By Geoff Fein
The Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) came through its first round of acceptance trials, receiving fewer trial cards than many first of class surface combatants get during their Navy Board of Inspection (InSurv) test.
Pre Commission Unit (PCU) Freedom (LCS-1), built by a Lockheed Martin [LMT]-led team, wrapped up her four-day InSurv on Lake Michigan Aug. 21, Allison Stiller, deputy assistant Secretary of the Navy (DASN) Ships, told reporters yesterday during a Pentagon briefing.
InSurv found Freedom to be capable, well built, and an inspection ready ship, she added. “[InSurv] recommend the CNO (Chief of Naval Operations) authorize delivery of the ship following correction or waiver of sighted material deficiencies.”
“The ship was presented to the Board with high levels of completion in production and test,” Stiller said. “These levels of completion coupled with good quality installations and excellent craftsmanship resulted in relatively low numbers of material deficiencies as compared to other first of class complex surface combatants.”
All told there were 21 starred cards and over 2,604 trial cards, Dub Summerall, executive director, program executive office (PEO) ships, said.
“If you look at first ships of class, DDG-51 had over 200 starred cards and over 13,000 [trial] cards, so we are talking about a tenth,” he added.
According to the Navy, CG-47 had 200 starred cards and 9,000 trial cards. LPD-17 had 114 starred cards and 18,919 trial cards.
“Those are bigger complex ships, but even adjusting for scale…[it was a] very good trial,” Summerall said.
Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, commander Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), said there were no surprises.
“Looking through the items, on the technical side, we were not surprised by the items. Most had come up during the design or production phase,” he noted.
A decision was made early on not to impact the build sequence and let the shipbuilder keep going, McCoy said.
“Either we would have a technical fix, we would roll in follow-on ships, live with it, or do a modification during post-delivery process,” he said. “We didn’t get any real ‘gotchas’ out of the report. We are pleased we got a good ship.”
None of the deficiencies are expected to impact the delivery or sail away of the ship, Stiller said.
“Some ship systems including combat systems could not be demonstrated. They will be presented to InSurv in early ’09 during a planned follow-on trial in the open ocean,” she said.
Besides the combat systems, another system that will need to go through a separate InSurv inspection is the identification friend or foe (IFF). That system was unable to be tested due to spectrum issues with the FAA, Summerall said.
“We couldn’t do things like test the reverse osmosis system. We did not do the launch and retrieval testing because we are about 95 percent done with the software there, so we made a conscious decision to defer that,” he added.
Lockheed Martin will deliver Freedom to the Navy next month and commissioning is planned for Nov. 8 in Milwaukee, Wis., Stiller noted.
A General Dynamics [GD]-led team will deliver their LCS variant, PCU Independence (LCS-2) early next calendar year, she added.
Both lead ships of the LCS class had their share of issues. One significant challenge was the introduction of the Naval Vessel Rules (NVR), which took LCS design from one based on a commercial ferry-like vessel, to a true combatant.
LCS was the first ship to be built using NVR, McCoy noted.
“From a technical and ship design and ship construction perspective, this was the first ship built under NVR–a new concept where we merged commercial ship specifications with military specs in an attempt to speed up the process as well as reduce cost,” he said. “We think in the end it got us a very good ship.”
The Navy is working with the two shipbuilding teams to learn where the service might be able to save cost and time in the construction process, McCoy said.
Those efforts will also include an examination of NVR, Navy sources have said.
“We introduced NVR at the start of the acquisition program. Ideally, we should have done that earlier so that industry had more experience with it,” McCoy said. “One of the things I have taken from this whole experience…we have gone back to both shipbuilders and we’ve asked them for specific input.”
In particular, McCoy pointed out, where would the shipbuilders change requirements to take the cost out of the ship, but not degrade the product.
“We have on the order of 100 specific inputs from both of these shipbuilders,” he added.