LCS PROGRAM: “LITTLE ROCK” DELIVERED

Within the Littoral Combat Ship Program (LCS), the consortium consisting of Fincantieri, through its subsidiary Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM), and Lockheed Martin Corporation, today has delivered “Little Rock” (LCS 9) to the US Navy at FMM’s shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin.

Within the Littoral Combat Ship Program (LCS), the consortium consisting of Fincantieri, through its subsidiary Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM), and Lockheed Martin Corporation, has delivered Little Rock (LCS 9) to the U.S. Navy at FMM’s shipyard in Marinette, Wisc. Commissioning is planned for December in Buffalo, N.Y.

Little Rock is part of a program started in 2010, which comprises 11 units, all fully funded, on top of the two units delivered before 2010 (Freedom - LCS 1 and Forth Worth - LCS 3). The Fincantieri and Lockheed Martin team is currently in full-rate production and has delivered five ships to the U.S. Navy to date. There are currently seven ships in various stages of construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, with one more in long-lead production.

The construction contract for the LCS Program Freedom-variant was awarded to FMM in 2010, within the partnership by Lockheed Martin, global leader in the defense sector. It is one of the U.S. Navy’s main shipbuilding programs and relates to a new generation of mid-sized multirole vessels, designed for surveillance activities and coastal defense for deep water operations as well as capabilities for addressing asymmetrical threats such as mines, silent diesel submarines and fast surface ships. 2 LCS Freedom-variant vessels have been successfully deployed to the Western Pacific, the third and fourth have been delivered respectively in 2015 and 2016.

Posted by Eric Haun

Littoral Combat Ship Sailors to Take on Greater Maintenance Responsibilities, As Navy Looks to Reduce Overall Class Maintenance Needs

By: Megan Eckstein

September 8, 2017 1:11 PM • Updated: September 11, 2017 9:53 AM

USNI.org

Hull Maintenance Technician 1st Class James Strotler welds a flow meter, a critical part to support the ship’s capability to produce potable water, for the reverse osmosis unit aboard USS Fort Worth (LCS-3). US Navy Photo

This article is the third in a three-part series on the changes occurring in the Littoral Combat Ship community as the fleet rapidly grows, moves to a new crewing and organizational construct and prepares for multi-ship forward operations. 

SAN DIEGO – The Littoral Combat Ship community is taking steps to both decrease the amount of overall maintenance work the ships require and increase the percentage conducted by sailors instead of contractors, several officers told USNI News during a recent visit to the San Diego waterfront.

After last year’s LCS Review that ultimately called on the Navy to increase simplicity, stability and ownershipwithin the LCS program, sailor-led maintenance is being looked at as a major way to boost ownership.

Though only a year into the implementation of the LCS Review recommendations – and ahead of funding that’s been requested to pay for the needed changes to the LCS program – some changes in LCS maintenance have already taken place on the waterfront.

LCS was originally envisioned to have a minimally manned crew that would conduct maintenance checks required more than once a month, with a contractor-led planned maintenance availability (PMAV) taking place about once a month and a longer continuous maintenance availability (CMAV) as needed for corrective and more intensive maintenance actions.

Now, Capt. Tom Workman, LCS Implementation Team leader, told USNI News from his office at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, “we have a certain amount of maintenance that’s in sailor hands, we have a certain amount of maintenance that’s in contractor hands, and over the life of the program we’d like to get more of that into sailor hands and less of it in contract hands,” he said.
“That not only decreases cost but it increases ownership.”

The LCS fleet has moved to a new organization: an LCS Squadron – LCSRON 1 in San Diego and LCSRON 2 in Mayport, Fla. – will oversee several divisions of LCS ships, and in addition to the ships’ core crews taking over some more of the routine maintenance, the LCSRONs will also have maintenance execution teams “dedicated to be able to provide a greater manpower base to start absorbing some more of that contractor maintenance,” Workman explained.

At the same time, the fleet is learning more about what it takes to keep the ships ready to operate forward, through forward operations out of Singapore by USS Freedom (LCS-1), USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) and USS Coronado (LCS-4). The first four ships in the class are somewhat different than hulls 5 and beyond, but Workman said the fleet would be looking to learn from the 2018 deployments – expected to include at least USS Detroit (LCS-7) and USS Montgomery (LCS-8) – to help find more efficient ways to conduct maintenance on those later ships, with an eye towards reducing the man hours it takes to keep the ships ready while forward deployed. The hope is that PMAVs can be shortened, or they can be scheduled farther apart, Workman said – “any of that that we can do contributes to more operational availability forward, which was and is the number-one objective.”

