The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program plans to buy Raytheon’s [RTN] Griffin missile on a limited basis until it holds a competition to develop a more advanced surface-to-surface missile in the years ahead, Rear Adm. Jim Murdoch, the head of the program executive office, said yesterday.
Murdoch said he plans to buy one shipset of the Raytheon weapon as part of the mission package for surface combat, but said the Griffin does not have the autonomous capability and range needed on the Littoral Combat Ships.
The plan is to buy the Griffin this year for testing and deploying it on a ship in 2015, Capt. John Ailes, the LCS program manager for mission systems, said. Murdoch said he plans to hold the competition for the more advanced missile system in 2016.
The LCS program originally envisioned fielding the Non Line of Sights (NLOS) system that was being developed by the Army, but those plans fell through when the Army canceled the troubled program in 2010.
The Navy plans to buy more than 50 Littoral Combat Ships, and has contracted the first 20, which are evenly split between the USS Freedom variant and the USS Independence variant. The first ships of the two variants are already in the fleet. The program has faced criticism for building two variants of the ship class.
Murdoch said he is striving to build more commonality between the two versions, but needs industry to come forward with promising solutions that would justify funding.