface vessel intended for operations in the littoral zone (close to shore). It is "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals."[1] Two ship classes are the first examples of the LCS in the U.S. Navy: the Freedom-class and the Independence-class. LCS designs are slightly smaller than the US Navy's guided missile frigates, and have been likened to corvettes of other navies. However, the LCS designs add the capabilities of a small assault transport with a flight deck and hangar large enough to base two SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, the capability to recover and launch small boats from a stern ramp, and enough cargo volume and payload to deliver a small assault force with armoured fighting vehicles to a roll-on/roll-off port facility. The standard armament for the LCS is Mk 110 57 mm guns. It will also be able to launch autonomous air, surface, and underwater vehicles.[2] Although the LCS designs offer less air defense and surface-to-surface capabilities than comparable destroyers, the LCS concept emphasizes speed, flexible mission module space and a shallow draft.
The first Littoral Combat Ship, the USS Freedom (LCS-1), was commissioned on November 8, 2008 in Veteran's Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[3] The second ship and first of the trimaran design, the USS Independence (LCS-2), was commissioned on January 16, 2010, in Mobile, Alabama.[4]
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The concept behind the littoral combat ship, as described by former Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England, is to "create a small, fast, maneuverable and relatively inexpensive member of the DD(X) family of ships." The ship is easy to reconfigure for different roles, including anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, anti-surface warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, homeland defense, maritime intercept, special operations, and logistics. Due to its modular design, the LCS will be able to replace slower, more specialized ships such as minesweepers and larger assault ships.[5]
Most of the functions of the mission modules will be performed by carried vehicles such as the helicopters or unmanned vehicles such as the Spartan Scout, AN/WLD-1 RMS Remote Minehunting System and MQ-8B Fire Scout. By performing functions such as sonar sweeps for mines or submarines or torpedo launches against hostile submarines at some distance from the ship's hull, the crew is placed at less risk. This is part of the Navy's goal to "unman the front lines."[6]
Thales has sold one Captas 4 antisubmarine sonar to the US Navy to be towed behind the LCS itself, with a potential order of 25 units.[7]
Also by placing sensors on remote vehicles the LCS will be able to exploit concepts such as bistatic sonar without actually being in two places at the same time.[8]
A report by the Pentagon's director of Operational Test and Evaluation found that neither design was expected to "be survivable in a hostile combat environment" and that neither ship could withstand the Navy's full ship shock trials.[9]
The combat abilities of the LCS were said to be "very modest" even before the cancellation of the XM501 Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System.[10]
Under Secretary of the Navy Robert O. Work has said that Marines will deploy from the Littoral combat ship.[11]
The Independence-class is said to have better helicopter facilities and more internal space while the Freedom-class is said to be better able to launch and recover boats in high seas. Adm. Gary Roughead has said that a mix of both types would be "operationally advantageous".[12]
Some of the LCS will be forward based in Singapore.[13]
The LCS is reconfigured for various roles by changing mission modules. These include weapon systems, sensors, carried craft and mission crews. Projected modules include ASW, Mine hunter, Surface warfare, and Special warfare missions.[14]
The Surface Warfare Mission Module includes two 30mm Gun Mission Modules (GMM) manufactured by Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc.[15]
In January 2011, the US Navy recommended that Raytheon's Griffin missile system be selected as the replacement for the NLOS-LS missile.[14][16] This would lower the missile range of the LCS from 25 miles to 3.5 miles. The packages are to be deployed in sets of three, with 15 per set for a total of 45 missiles. Initial deployment is for 2015, with a longer ranged version to enter service around 2017.[17] The longer range missile will be chosen in a competition for a "beyond the horizon" system.[18]
The anti-submarine module will have its focus changed from stationary systems to en-stride systems (while the ship is moving) that are useful in the open ocean as well as in coastal areas.[14]
The MCM Module also continues to have ongoing issues with Rear Adm. Frank Pandolfe, reporting dissatisfaction with the performance and looking to replace it with a modified Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS).[14]
The United States Navy launched its first littoral combat ship, Sea Fighter, in 2003. Sea Fighter used a SWATH type hull and was designated as Fast Sea Frame or FSF-1.[19] The ship was put into service in 2005 and serves as an experimental test bed ship using mission modules.[20] Given that the FFG-7, Osprey, and the Avenger class mine countermeasures ship, are all reaching end of life, the U.S. Navy released a requirement for the LCS class ships. In 2004, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Raytheon submitted designs to the Navy of their proposed littoral combat ships. It was decided to produce two vessels each (Flight 0) of the Lockheed Martin design (LCS-1 and LCS-3) and of the General Dynamics design (LCS-2 and LCS-4). After these are brought into service, and experience has been gathered on the usability and efficiency of the designs, the future design for the class will be chosen (Flight I). This may be a decision to use one or the other design in whole, or a combined form made by selecting features from each, or a mixed fleet of both designs. The Navy currently plans to build 55 of these ships.