If successful, then, the Navy would be both conducting less maintenance on the ships and allowing the sailors to perform a greater portion of that work.

Bits of that vision are already taking place in San Diego. Cmdr. Emily Cathey, commanding of USS Independence (LCS-2), said the first sailor-led PMAV took place in March in the ship’s San Diego homeport. She credited the LCSRON-1 team with helping pave the way for that and other changes to LCS maintenance – for every preventative maintenance procedure she hopes to incorporate into her crew’s list of responsibilities, the LCSRON needs to ensure the crew has the right equipment, the right people and the right written procedures to accurately and successfully perform that work.

As part of the LCS Review implementation, the LCS community moved from each ship having a core crew and a mission package detachment – for mine countermeasures, surface warfare or anti-submarine warfare – to a single crew. Cathey said her crew and MCM detachment fused together a few months ago, bringing her from a pool of 53 people who could perform ship maintenance to now 70. The former MCM detachment personnel are now fully integrated with the crew, standing watches, working in the engineering department and more to contribute to the material readiness of the ship. On Freedom, sitting at a nearby pier on the San Diego waterfront, two anti-submarine warfare detachments formally joined the crew last month, giving Commanding Officer Cmdr. Michel Falzone 73 crew members to share in the maintenance work, up from the 53 before.

LCSRON-1 Commodore Capt. Jordy Harrison told USNI News while aboard Independence that there’s a great misconception, even among sailors, about the maintenance work LCS crews conduct. He noted that every time the LCS launches a helicopter, small boats or unmanned vehicles, a slew of maintenance checks have to be conducted.

“All of those checks that are in the regular routine operations of the ship are what the ship crew does naturally when they’re out to sea, which is why we end up in the neighborhood of somewhere in the 14,000 man hours a year” conducted by the LCS crews, Harrison said.
“It was really about the monthly level and below checks are kind of within the capacity and the capabilities of the crew. And then those checks that went beyond the monthly scope usually were more intrusive and demanded more man hours – not always the case, but typically – and those were, in many cases, planned for those to be contractor-executed checks, because if you were doing them quarterly you could probably schedule them in conjunction with periods of time when the ship would be in port.”

Harrison that as the fleet operates the ships more, crews will find more efficient ways to schedule maintenance work, trimming down on the number of hours required to do maintenance. The way to make a real dent in total maintenance, though, would be to fully implement the conditions-based maintenance model the LCSs were built to support, he said.

The commodore noted that Independence, for example, was equipped with more than 7,000 sensors that send data off the ship on the status of various shipboard systems. Using that data to make decisions about when to perform maintenance – rather than just doing a daily, weekly or monthly check because a manual says so – would be the most efficient use of the small crew’s time.

“We’re going to use Fort Worth (LCS-3) … and conduct a very extensive conditions-based engineering reliability maintenance examination. The Navy, certainly the surface navy, in many cases by default, has done a very heavy reliance on time-based maintenance – so it’s monthly, time to change the oil, and we would do that. Well, that certainly is preventive, but is it the most cost-effective, most efficient and most effective way to do maintenance?” Harrison said.
“So we’re going to take a fulsome swing at, are there ways we can certainly be more effective and efficient? When you have an optimally manned or minimally manned crew, you need to be effective with that time because you want to make sure you’re doing the right maintenance. If you just say, time-based, you’ve got to do all this, you might have to make some risk decisions on which maintenance to do, but it might not be the right maintenance to do and the right maintenance to forego. If you had sensors and systems and the ability to say, hey, this piece of equipment is more at risk – so do I go do the change oil on my port diesel engine or change the oil on my starboard diesel engine? If we had the metrics and the analytical rigor that would say we might be getting ready to experience a casualty on your port engine, then we would say, I’ll wait to do the starboard and I’ll go do the port engine. So that’s sort of the thought process behind the conditions-based maintenance instead of the time-based maintenance. Where you are constrained with man hours with a smaller crew, you sometimes have to make those decisions, so we’re no kidding taking a look at how we can use the analytical rigor to help drive us into making the right maintenance decisions. And then what that may allow us to do as well is examine do we have the right crew complement, numbers and by ratings, designators, skillsets. Do we have the right total numbers, and do we have the right skillsets?”

