February 18, 2019 9:39 PM
The following is the Feb. 16, 2019 commissioning ceremony of the Littoral Combat Ship USS Tulsa (LCS-16) in San Francisco, Calif.
Austal Expanding Involvement in LCS Program Through Maintenance Planning, Execution
By: Megan Eckstein
February 11, 2019 2:16 PM
The littoral combat ship USS Montgomery (LCS 8) enters dry dock for Post Shakedown Availability (PSA) at San Diego Ship Repair on May 19, 2017. PSA is designed to harness results of a thorough test and evaluation period and pave the way to operational employment by the Navy. It is the last availability in the ship construction period and required repairs identified during combat systems ship qualifications trials and final contractor trials are made using contractor and program office money. US Navy photo.
Austal USA is looking to deepen its ties with the Littoral Combat Ship program, pursuing multiple efforts to remain involved in maintenance and life cycle management for the ship program still about halfway through construction.
The Alabama shipyard is in talks with the Navy regarding opportunities to do post-delivery maintenance at its Mobile shipyard; conduct planning yard services and maintenance in San Diego and at other West Coast shipyards; and support LCSs operating forward in Singapore.
Terry O’Brien, vice president of business development for Austal USA, told USNI News that the company wanted to be involved in the LCS program from “cradle to grave.”
“If you start looking at the models for Bath, Ingalls and other shipbuilders, it is not uncommon for the shipbuilder to be involved at the planning yard stage and also during the actual conduct of maintenance,” he said.
The first of these opportunities to come to fruition is conducting post-delivery work at the Austal yard in Mobile. The Navy awarded the yard a $16.3-million contract on Jan. 24 to conduct “extended industrial post-delivery availability work” in a new arrangement that is “a first for Austal USA and the Navy,” according to a company press release.
O’Brien said the original model has LCS ships sail around from the Gulf of Mexico, through the Panama Canal and up to San Diego before conducting shakedown work and then the post-shakedown availability (PSA) at a San Diego dry dock. However, there is already a shortage of dry docks in San Diego, and the growing presence of Austal’s Independence-variant LCS – with a trimaran hull that requires dry docks for work that other kinds of ships could do pierside – will only put further pressure on the situation.
Under this new model being tested out on the future Cincinnati (LCS-20), two kinds of work would get done in Mobile: first, any work that was not completed during the construction period that the Navy chose to postpone until after delivery and commissioning, to be done at PSA. And second, any guarantee work to correct deficiencies found during sea trials in the Gulf.
“It’s a little bit on the innovative side – more than a little bit, it’s innovative,” O’Brien said.
“It helps the Navy. One, gets it done quicker, gets it done cheaper. And when they show up in San Diego it makes the ship more available for training. So they show up, they don’t have to immediately go in a maintenance availability, a lot of that’s done – any of the [remaining] maintenance that needs to be done initially when it gets to San Diego, that timeline is shortened. So obviously that helps the Navy get their asset out there, get it done and lets the people who know the ship best do the best maintenance – that’s us.”
One issue that still has to be worked out is whether the ship would conduct a full shakedown period at sea in the Gulf so that the entire PSA could take place in Mobile, or if some work would be done in Mobile, followed by more at-sea time in San Diego and then a shorter follow-on PSA there. O’Brien said the Navy awarded a contract for 12 weeks of post-delivery work for only one ship for now, but if the proof of concept goes well he hopes that the remaining nine LCSs would do similar post-delivery maintenance in Mobile.
Austal has a vessel completion yard at the shipyard where the work on Cincinnati will take place with existing personnel. If the Navy chooses to use this post-delivery model for the remaining nine hulls, some permanent fixtures would be added to the vessel completion yard to support this maintenance effort.
“The people that are doing the repairs on the ship are the people that built the ship, so they know the ship better than anybody else. So we think you’ll get a better quality and lesser time, so we think that’s a good proposition for the Navy and for us,” O’Brien said.
“When the ship arrives (in San Diego), it arrives better able to start the training process. It will be more materially ready, but also it will take less time to have to do maintenance in San Diego – so when the crew and the ship get there they’re ready to go.”
Next on Austal’s to-do list is gaining a greater foothold on maintenance planning and execution in San Diego, where every Independence-variant LCS will be homeported.