On 9 May 2005, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England announced that the first LCS would be named USS Freedom (LCS-1). Her keel was laid down on 2 June 2005 at Marinette Marine, Marinette, Wisconsin.[21] The contract to build the ship was managed by Lockheed's Maritime Systems and Sensors (MS2) division, directed by Fred Moosally.[14] On 23 September 2006, LCS-1 was christened and launched at the Marinette Marine shipyard.[22] On 19 January 2006, the keel for the General Dynamics trimaran, USS Independence (LCS-2), was laid at the Austal USA shipyards in Mobile, Alabama. LCS-2 was launched 30 April 2008.
The US Navy canceled contracts to build LCS-3 of Lockheed Martin and LCS-4 of General Dynamics and Austal USA in April and November 2007, respectively, citing failure to control cost overruns of both designs.[23] Subsequently, the Navy announced new bidding process for the next three ships, with winner building two ships and the loser building one.[24] In the September 26, 2008 US Presidential debate, Senator John McCain used the LCS procuring process as an example of botched contracting procedures that drove up the costs unnecessarily.[25]
In March 2009, Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter announced that LCS-3 would be named the USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) after Fort Worth, Texas[26] and the fourth ship would be named the USS Coronado (LCS-4) after Coronado, California,[27][28] signalling the restart of LCS program. The LCS-3 Fort Worth contract was renewed in March 2009,[29] and the LCS-4 Coronado was renewed in April 2009.[30] The Navy also announced its revised LCS procurement plan in April 2009 that a total of three ships would be awarded in FY 2010 budget. Senior Navy officials also hinted that the Navy may not down-select to one design for further orders, pointed out complementary features of the two designs.[31]
The Navy pressed forward with its Littoral Combat Ship acquisition process, despite calls from former Navy Secretary John Lehman to adapt a fixed-price contracts.[32] Pressure also mounted in the Congress for the Navy to control the cost of LCS: in June 2009, during a hearing of the House Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee, Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss, said that other contractors would jump at the chance to build LCS as the subcommittee added language that would require the Navy to open bidding on the project if either lead contractor walked away from the $460 million fixed price contracts that would be offered.[33] In response, the Naval Sea Systems Command conducted a study on whether a reduction of the top speed requirement from 40 knots to 30 could help keep the ships under the price cap.[34]
The Congress also asked the Navy to study improvement programs on existing ships in place of the LCS program. But in June 2009 Vice Adm. Barry McCullough testified in a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting that the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates and minesweepers were too worn out to continue in service to cover the gap if the LCS development process suffered further delays.[35] Retired Navy Adm. James Lyons called for a $220 million common design with the USCG National Security Cutter program to save costs and meet "limited warfare requirements.[36] "
In support of the LCS program, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, the contractor of UAV that would be carried on Littoral Combat Ships, released a study that showed seven LCS can more efficiently perform anti-piracy patrols in the Western Indian Ocean than a fleet of 20 conventional ships for a quarter of the cost.[37]
To help reduce cost of each ships, Navy Acquisition Chief Sean Stackley and Vice Admiral Barry McCullough in September 2009 indicate that only one of the contractors would be offered a fixed price contract in 2010 for up to ten ships,[38] followed by an offer to build five additional ships of the same design as the first contract to the secondary builder.[39] The Congress agreed with the Navy on this plan.[40]
FY2010 budget documents revealed that the total costs of the two lead ships had risen to $637 million for Freedom and $704 million for Independence.[41]
On 16 January 2010, the Independence was commissioned in Mobile, Alabama.[4]