Workman too said that condition-based maintenance would not only ease demands on the sailors but would also boost operational availability of the ships to the forward operational commander, since maintenance periods could be shorter and the ships would then spend more time at sea. He said the LCS has more sensors than any other warship in the fleet, which should be leveraged to let the equipment tell sailors when a preventative check or corrective maintenance action needed to be performed.

USS Coronado (LCS-4) transits the waters of Pearl Harbor during RIMPAC 2016. US Navy Photo

Sailors assigned to the littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS-4) load a rolling-airframe-missile launcher. US Navy Photo

USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) transits the South China Sea in July 2015 during a 16-month rotational deployment in support of the Indo-Asia-Pacific rebalance. US Navy photo.

Littoral Combat Ship Program Vastly Different a Year Into Major Organizational, Operational Overhaul

By: Megan Eckstein

September 6, 2017 3:31 PM

USNI.org

Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado (LCS-4) transits the Bohol Sea on June 17, 2017. US NAvy Photo

This article is the first in a three-part series on the changes occurring in the Littoral Combat Ship community as the fleet rapidly grows, moves to a new crewing and organizational construct and prepares for multi-ship forward operations.

SAN DIEGO -– The Littoral Combat Ship fleet has spent the last year in the midst of a reorganization and preparing for a new way of doing business following recommendations from a 2016 LCS Review that pointed the Navy towards injecting simplicity, stability and ownership into the unusual program.

A year into implementing those recommendations, the LCS fleet looks vastly different than originally envisioned – and to the benefit of both the program office, the sailors and operational commanders, several officers told USNI News.

Organizational Overhaul

LCS ships will now fall under one of two squadrons: LCSRON-1 in San Diego or LCSRON-2 in Mayport, Fla. LCSRON-1 will eventually have four divisions: a test division, consisting of the first four ships in the class that will focus solely on testing hardware, software and concepts of operations to support bringing new mission module equipment into the fleet; a surface warfare division; a mine countermeasures division; and an anti-submarine division. LCSRON-2 will have three divisions, one for each warfare area. For additional simplicity, aside from the four test division ships, all Austal-built Independence-variant ships will be located in San Diego, and all Lockheed Martin-built Freedom-variant ships will be located in Mayport.

Each division will contain one training ship and three operating ships. For example, LCSRON-1’s surface warfare-focused Division 11, which will be the first warfare-focused division to stand up, will include USS Jackson(LCS-6) as the training ship, and USS Montgomery (LCS-8), USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) and USS Omaha(LCS-12) as the ships that will operate forward as surface warfare assets.

Compared to a complex old crewing model – where three crews would support two ships, one of which would be operating forward – the test ships and training ships will now be single-crewed, and deployable ships will rotate blue and gold crews.

For the training ships, “what we’re going to do is build a more senior crew with a little more resident LCS expertise so they are able to train and certify the three ships that will each be blue and gold, six crews,” LCSRON-1 commodore Capt. Jordy Harrison told USNI News in a recent visit to Naval Station San Diego, Calif.

Unlike a destroyer squadron commander, Harrison and the LCSRON-1 staff would not deploy to combat as a warfare commander. Rather, his sole job is to make sure crews and ships are ready to deploy, overseeing training, maintenance, manning and certification to deploy.

“We are there to support and assess to make sure the crews are ready to go, the ships are ready to go,” he said.

Maximizing Readiness

Capt. Tom Workman, the LCS Implementation Team leader responsible for putting into practice the ideas that came out of last year’s review, said all the changes being made to the fleet go to support one major priority: increasing operational availability of the ships to fleet commanders around the globe.

“There are many things that were somewhat revolutionary for the Navy in the LCS program as it previously stood: simultaneously we were embarking on a ship class that had two hull variants, interchangeable mission modules, rotational crews, a minimal manning construct, a unique maintenance strategy whereby there was a significant dependence on the materiel and logistics capabilities of the contractors; all of which were somewhat revolutionary at the time combined,” Workman said in an interview at his office at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado.
“One of the things that the review did was to define, among those, what is the number-one priority as we move forward? And clearly the number-one priority was the forward Ao (operational availability) to the operational commander. How can we set the program up to optimize that forward operational availability to the operational commander? And hence, the construct known as blue-gold-plus was born, whereby we have test ships dedicated solely to the [initial operational test and evaluation] requirement of the class from a hardware, software, armament capability, over the life of the class; we have training ships and mission-specific divisions set up on the East Coast and the West Coast … with a training ship in each division dedicated to training the blue and gold teams under that division commander’s cognizance. … And why set up that way? Because that produces the highest Ao forward to the operational commander.”

