By Geoff Fein
From being able to carry and launch a variety of manned and unmanned systems to the ability to start up its engines with the click of a mouse, the uniqueness of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Independence (LCS-2) is going to change the way the Navy operates on the seas, a Navy official said.
“We try to enforce with our sailors that Navy standards, or how you achieve those, is going to have to change with this ship,” Cmdr. Curt Renshaw, commanding officer of the Independence’s Blue crew, told Defense Daily earlier this week.
“The biggest thing that has jumped out at me, and I have to relearn everyday, you really do almost have to change everything if you are going to efficiently achieve that standard or I don’t think you can,” Renshaw added. “I think you end up with a case where if you spend the time and resources doing things [the] way you once did, you have to give up and sacrifice in other areas. That’s not what we want to do. We want to reorganize and re-approach this and leverage all of that technology and capability so that the standards that make our Navy what it is are achieved.”
Renshaw, along with his counterpart, Cmdr. Mike Riley, Gold crew commanding officer, have followed the development of General Dynamics‘ [GD] Independence from construction to delivery. Now the two commanders are readying their respective crews to take this variant of LCS out on its first mission.
When people first see Independence, the first thing that always strikes them is the ship’s size, Renshaw said.
Independence is 420 feet long with a beam of 104 feet, he noted. The ship’s flight deck is 35 feet above the water line and the bridge is nearly 60 feet, he added.
“When you see this ship you get in mind it’s not really a cross between a PC (patrol coastal) and a MCM (mine countermeasures), it’s more of a hybrid of an amphib and a frigate. That’s really the volume we are talking about and the complexity,” Renshaw said.
Independence is incredibly maneuverable, Riley added.
“You would have to be on board at full speed to appreciate just how maneuverable the ship is and how fast the ship is,” he said. “We can go from a standing start to full speed in under a minute and we can stop just as quickly.”
Besides its unique design–Independence is a trimaran–the hull is built out of aluminum. But Renshaw and Riley both said the ship is strong.
“Yes the ship is made out of aluminum, but both of us spent a lot of time in the shipyard watching the ship get constructed and it is incredibly, incredibly strong. We have no worries there,” Riley said.
“You see the thickness in the structure. It doesn’t come across as aluminum, and it’s potentially a very sturdy design, very capable in terms of the maneuvering and the command and control,” Renshaw added.
Independence was built at Mobile, Ala.-based Austal USA, which is beginning work on the Coronado (LCS-4).
Although Independence has been referred to as a trimaran, Renshaw said that is a misnomer.
“It’s not a true trimaran, it’s actually what’s called a slender stabilized monohull. Under the water line you have about 14 feet of draft, and that’s loaded, in the center line hull which is kind of long and skinny. The outer hulls only displace about two to three feet of water,” he said. [The outer hulls] give it the stability so as it starts to roll one way or the other, those trimarans will start to pick up buoyancy and keep a very even keel.”
Independence also has an extensive ride control system, Renshaw added. Fins under the water line that actually provide a smooth ride the faster the ship goes.
“We were out in seven to eight foot seas on one of the trial days and at 40 plus knots you had to look down at the GPS to realize you were going that fast,” he said. “That’s how smooth that ride is. Maybe that’s a function of people who build high speed ferries building your ship. They want to keep the passengers comfortable.”
One aspect of Independence that catches just about everyone’s attention is the size of the ship’s mission bay.
“It is large enough and flexible enough to [hold] just about anything you could think of in terms of coastal and littoral warfare,” Riley said. “If you build modules we could carry them. That’s one of the true unique things about Independence. I think we are going to expand way beyond the initial three mission sets the ship was designed to do, and of course she is going to do those extremely well.”
The Navy has initially chosen to outfit LCS with three specific mission packages geared toward mine warfare (MW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and surface warfare (SuW). Mission package program officials have said they are always looking at other potential mission packages, for everything from special operations to humanitarian assistance.
“We have so much space with so much flexibility that I would not be surprised as we learn more and more about the ship we start doing more and more different things,” Riley added.
Renshaw noted the size of Independence’s mission bay allows the crew to operate LCS-2 almost like the mother ship for manned and unmanned vehicles. “That’s sort of the concept for several of the mission packages anyway.
“As unmanned technology continues to evolve I think we have a good ability to carry different types of vehicles, and varying sizes, and also in different numbers. If you had more vehicles that were more capable in the future you could put a lot of sensors in the water from this single platform and that’s a great capability to have for any mission really,” Renshaw said. “It allows people to just think about how to use the mission bay, instead of constraining ourselves to some preconceived notion about what we know in the early 21st century, as opposed to maybe the year 2030 or 2040.”
The blue crew will take Independence out first, Riley noted. At some point, likely in the summer, the gold crew will relieve the blue team.
“Both crews right now are going through initial crew certification, working up to where Cmdr. Renshaw sails away. Both crews, with the exception of some small things for the gold crew, will be fully certified to sail the ship,” Riley said.
Renshaw added that there has been a close relationship between the blue and gold crews, “to make sure we are both prepared as possible for what lies ahead.”