The Navy has already put out a solicitation for LCS planning yard support, and O’Brien said he expects the Navy to award a contract by this summer.
If Austal were to win that work in San Diego, “it allows us, as we plan these and the changes come to the ship, we can take a lot of that knowledge and then bring it back into the new-construction side of it. So if we know the Navy at the five- or 10-year point on a ship’s life, they’re planning to do some upgrades to the combat system or whatever, we can then take a look at it and figure out what we can do on the new ships to either mitigate or lessen that [future change],” he said.
“Once you build a ship and send it on its way, you want to stay involved in the planning yard piece of it because it helps you as you build new ships. And also, on the planning yard help, we’re the experts on the ship, so you don’t get a third party in there every time you have to relearn the ship or re-understand what’s going on. We have the ability to understand what’s been done, what can be done, what will work and what’s currently some of the successes we’ve had. So we think that’s a good area for us to expand. It’s a logical place for the builder to go.”
When it comes to actually performing the maintenance, though, Austal doesn’t have a yard on the West Coast and is looking at several options so they can stay involved in the performance of maintenance in some capacity.
“In San Diego, we’re looking at the availability of dry docks and do we want to get into that business. We’re heavily looking at the ability to either acquire or partner with somebody with a dry dock in the future. We think we’d provide the Navy with some solutions and help ease some of the dry dock burden for the Navy in the Pacific,” O’Brien said.
The Navy is also considering easing the dry dock burden in San Diego by moving some dry dock work farther up the coast – such as to Vigor’s yard in Portland, Ore., where USS Coronado (LCS-4) will complete a drydocking selected restricted availability (DSRA) – so Austal is in talks with these yards as well to see about partnering and providing Austal’s expertise on the ships.
“We are aggressively pursuing folks that have maintenance on our ships to partner with them,” O’Brien said.
With not just routine maintenance coming up ahead of the LCSs beginning a steady stream of rotational deployments, but also technology insertions such as the over-the-horizon missile system – O’Brien said he felt it was all the more important for Austal to remain involved in planning and execution of work.
The LCSs’ first stop overseas will be Singapore, where Austal has had a small office for about three years now and is ready to expand once the LCSs are operating there.
“We want to be staged out there, particularly in Singapore – it’s critical for the ships to be ready at all times, and if there’s issues we can respond quickly. So we’re starting to ramp that up to be able to provide that support out there,” he said.
Austal’s Singapore office is already supporting Austal’s other ship program, the Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF), and has a good relationship with the Commander of Logistics Group Western Pacific and Commander of Task Force 73 that will also oversee the LCSs in the region.
O’Brien said the company is looking at other maintenance facilities in the Philippines, Vietnam and other locations where Austal could help support “expeditionary maintenance” outside of the main hub in Singapore. This ability to mature LCS maintenance options as more LCSs show up in the region is “actively in our thoughts.”
The future littoral combat ship USS Tulsa (LCS 16) returns to Austal USA after launching from the drydock at BAE Ship Systems on March 16, 2016. US Navy photo.
The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) is pierside at Naval Base San Diego and preparing to conduct final contract trials (FCT) on Oct. 20, 2017. US Navy photo.
Amphibious Community Pushes for Continued Spending Amid Worries About 2020 Shipbuilding Plan
By: Megan Eckstein
February 7, 2019 4:56 PM
The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper (DDG 70) steam in formation while participating in a photo exercise in the Arabian Gulf on Nov. 28, 2017. US Navy photo.
CAPITOL HILL – The amphibious warship community and supporters on Thursday pushed for continued momentum for shipbuilding, amid growing concerns that the upcoming Fiscal Year 2020 ship construction plan may not be as generous as the 2019 plan was.
Things are looking positive for amphibious force: the Navy decided to replace its aging Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships (LSD-41/49) with a Flight II variant of the much more capable San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD-17), which will be built on the same hot production line at Ingalls Shipbuilding as the first 13 Flight I ships. On the larger amphibious assault ships, there is increasing chatter in the Navy about accelerating the procurement of the next hull, LHA-9, to avoid any gaps in production and even to buy that ship as part of a two-ship buy, akin to the recent two-carrier buy that was lauded for its cost savings.