Workman noted that the new LCS organization focuses on force generation but also allows for a surge if global events required it. Though the scope and time of a cross-training effort hasn’t been determined yet, a ship from the mine countermeasures division could get trained up and deploy as a surface warfare asset to support a major global contingency, he said. Though the ships and crews will be assigned a warfare mission area, the ships will still retain the modularity they were built with, and the mission modules could be swapped out to respond to a crisis. In a real emergency, he added, the division’s training ships could deploy, though it would come at the expense of training follow-on ships, and the test ships could deploy at the expense of testing to support mission package developmental progress.

Harrison praised the new organization as promoting specialized and consistent training standards. With a single crew from a division’s training ship training and certifying all six remaining crews in the divisions, the capabilities of those crews will be much more closely aligned, and lessons brought back from one crew’s deployment can be quickly shared amongst the other crews, he said.

The commodore also noted that the LCS community, both due to the new organization and the rapidly growing number of ships in the fleet, can finally focus on “operational primacy” of the crews. Whereas two years ago there were only four ships that had to balance mission package testing needs and conducting forward deployments to Singapore to prove out the forward operating concept – with little time left over to focus on the proficiency of the new crews being churned out by the Navy – this new organization carves out dedicated test assets to focus on the programmatic milestones, while the rest of the fleet can focus on producing well trained crews that can begin deploying abroad in numbers.

Implementation Obstacles

Though the surface warfare community widely agrees these changes are for the better, they come with a cost. The former crewing model would have called for six crews per four ships, whereas this new model requires seven. The new model also includes additional personnel on the squadron staff to assist ship crews in their quest to take on more maintenance themselves.

Some changes are beginning to take place on the waterfront today, but the funding for the wholesale reorganization won’t come until Fiscal Year 2019, if the surface navy can successfully make their case to the Pentagon and to Congress.

“What’s that program going to look like in its end state, when all of the ships are delivered, all of the mission packages are delivered, all the crews are delivered?” Workman said is driving question in ongoing Program Objective Memorandum (POM) 2019 discussion.
“The ultimate approval of those POM issues, the ultimate deliberations on those and the ultimate delivery of what’s approved, there’s a time lag. So how do we proceed with the program during that intermediate period? What are the bridging strategies that we put in place to start achieving that goal of forward Ao before that extra manpower shows up? That’s what we’re doing now. Things like setting up the missions, functions and tasks that those divisions will adhere to as they stand up. Starting to rewrite the LCS training manual to accommodate that new architecture and that new strategy relative to how we had the training manual set up previously. With a blue and gold construct, with maximizing operational availability forward as the number-one goal, we will re-look at how we train, how we certify and how we sustain in each of the LCS warfare mission areas, and we’ll do it on a blue/gold basis. When that blue crew is deployed, what is that gold crew doing to sustain the proficiency in the areas in which they’re already certified? I think there’s a couple of distinct benefits to that for the operational commander. Not only does the operational commander get the platform forward for an extended period of time and get rotational crews, but within those rotational crews essentially the same crew that was there five to six months ago comes back and brings their familiarity with that operating area back to the tactical benefit of the operational commander, and they come back certified. That renders a level of LCS readiness that we don’t have in any of our other ship classes. Getting ourselves as best toward that construct as we can, even in advance of that manpower arriving from the POM issue.”

Workman said the surface warfare directorate at the Pentagon has been very supporting of finding the money needed to take early steps towards that vision now, ahead of the 2019 funding.

He cautioned, “as the POM ‘19 process unfolds at the Navy-wide level, at the [Office of the Secretary of Defense] level, we will like any other program, we will need to defend those issues. But I think those issues compete very well against the other Navy priorities and then ultimately against the other DoD priorities.”

The littoral combat ship USS Freedom (LCS 1) transits alongside USS Anchorage (LPD 23) off the coast of Southern California on Feb. 19, 2017. US Navy photo.

Cmdr. Keith Woodley (far right), commanding officer of the littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10), discusses ship maneuvers with the bridge team as the ship transits San Diego Bay to arrive at the ship’s homeport of Naval Base San Diego on July 5, 2017. US Navy Photo

USS Freedom (LCS 1) sits pierside in San Diego, Calif. on May 4, 2017. US Navy Photo

THE NAVY'S NEWEST WEAPON IS AN ULTRA-MANEUVERABLE COMBAT SHIP BUILT FOR SEA-TO-SHORE ENGAGEMENT

Meet the newly christened USS Billings.