On 4 March 2010, Austal USA split from Bath Iron Works and announced that it would bid on future LCS contacts by itself, so that Austal could for example win the 2010 contract and Bath could win the follow on contract in 2012.[42]
On 23 August 2010, The US Navy announced a delay in awarding the contract for 10 ships until sometime near the end of the year.[43] A meeting of the Defense Acquisition Board scheduled for 29 October 2010 has been delayed and The Navy has indicated that no decision on the contract can be made until this meeting is held.[14]
The GAO found that deploying the first two ships will delay the overall program because these two ships were not available for testing and development so changes may have to be made in the second pair of ships during their construction instead of being planned for before construction started.[44] The US Navy responded that "Early deployment brought LCS operational issues to the forefront much sooner than under the original schedule, some of which would not have been learnt until two years on."[45]
Instead of declaring a winner out of the two competing designs, the US Navy in November 2010 asked the Congress to allow for the order of ten of each designs.[46][47][48] US Senator Carl Levin said that the change was made because both bids were under the Congressional price cap.[49] Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said that unlike the possibility of splitting orders for projects like KC-X or the General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136, the Pentagon had already paid the development cost for both designs so there were no further development costs required to build both designs and have them compete for future orders.[50] However every Republican in the United States House of Representatives voted against this plan.[51] Senator John McCain also moved to block it in the Senate.[52]
The Government Accountability Office identified some problems with the designs other than shipbuilding. These included, in GAO's views, extremely long crew training time, unrealistic maintenance plans, and the lack of comprehensive risk assessment.[53]
On 13 December 2010, both production teams extended their contract offers until December 30 in order to give more time for the Navy to push through Republican obstruction. The Navy would be forced to award the contract to only one team if it failed to secure Congressional approval. The Navy budgeted $490 Million for each ship while the Congressional Budget Office projected a cost of $591 million for each ship.[54][55] Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley testified to a Senate panel that the actual price range was $440 to $460 million.[56]
One day before the contract offers were set to expire, both Lockheed Martin and Austal USA received contracts from the Navy to build additional ten ships of their designs. Two ships of each design would be built on every year between 2011 and 2015. LCS-5 of the Lockheed Martin design had the contractual price of $437 Million. Austal USA's contractual price for LCS-6 was $432 Million. Department of Navy Undersecretary Sean Stackley noted in a conversation with reporters on 29 December 2010, that the LCS program was now well within the Congressional cost cap of $480 million per ship. The average per-ship target price for Lockheed ships is $362 million, Stackley said, with a goal of $352 million for each Austal USA ships. Government-furnished equipment (GFE), such as weapons, add about $25 million to each ship. Another $20 million is figured in for change orders, and a "management reserve" is also included. All told, Stackley said, the average cost to buy an LCS should be between $430 million and $440 million.[57]
In the fiscal year 2011, the unit cost $1.8 billion and the program cost $3.7 billion[58]
Saudi Arabia and Israel have both expressed an interest in a modified version of the Freedom Class vessel, the LCS-I,[59] but Defense News has reported that Israel has dropped out of this project in favor of a new frigate design to be built in Israel.[60] However Israel has been unable to talk Germany into subsidizing any more naval vessels so may be forced to return to more reliable American funding.[61]
The Republic of China Navy has also shown interest in procuring US littoral combat ships, to replace aging Knox class frigates.[62] The Royal Malaysian Navy intends to purchase much smaller ships that they call littoral combat ships.[63]
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