In 2020, Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, the then commander of Naval Surface Forces and the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Naval Surface Force, directed the establishment of Task Force Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to increase LCS materiel availability above the platform’s key performance parameter (KPP) requirement of 64 percent for deployed ships.
Kitchener, who retired last August, also wanted a focus on LCS’ personnel, and the Navy has said that it wants to move to LCS in-house maintenance rather than relying on contractors.
“We will continue to see this [LCS reliability] metric rise,” Rear Adm. Ted LeClair, the director of Task Force Littoral Combat Ship, told the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium during an LCS panel on Jan. 10. “We know the ships well. We are learning and continue to learn, and we’re seeing the investments…we make having payoffs in increased [operational availability.”
LeClair said that the ships “are in high demand” and that five LCSs are deployed to the 5th and 7th Fleets.
The LCS class includes the Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Fincantieri Marinette Marine Freedom-variant based in Mayport, Fla., and the Austal USA Independence-variant based in San Diego.
The Independence LCSs, 18 of which have fielded, are to have the Mine Countermeasures Mission Package, the Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace Naval Strike Missile, and drones, while the Freedom-variants are to focus on surface warfare. LCS does not play a role in anti-submarine warfare (ASW), according to the service’s shipbuilding plan, which delegates ASW to the future Constellation-class frigates.
Capt. James Hoey, the Pacific Fleet’s assistant chief of staff for LCS/MCM readiness, told the SNA panel on Jan. 10 that, while LCS’ materiel availability KPP is 64 percent, the maximum materiel availability of LCS, given an assumed operational availability of 85 percent, is 76 percent. Materiel availability accounts for breakdowns underway and planned maintenance.
The LCSs most recently deployed from San Diego, the USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10), the USS Manchester (LCS-14), the USS Oakland (LCS-24), and the USS Mobile (LCS-26) have recorded 73 percent materiel availability, just three percentage points below the maximum, Hoey said.
“Through 20 LCS deployments and patrols in the last 10 years, we’ve collected the data on high-fail systems and components and their impact on materiel availability and operational availability,” he said. “Multiple efforts are in place to improve LCS reliability and sustainability.”
Fixes have focused on drive trains, including water jets and heat exchanger modifications, and the Navy is shifting to “more combat system fixes” for the Independence-variants including upgrades to the camera for the BAE Systems‘ Mk 110 57 mm gun, “pack up kits” for the RTX [RTX] SeaRAM ship defense system, and improvements to Saab‘s AN/SPS-77 radar and Teledyne FLIR‘s [TDY] SAFIRE electro-optical/infrared system for fire control of the Mk110 57 mm gun, Hoey said.
The Navy wants to retire older Freedom-variant LCSs many years earlier than their expected 25-year service lives due to a combining gear problem and the service canceling the planned anti-submarine warfare mission package due to technical challenges (Defense Daily, Apr. 20, 2023).