Contractor Lockheed Martin has sent the newest Littoral Combat Ship into the water for the first time, launching the soon-to-be USS Billings as the newest "Freedom-class" LCS.

The controversial LCS ships come in two flavors; Lockheed Martin's Freedom class and the unorthodox trimaran-hull Independence class from Austal USA.

The LCS was designed to provide smaller, cheaper, more maneuverable ships for close-to-shore duty in littoral waters where the Navy's "blue water" destroyers, cruisers and frigates would be vulnerable.

Critics complain, however, that the LCS ships lack needed capability, an issue that is increasingly pressing as the post-post-cold war order is looking more like the bigger ships are needed.

Nevertheless, the Navy still has plenty of "brown water" missions for the LCS ships, such as deploying manned and unmanned vehicles and sensors in support of mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare missions.

Sharla Tester, the wife of Montana Sen. Jon Tester, the ranking member of the Senate Veteran's Affairs Committee, christens the future USS Billings.

"The christening of the future USS Billings brings this great warship one step closer to joining the fleet, where it will, for decades to come, serve as a tribute to the great people of Billings and the state of Montana, as well as the highly skilled men and women who built our nation's newest littoral combat ship," said the Honorable Sean Stackley, acting Secretary of the Navy. 

The core crew of the Billings will be 50 sailors, but it can carry as many as 98, depending on the mission. The Freedom class uses a steel semi-planing hull with an aluminum superstructure. 

While the trimaran design of the Independence class looks exotic, the Freedom's conventional-looking monohull is based on the design of the speed record-setting yacht Destriero. It uses a Kawasaki Jet Ski-type steerable water jet propulsion system for speed and agility.

Billings' combined gas turbine and diesel generator power system can blast this super-sized Jet Ski to a top speed of 54 mph. While this is cool, earlier Freedom-class ships, USS Milwaukee and USS Fort Worth suffered problems with the gears between the two combined power sources and had to be towed back to port.

These problem are said to be solved, so once it is commissioned, the USS Billings should  be ready to roll up its figurative sleeves and do the Navy's less-glamorous brown water chores.

By: Dan Carney

Senators Limited Littoral Combat Ship Program to 1 Hull in 2018 After ‘Compelling’ Testimony by Acting SECNAV Stackley

By: Sam LaGrone

USNI.org

June 29, 2017 4:06 PM • Updated: June 30, 2017 7:17 AM

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Testimony in which acting Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley said a single Littoral Combat Ship in 2018 was the minimum needed to preserve the two shipyards was taken to heart in crafting the Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense bill that held to one LCS, SASC staffers on Thursday.

In May testimony before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Stackley said the single LCS initially included in the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2018 budget request “only meets the minimum sustainment,” compared to the optimal production rate of three a year across the two years, USNI News reported at the time.

SASC took that testimony and kept the program at a single ship, the staffers said.

“We authorized the LCS that was in the budget request. We support the president’s budget in that regard. The testimony from Secretary Stackley before the SAC-D that one was the minimum in ’18 to sustain the industrial base was taken into account. …
We found that testimony compelling,” a staffer told reporters on Thursday.
“There’s one LCS in ’18, which the secretary said in SAC-D testimony was the minimum.”

While the administration had initially put only a single LCS in the budget submitted to Congress, the next day the White House shifted course and asked acting Navy acquisition chief Allison Stiller to say the administration was supportive of two in the budget.

Both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations Committee support three LCS hulls in the FY 2018 budget.

The move from the Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)-chaired SASC comes as little surprise. He has been as constant a critic of the LCS program, as the Navy has seen in the last several years. Last year McCain pointed out $13 billion in what he deemed was wasteful spending in the federal government in his “America’s Most Wasted” report, and the LCS program counted for $12.4 billion of the $13 billion total.

While the SASC language is cool on LCS, staffers said they would welcome a full and open competition for the follow-on frigate design that will look at hulls beyond the current Lockheed Martin-built Freedom-class and Austal USA-built Independence-class designs.

“We’re supportive of the timing,” a staffer told reporters.
“We’re supportive of free and open competition using existing designs.”

The Navy will look at both domestic and foreign designs as it seeks a frigate more capable than today’s LCSs.

