By Carlo Munoz
Navy acquisition officials plan to pursue the Griffin missile system as its primary replacement for the now defunct Non-Line Of Sight Launch System (NLOS LS), the service’s surface warfare chief said Tuesday.
The Navy is looking to acquire the Raytheon [RTN] missile system and incorporate it into its surface warfare mission module being designed for its burgeoning fleet of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), according to Rear Adm. Frank Pandolfe, director of the Navy’s surface warfare division.
His comments came during a presentation at the Surface Navy Association conference this week in Arlington, Va.
The decision to pursue the Griffin system was the result of a service-led study on potential NLOS-LS replacements, after the Army opted to kill the program due to rising costs associated with the system’s development.
Navy officials had teamed up with the ground service on NLOS-LS acquisition, which had been slated to be the backbone of the third and fourth increment of the LCS surface warfare package.
But the Army proposed killing the NLOS-LS, as well as the Surface Launched Medium Range Air-to-Air Surface Missile (SLAMRAAM), as part of its plan to reap $29 billion in cost savings over five years.
While Pandolfe said development of the LCS surface warfare mission module was “not on schedule,” due in no small part to the forced transition to the Griffin system, the Navy can still meet the timelines set for increment three and four of the mission package.
“The pieces are shaping up just fine,” Pandolfe said.
But even with the cancellation of the NLOS-LS system, which is also manufactured by Raytheon, company officials plan to pursue opportunities to sell the platform internationally.
“Why don’t we think of NLOS as an option to deal with small boats and other problems internationally,” Rick Nelson, vice president of naval weapons systems, said at a separate briefing the same day.
He noted that some non-recurring work, such as flight testing, is still required to mature the system, “but [international sales] is something that we will continue to examine as 2011 progresses.”