Officials are ready to proceed with the second phase of sea testing on its San Antonio-class (LPD-17) amphibious ships, after successfully wrapping up the first half of those sea trials yesterday.
Speaking from on board the San Antonio, the ship’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Thomas Kait, told reporters that aside from some minor tweaks to the vessel’s engines, the first phase went off without a hitch.
Aside from the engine, tests were also run on the ship’s electrical, navigation and damage control systems, according to a statement released by Naval Surface Force-Atlantic that same day.
Crew members ran the LPD-17’s power plant for roughly 70 hours total during the test, Kait said. “We had to make some adjustments here and there, but nothing major,” he said, adding the ship’s engines are now “certified, no restrictions.”
That certification comes on the heels of “nagging reliability issues” — from unsatisfactory ship welds to consistent grit in the ship’s engine oil–that eventually became the “Achilles’ heel” for the LPD-17 class, Naval Sea Systems Command chief Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, told members of the Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee on Wednesday.
However, after yesterday’s performance, crew members are now preparing for the second half, or “amphibious warfare phase,” of the sea trials, which will focus on certification on well deck operations and validating the ship’s weapon systems, according to Kait.
The second half of that testing is tentatively scheduled for this summer, he said.
“The next part is the combat systems…I have to be in certain ‘hot boxes’ [or] certain areas out that we have already cleared…and we have to get a feel for what the ship does two, three knots [at] full rudder,” Kait said.
The boat will also conduct qualification testing for aviation operations with the Marine Corps’ MV-22 tiltrotor. Aside from Osprey missions, “all the gear is good, we can land any kind of helo at this point,” he added.
During those weapon system tests, the Navy will also look to prove out a number of fixes to those platforms, designed to address a slate of vulnerabilities in those systems.
Testifying at that same SASC Seapower hearing on Wednesday, Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley admitted the ship’s weapon systems were deficient in addressing several types of threats, echoing criticisms made in the late 2010 report by the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation directorate.
During the hearing, Stackley did not comment on what types of targets posed problems for the LPD-17’s weapon systems, or what fixes the Navy put in place to close those mission gaps.
When asked why the sea trial was split into two parts, Kait said Navy officials wanted to be sure that the ship’s propulsion system was ready to go, before beginning some of the more rigorous drills called for in the sea trials.
“It was broken up to [focus on] the engines in the first part, come back, reevaluate [and] take our lessons learned” and apply those to the remaining phase in the seat test cycle, Kait said. “We want to test every piece of gear we have on board, and a lot of gear I cannot test if I have to stay on a straight course and worry about the engines,” he said.