“The Navy Frigate Requirements Evaluation Team (FFG RET) will update the SSCTF analyses to investigate the feasibility of incorporating additional capabilities such as local air defense and enhanced survivability features into the current LCS designs, as well as explore other existing hull forms,” the Navy told USNI News in April.

Some in the Senate have pushed for the Navy to consider foreign frigate designs that have a more robust air defense capability than the current LCS Flight 0 designs.

At least one of the three fleet architecture studies recently released by the Navy that will guide the service in the future called for a more robust air defense frigate that would incorporate Mk-41 vertical launch cells that would make the follow-on design much more lethal to traditional air and cruise missile threats.

Secretary of the Navy Names Two Littoral Combat Ships

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced Sept. 22, that the next Freedom and Independence variant Littoral Combat Ships will be named USS Marinette (LCS 25) and USS Mobile (LCS 26) to recognize the two cities' significant contribution to Navy ship building.

The ceremony took place at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. 

The future USS Marinette (LCS 25), a Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship, will be the first commissioned U.S. Navy ship to bear the name.  

The future USS Mobile (LCS 26), an Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship, will be the fifth ship to bear the name. The last USS Mobile (LKA-115) was a Charleston-class amphibious cargo ship and served for more than 24 years before being decommissioned in 1994.  

A fast, agile surface combatant, the LCS provides the required war fighting capabilities and operational flexibility to execute a variety of missions in areas such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare.

The ship will be built with modular design incorporating mission packages that can be changed out quickly as combat needs change in a region. These mission packages are supported by detachments that deploy both manned and unmanned vehicles, and sensors, in support of mine, undersea, and surface warfare missions. 

Marinette will be built by Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin.

Mobile will be built by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama. 

From: Secretary of the Navy Public Affairs

Spring 2016 Fincantieri Marinette Marine Beacon: FMM Launches LCS 11 - Sioux City

On Saturday, January 30, 2016 Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM) christened and launched the future USS Sioux City (LCS 11), the latest single-hull littoral combat ship. The ceremony took place in Marinette at the FMM shipyard. 

FMM Launches LCS 11 - Sioux City

ADM Michelle Howard, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, was the principal speaker. Mary Winnefeld, wife of retired ADM James “Sandy” Winnefeld, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will serve as the ship’s sponsor. The highlight of the ceremony was when Mrs. Winnefeld smashed a champagne bottle across the ship’s bow to execute the side launch into the Menominee River.

“It is an honor and a privilege to serve as the sponsor of the future USS Sioux City and to be a part of this major milestone along the way to her assuming her place as part of the great U.S. Navy fleet,” said Mrs. Winnefeld. “I also look forward to an ongoing relationship with her courageous crews and their families throughout the ship’s lifetime.”

“The Christening and launch of Sioux City is a proud event for FMM,” said Jan Allman, President and CEO of FMM.

“It showcases the craftsmanship and engineering capabilities of our workforce. We are confident that this ship will play a vital role in the fleet, and carry the spirit of our industry team as she sails the globe.”

The future USS Sioux City is the first naval vessel to be named in honor of Sioux City, Iowa, the fourth-largest city in the state. Sioux City was founded in 1854 at the navigational head of the Missouri River and takes its name from a group of North American Indian tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation. 

The ceremony represents a significant contribution to Sioux City’s long, rich history of ties to America’s men and women in uniform. “I chose the name for this littoral combat ship from America’s heartland to honor the patriotic, hard- working citizens of Sioux City, and for their support of and contributions to the military,” Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus stated four years ago when he announced the naming of USS Sioux City. “The christening and launch marks an important step toward this great war- ship’s entry into the fleet,” Mabus continued. “The hard work and dedication

of our nation’s shipbuilders have ensured this ship will serve as a representation of both Sioux City and our Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to deliver presence for decades to come.”

Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott was among a group of city leaders in Marinette for the events surrounding the christening and launch of Sioux City. “From now, for at least 50 years, there will be a ship out on the ocean that’ll have our name on it and I think that’s kind of cool,” Scott said.

The construction of the future USS Sioux City began in 2013. Following the January christening and launch, Sioux City will continue to undergo outfitting and testing before delivery and commis- sioning by the Navy in 2017.

The 53 core crew members will be based in Mayport, FL, and will operate across the Asian-Pacific. 

Future USS Sioux City (LCS 11) mast stepping ceremony held in January ‘16. 

Eighteen reservists participate in re- enlistment ceremony held on LCS 9. 

Governor Walker visits Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding in January ‘16. 