However, it’s unclear what the FY 2020 budget request and accompanying long-range shipbuilding plan will hold. Several sources told USNI News that this year’s plan pulls back on new shipbuilding compared to the 2019 plan and its $21.9 billion shipbuilding and conversion account request. Though it won’t be clear what this means for individual ship programs until the budget and the long-range shipbuilding plan are released – potentially as early as March 12 – Navy leadership has already started backing away from last year’s plan that outlined a path to a 355-ship fleet. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said Wednesday at the Atlantic Council that “our analysis – for now – is 355. We’re in the middle of reassessing that force structure, and we’ll see where that takes us. That study is due to complete later on this year.”
At a Thursday morning Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition breakfast on Capitol Hill, Lt. Gen. David Berger, the deputy commandant of the Marine Corps for combat development and integration, said in a speech that “those of us in the Marine Corps side, we see, like the other services, we see everybody’s budget; and the Navy funding is challenged just like ours, and the Navy is going to have to make tough choices. Absolutely they’re going to. But if you’re going to have a fighting inventory of amphibious ships, these cannot be at the bottom of the pile in terms of prioritization. And they’re not, and we need to constantly push them towards the top.”
Berger added that the FY 2019 shipbuilding plan was “probably the most favorable we’ve had in probably 20, 25, 30 years” but that that support for amphibious shipbuilding needed to be maintained in the coming years, not reversed.
“Maintaining the momentum, though, it was mentioned earlier, means accelerating buys and looking at two-ship buys. Some selected service life extensions. But specifically, like the LHA-9 procurement and the (LPD) Flight II procurement cannot be pushed out into the future. There’s an industrial capacity portion of that, but frankly, selfishly, there’s a warfighting part that says we can’t take a hiatus for two or three years. We cannot do that. It’s too important.”
The Navy’s shipbuilding plan has long had LHA-9 slated for FY 2024, despite the future Bougainville (LHA-8) being a FY 2017 ship. That long gap between ships would disrupt the production line at Ingalls Shipbuilding and have potential effects on cost, schedule and quality of LHA-9. The AWIBC this morning called for LHA-9 to be moved from 2024 to 2021 to keep the hot production line churning.
Berger noted during his speech that continued support for new construction wasn’t the only thing the amphibious fleet needed: it needs support for modernization and repairs, and support for introduction of new capabilities.
On maintenance, he said the Navy has 32 amphibs, 20 of which are operational as of this morning and 12 of which are in yards for maintenance. This is only slightly better than a year ago, when 14 of 31 were in maintenance.
“We can never be satisfied with ships’ maintenance. … You and I cannot be satisfied with two out of three being up,” Berger said.
“We have to push hard all the time. … We have to resource ships’ maintenance.”
On new capabilities, Berger referenced the Amphibious Warship Evolution Plan that would bring increased lethality and connectivity to amphibs. Berger said the ships needed Vertical Launch System cells or other weapons “all integrated into an organic air defense capability, because we’re going to be threatened from the air,” as well as improved communications but lower signatures emissions because “they’re going to try to find us, and if they can find us they can target us.”
Berger also talked about using amphibs as a mother ship for unmanned platforms in the air, surface and subsurface. He said the Marines don’t have that capability today, but all the technology pieces exist and could be netted together to allow amphibious ships and Marines to use unmanned systems for surveillance and strike missions, among others.
Lastly, he told USNI News during a question and answer session that the Navy and Marines needed to invest in two areas to support amphibious ships: a family of connectors to move Marines around the littoral battlespace, and mine countermeasures tools to allow Marines to move there safely.
“If you’re going to move a distributed force in the littorals, you’re moving back and forth between land to land, land to ship, ship to land. And [the connectors] need to be different sizes, different capabilities. It isn’t one or two – [the expeditionary warfare directorate] is working on a family, and we’re going to need that,” Berger said of the next generation of connectors.
In that littoral space, he continued, “one of the major threats is from mines. I wouldn’t say we fell asleep at that, but we haven’t been challenged at that for a while. We are assuming we will be. So we have to have a counter-mine capability” that is fully resourced to keep the Marines safe.
