By Dave Ahearn
DAHLGREN, Va.–Congress is gaining enough confidence that Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) costs are stabilizing that lawmakers are ready to green-light further multiple LCS purchases, Rep. Robert Wittman (R-Va.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee, said Friday.
Containing those costs is key to success of the LCS program, but Congress and the Navy have to move it forward because there is no alternative to the LCS, no fall-back program, he added in an interview with Defense Daily. He spoke after a live-fire demonstration at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren of a modular LCS gun unit that can be added to the ship.
Precisely where the LCS per-ship price is set is still a matter of contention between the HASC and the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said.
After construction of the first two LCSs, the Navy called a halt to the program when it became clear that the price of each ship wouldn’t come in anywhere near a $220 million target for the basic ship, but instead could be well over $400 million for the basic ship, not counting interchangeable mission modules that confer outsized capabilities on the vessel. The Navy now is aiming for $460 million per hull. Wittman indicated that is a level that Congress could accept in moving ahead with plans to procure a total fleet of 55 LCSs.
The key point here is that Congress and the Navy don’t have much choice in the matter, he indicated: the sea service must have a ship like the LCS that can perform missions near shore, and those missions can’t be performed by the current DDG-51 destroyers or the future DDG-1000 destroyers or by the future CG(X) cruisers. There is no fallback weapons platform that could be an alternative to the LCS, he said.
“That platform meets a specific role,” he said. “The CG(X) is not going to do it. The DDG is not going to do it. We need that particular role” to be performed. The LCS “is a needed platform.”
Still, he stressed that costs must be contained, by doing “all that we can on the efficiency side.”
The two rival LCSs produced thus far are vastly different vessels. One, made for Lockheed Martin [LMT] by Marinette Marine in Wisconsin, is a steel, single “semi-planing monohull” ship. The other, made for General Dynamics [GD] by Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., is a trimaran (three separate aluminum hulls).
One factor that will influence future costs will be whether the Navy chooses just one of the competing ship designs, or whether it decides to split the remaining buy of more than 50 ships between General Dynamics and Lockheed.
“That’s going to have a lot to do with what future costs are,” Wittman said. “The issue is now how can we …make that the most efficient package available. And I think we’re pretty close to that.”
Wittman said he wants to examine how each of the competing vessels performs during impending sea trials.
“I think both contractors are pretty specific with what the costs are,” and Pentagon leaders are becoming “comfortable” with those estimates, he said.
Now what is needed, Wittman said, is “some refinement in costing these projects to where we can start to project and start to fund multiple ships in the future years [based on] a known cost going forward.”
Some critics of the LCS have said it has so few crew members they might have difficulty in a major emergency, such as in saving the ship after it takes a hit from enemy fire. They point to the heavy damage that the USS Cole (DDG-67) incurred in a terrorist bombing in Yemen, when a crew of more than 300 struggled to save the ship. Each LCS would have a core crew of perhaps 40 or so sailors.
During a media briefing, Vice Adm. Paul Sullivan, commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command, when asked about that, countered that there are many ways to offset the small LCS crew.
For example, he said, systems are designed for simplicity, to reduce the personnel required to operate them.
Also, the core crew is augmented by other sailors operating interchangeable mission module packages. Perhaps 35 personnel operate the modules on a given mission, for a total crew complement of about 75 for the entire LCS.
As well, Capt. Michael Good, program manager for LCS mission modules, said the LCS is developed with advanced human-systems integration, making systems easier to operate.
Electronic displays are easier to comprehend, he said, and sailors themselves are far more comfortable operating electronic systems and manipulating them than sailors of earlier eras, Good said.
Many systems, Sullivan said, are designed for unattended operation, so they can take care of themselves.
The LCS gun system and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) systems are developed and working well, briefers said.
In a demonstration at this military base, an LCS gun system fired individual rounds, then five rapid shots (twice), and then 20 rounds in a burst, as dignitaries and media watched directly or on closed-circuit TV. While the LCS “truck,” or basic ship, has seen cost overruns, the gun system is on schedule and on budget.
That gun would be one means of the LCS performing one of its prime missions, taking out small “swarm boats” piloted by terrorists attempting to attack and destroy large U.S. Navy ships. Other major LCS missions (with different mission modules installed) would include hunting enemy submarines in shallow near-shore waters, and hunting enemy mines.
The gun module consists of two large sections including electronics that will be lowered by crane below the LCS deck, while the LCS is pierside, with only the turret and gun above deck after installation.
Swapping one mission module for another would take 48 hours, with a goal of cutting that in half to 24 hours, a briefer said.
Separately, the Lockheed Martin version of the LCS, Freedom (LCS-1), completed testing in preparation for dock trials. The ship is now ready to begin dock trials–the final stage of testing before underway trials.
“Freedom is now exercising her propulsion train to the full extent possible in port, running the gas turbines and diesel engines; spinning shafts and pumping water through the steerable water jets,” said Dan Schultz, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Maritime Security & Ship Systems. “We are looking forward to beginning underway trials in the [Great Lakes] and demonstrating the capabilities this unique ship will bring.”