Courtesy Marinette Marine

[Watch] USS Little Rock (LCS 9) Launched

On Saturday July 18, the future USS Little Rock got one step closer to patrolling the world’s shorelines and open seas when it was launched Marinette Marine Corporation shipyard

The ship’s sponsor, Janee Bonner, christened Little Rock (LCS 9) with the traditional smashing of a champagne bottle across the ship's bow just prior to the launch.

“It is such an honor and a privilege to serve as the sponsor of the future USS Little Rock and to be a part of this major milestone along the way to her assuming her place as part of the great U.S. Navy fleet,” Bonner said.

Following christening and launch, Little Rock will continue to undergo outfitting and testing before delivery to the Navy later this year.

“This future USS Little Rock will use interchangeable mission modules that empower her to face a variety of high-priority missions, from Anti-Surface Warfare to Anti-Submarine Warfare to Mine Countermeasures,” said Vice President of Littoral Ships & Systems, Joe North. “She is ideally suited to navigate the reefs and shallows in the Asia-Pacific, as so well demonstrated by USS Fort Worth on her current deployment.”

The Little Rock is one of seven littoral combat ships under construction at Marinette Marine.  

The Lockheed Martin-led industry team is building the Freedom variant, and has already delivered two ships to the U.S. Navy. USS Freedom (LCS 1) successfully deployed to Southeast Asia in 2013 and is currently operating out of her homeport in San Diego, California. USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) is currently deployed in Southeast Asia, serving in the U.S. 7th Fleet to strengthen international relationships, engage in multi-regional naval exercises and further LCS capabilities using manned and unmanned assets.

Milwaukee (LCS 5) was christened and launched in 2013, and is slated to be delivered to the Navy this fall. Detroit (LCS 7) was launched in 2014. Sioux City (LCS 11) is in construction, and Wichita (LCS 13) had its keel laid in February 2015. Billings (LCS 15), Indianapolis (LCS 17) and St. Louis (LCS 19) are in the construction phase.

USS Little Rock will be the first of an eventual eight Freedom-class Littoral Combat ships to be homeported in Mayport, Florida.

Manned by a crew of fewer than 100 sailors operating under a concept known as the “3-2-1 plan”, the Navy will rotate three crews for every two ships, keeping one of those ships underway at all times. The LCS will have a core crew of about 50 sailors, then a specialized crew for each type of mission.

The Littoral Combat Ship is the model of modularity. The Little Rock will be a launch pad for aircraft (manned and unmanned) and unmanned surface and underwater vehicles. 

Depending on its mission package (which requires only a 3-day turnaround), the ship can conduct anti-submarine, anti-surface warfare or mine countermeasures missions. The Little Rock has a built-in capacity for growth, with sensor packages and equipment designed using open architecture and already linked to a vast network across the US Navy fleet.

Freedom-class ships are 378.5 feet long with a 57.4-foot beam and have 3,000 metric tons displacement (with a full load). Draft is 12.8 feet and top speed exceeds 40 knots.

Little Rock will be the fifth in the fleet of the odd-numbered Freedom variant, featuring a steel double-chine advanced semi-planing monohull design. The even-numbered LCSs are of the Independence-variant featuring stabilized slender monohulls of aluminum.

Smaller than a frigate, the LCS is an agile force multiplier in gaining and sustaining maritime supremacy while conducting operations consisting of freedom of navigation, theater and maritime security, maritime law enforcement, counter-piracy, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, search and rescue and maritime domain patrols.

The Original Little Rock

Little Rock (LCS 9) is the second Navy vessel named after the capital city in Arkansas. Upon its champagne-splashed hull, the littoral combat ship will continue the proud heritage of the original USS Little Rock (CL 92), which is now a museum ship at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, Buffalo, N.Y.

The first Little Rock featured three different hull numbers and designations during its 31-year career.

USS Little Rock (CL 92) was originally in service from 1945-1949. That first four year tour of duty included training and exercises off Cuba and transiting the Panama Canal. Later, it sailed in the Mediterranean 1947-1948 and was then decommissioned in 1949 to join the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at New York.

After a three-year conversion to a guided-missile cruiser, USS Little Rock (CLG 4) was recommissioned in 1960. During November 1961, Little Rock was ordered to the waters off Santo Domingo to provide stability during a period of unrest following the assassination of President Rafael Trujillo. The ship also sailed annually to the Mediterranean as it maintained peace in southern Europe and the Middle East.

