By Geoff Fein
General Dynamics’ [GD] Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-2) successfully completed acceptance trials and continues on track to be delivered to the service in the coming weeks, Navy officials said.
Additionally, Rear Adm William Landay, program executive officer (PEO) ships, and his team are working with industry on their concerns stemming from the draft request for proposals (RFP), Allison Stiller, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy (DASN) ships, told reporters yesterday.
“The Navy this week is entering into a discussion with OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) staff…a peer review…of the RFP before it goes out,” she said. “So we are getting feedback and input from OSD on lessons learned from other acquisition programs and we will take that into consideration when we go and put out the final RFP, which we are planning to do by the end of the year.”
Pre Commission Unit (PCU) Independence, built at Austal USA in Mobile, Ala., received 39 starred cards and a total of 2,080 trial cards from the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV).
The acceptance trials took place Nov. 13-19.
“None of the deficiencies for LCS-2 are expected to impact the delivery or sail away of the ship,” Stiller said.
In contrast, Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] USS Freedom (LCS-1) received 21 starred cards and more than 2,604 trial cards following her INSURV in August 2008 (Defense Daily, Aug. 28, 2008).
However, comparing the two ships isn’t really fair, Landay said.
“They are completely different ships,” he said. “It [would] be like saying what were the discrepancies I saw on a DDG-51 that I didn’t see on a LHA-8. So I can’t make a comparison between the two.”
Independence is an all-aluminum hull trimaran. Freedom is a semi-planing monohull design built at Wisconsin-based Marinette Marine.
INSURV looks for every imaginable issue, from missing name plates or electrical outlet faceplates to things the board considers to be a major discrepancy, Landay noted. “Lead ships tend to have more.”
One item that surfaced during Independence’s INSURV had to do with a seal to help prevent fire from a helicopter accident spreading.
“There is a requirement if you have an aviation accident on the flight deck that your helicopter hangar door, or whatever that mechanism is, prevents water and fuel that potentially could be on fire from flowing past that door into the helicopter hangar,” Landay said.
“We have that seal. That seal has passed inspection before. But what often times happens when you get another inspection…we did an INSURV and it didn’t pass,” he added.
The ship got a starred card for that, he added.
“We have to go back and find out why it didn’t pass, fix whatever issue is with it, and re-demonstrate it,” Landay said. “We don’t have to re-demonstrate it to the board, the supervisor [of ships] will verify that it’s done.”
And there were systems that the Navy inspectors saw on Independence that they didn’t see on Freedom, Landay added.
For example, on LCS-2, “we were prepared and showed to INSURV the full aviation capability that we would normally show at acceptance trials,” he said.
The Navy did not show the INSURV board the full aviation capability of Freedom during her inspection in August 2008, Landay added.
He noted there were no issues with the propulsion system.
“All of the propulsion demonstrations…full power trials, ahead, stern, steering…all of those were satisfactory from the INSURV’s perspective,” Landay said. “Those issues that we found we believe we successfully resolved those.”
Landay also added that almost all of the starred card issues will be resolved when Independence sails away. “We have to have that discussion.”
One item that won’t be resolved until Independence away is the ability to test her IFF, or identification fried or foe, system, he said.
“We are not allowed to [do IFF testing] within 100 miles of the United States…FAA rules,” Landay said.
In almost all cases, the Navy takes a starred card on that, he added.
“There is no reason to believe we won’t pass it. We will do that post sail away as the ship is proceeding to another port to be able to do that,” Landay said.
“We are going through all of our starred cards right now. The vast majority obviously we intend to complete prior to the ship sailing away. We intend to complete most of them before the crew moves aboard,” he added. “There can be in some cases ones that as we go through it we may decide to defer to the post shakedown availability. That’s a decision we make in conjunction with OPNAV and the fleet–where is the best place to fix those? We are still going through which of those we might have to defer. But our goal is to have the ship as complete as possible before it sails away.”
Once Independence leaves Austal USA’s shipyard, she will head north to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., where the ship will conduct follow-on testing and training, Landay said.
That will include additional crew proficiency as well as the second set of acceptance trials, similar to what the Navy did with Freedom, Landay added. “For those things we did not or could not demonstrate with the first (acceptance trial).”
For example, although all the communications equipment is installed, the crews have to be on board before they are given their secure crypto material, Landay added. “So we do those things up there. She’ll operate out of the Norfolk area until such time the commander decides they are ready to have her go do some other things.”
From the acquisition perspective, Landay added, both Freedom and Independence meet the Navy’s requirements.
“From our perspective, they are all meeting our requirements. They both successfully passed our acceptance trials and we believe it is very straightforward for us in acquisition to evaluate both ships,” Landay said, “because we are not evaluating them on number of starred cards or any of those things.”
Last week, Republican Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, along with Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala), sent a letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus expressing serious concerns about the Navy’s new LCS acquisition strategy, and urged Mabus to evaluate the LCS designs through a modified best value selection methodology (Defense Daily, Dec. 4).
“The draft RFP emphasizes cost as the decisive factor in the design decision, placing technological advancements as secondary criteria. This means that price is more important than quality and that performance is not a critical factor,” the lawmakers said in their letter.
While not addressing the lawmakers’ letter directly, Landay did, however, note cost is a critically important priority for the Navy.
“Cost is important to us. [The] reason we went to this particular [acquisition] strategy was because the cost of the ships was not going down as fast as we expected them to,” he said. “At this point, not formally having signed out the RFP, I am not willing to tell you what the order of those priorities are. That’s the process we are going through right now…why we are having an OSD review.”