Little Rock was the Sixth Fleet flagship during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War June 5-10, 1967. The cruiser provided assistance to USS Liberty (AGTR 5) after the ship was mistaken for an Egyptian vessel and attacked by Israeli Air Force fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats June 8. The attack, which severely damaged the ship, killed 34 crew members and wounded 171.

While steaming in the Mediterranean with the USS John F. Kennedy (CVA 67) task group, a young ensign named Ray Mabus, now the Secretary of the Navy, served as a surface warfare officer aboard the cruiser from 1970-72. 

Mabus presented the keynote address at the christening of the new USS Little Rock (LCS 9).

On June 5, 1975, USS Little Rock represented the United States during the ceremony at Port Said, Egypt, for the reopening of the Suez Canal which had been closed since the June 1967 Six-Day War. It was the only foreign warship in the official flotilla that sailed down the canal to Ismailia for the occasion.

In 1975, Little Rock’s designation was changed from CLG-4 to CG-4. The cruiser and other ships of the Sixth Fleet provided protection and assistance during the June-July 1976 evacuations of non-Lebanese citizens of Beirut, Lebanon.

Little Rock was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on Nov. 22, 1976, stricken from the Naval Register, only to be re-designated for the last time — as a museum ship, the only World War II cruiser on display in the United States and the sole survivor of the Cleveland class, according to the Historic Naval Ships Association.

On June 30, 1979, USS Little Rock opened to the public, along with Fletcher-class destroyer USS The Sullivans (DD 537) and Gato-class submarine USS Croaker (SS 246) at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, Buffalo, N.Y.

By Marex, The Maritime Executive

Spring 2015 The Beacon: Marinette Marine Corporation Receives LCS 21 Contract

The Beacon, MMC newsletter outlines the movement of the USS Little Rock before it's launch, as well as, recently procured contracts for future ships and other movements of the company.

April 2015 – The US Navy issued the Lockheed Martin (LM)-led in-dustry team (including Marinette Marine Corp.) a contract modification for one fully funded 2015 Littoral Com- bat Ship (LCS 21) valued at $362 million, along with $79 million in advanced procurement funding for a second ship to be funded by December 31, 2015. Award of LCS 21 brings MMC under contract with LM for nine ships of the 10-ship block buy, increasing our backlog through 2020.

The advanced procurement dollars approved by Congress provides the funding required to maintain the cost and schedule of the final block buy option. The award also includes a priced option for one additional fiscal year 2016 ship.

“We are proud to continue this partnership with the Navy in building the advanced Freedom-variant littoral combat ship, and we thank the Navy for maintaining the cost and schedule for the block buy,” said Joe North, Vice President of Littoral Ship Systems at Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training. “Thousands of people across the country contribute to this important program and will con- tinue to do so as we transition to the new frigate upgrade in the coming years.”

The award comes as USS Freedom conducted a successful deployment to South-east Asia in 2013 and is currently operating out of her homeport in San Diego, California, while USS Fort Worth is deployed until 2016. The USS Fort Worth is serving in the U.S. 7th Fleet to strengthen international relationships, visit more ports, engage in multi-regional naval exercises and further LCS capabilities using both manned and unmanned assets. 

“Marinette Marine and the surrounding community are extremely proud of the LCS program,” said Jan Allman, President, CEO and GM of Marinette Marine Corporation. “We currently have six ships under various stages of construction, and are now in full rate serial production. We look forward to extending our backlog and continuing our strong partnership with the Navy for many more years to come.”

The contract modification is for con- struction of LCS 21 and LCS 23, the 11th and 12th Freedom variant ships. The first ship on this 2010 contract, the Milwaukee (LCS 5), was christened and launched in 2013, and is slated to be delivered to the Navy this summer. Detroit (LCS 7) was launched in 2014. Little Rock (LCS 9) and Sioux City (LCS 11) are in construction, with LCS 9 christening and launch planned for this summer. Wichita (LCS 13) had its keel laid in February 2015. Billings (LCS 15), as well as Indianapolis (LCS 17) and to be named LCS 19 are in the construction phase.

Marinette Marine Corporation, a Fincantieri company, is building the ships in Marinette, Wisconsin, with naval architect Gibbs & Cox of Arlington, Virginia, providing engineering support. Fincantieri has invested more than $100 million in the Marinette facility on upgrades that have increased efficiency and minimized energy consumption, an expansion that will allow for construction of more than two ships at a time, and process improvements that will speed up production. 

Courtesy: The Beacon: Marinette Marine Group