Despite the spending needs in a year that experts predict will be tough for defense spending, one lawmaker was optimistic the amphibious community had a strong pitch to make for funding.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a former Marine officer himself, told the military and industry leaders at the event that “we can’t just hammer the need for the statutory requirement for amphibs, more amphibs this, more amphibs that – we have to get creative in terms of the story we tell about using the amphibious fleet to the American people, otherwise we will be in a very difficult environment here in Congress to give you the amphibs you need. For example, the Mk 6 patrol boat is deployable from the well decks of our amphibious fleet. They’re small, they’re highly maneuverable vessels, they are an enormous asset – especially if current efforts to equip them with long-range anti-ship missiles (LRASM) pay off, for example. So you can imagine using amphibs as a mother ship, you can imagine parking patrol boats armed with LRASMs in disputed or strategic areas where they provide near-constant presence. The point is, it’s going to be up to our nation’s amphibious force to deliver outside-the-box solutions like this.”
USS Tripoli (LHA-7) is launched at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. on May 1, 2017. US Navy Photo
John Murtha (LPD-26) during acceptance trials. HII Photo
Littoral Combat Ships Headed to SOUTHCOM for Drug Interdiction Patrols This Year
By: John Grady
February 7, 2019 8:19 PM
USS Wichita (LCS-13) conducts acceptance trials on Lake Michigan on July 11, 2018. Lockheed Martin Photo
A Littoral Combat Ship, with an embarked Coast Guard law enforcement detachment, will hunt for drug runners in U.S. Southern Command later this year, the command’s top officer told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
Adm. Craig Faller said the LCS deployment was top of his list of wants for his command followed by more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, a stepped-up Coast Guard presence and more cooperation from other U.S. agencies in the interdiction mission.
The LCS will also allow SOUTHCOM to improve maritime training exercises throughout Latin America and provide a visible physical presence of United States’ interest in the region at a time when China and Russia are paying greater attention to South America, particularly in aiding the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Even though narcotics interdictions reached record levels in 2017 and 2018, traffickers are taking new routes, using submersibles to escape detection, co-opting fishing vessels to move narcotics in their holds and increasingly using airfields in Venezuela to fly out cocaine to sites in Central America for distribution into the United States.
Faller said the traffickers are adapting faster than the U.S. and its partners can keep up to staunch the flow of drugs from South and Central America.
The bulk of the mission at sea has been undertaken by the Coast Guard since the Navy has infrequently sent ships to the region since the last of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates decommissioned in 2015.
The LCS was supposed to replace the frigate role in U.S. 4th Fleet, with embarked Coast Guard law enforcement detachments, but the ships have been late in filling the gap
In addition to the record number of seizures, although he and the senators put the amount seized at between 20 to 25 percent of the tonnage of illegal drugs that enter the United States, there were some other bright spots. He cited El Salvador’s increased support in this area and the Colombian government again turning to crop eradication as a means of cutting off the flow at the source.
“We’re nudging, but not moving the needle enough” in cutting off illegal narcotics trafficking. That includes fentanyl coming from China.
Faller told the panel that despite the partial government shutdown the Coast Guard stepped up its presence in his area of responsibility.
“They did that without pay [and] without parts,” he told the panel. He estimated 1,600 Coast Guardsmen participated in 2018 missions that included 21 interdictions and the confiscation of more than 17 tons of cocaine.
News reports put the value of the seizures at more than $440 million.
The Coast Guard, “has stepped up in a big way,” he said.
Faller told the committee that illegal narcotics were “at the heart” of the security concerns of the region and are the driving force as to why so many Central Americans keep heading northward for a better life.
“This is a problem that will take years to solve, not months,” he said.
LCS Mission Package Office Focused On Test, Fielding; IOC Dates Continue to Slip
By: Megan Eckstein
January 25, 2019 2:46 PM • Updated: January 25, 2019 4:21 PM
A view of the Marinette Marine shipyard from the Menominee River as the future littoral combat ships USS Billings (LCS 15), left, and USS Indianapolis (LCS 17) are moored in front of USS St. Louis (LCS 19), before St. Louis’ christening, Dec. 15, 2018. US Navy photo.
ARLINGTON, Va. – The Littoral Combat Ship mission package program office considers itself to be out of the technology development business and fully into testing and production, the program manager said last week.
All three of the LCS mission packages are in some form of testing this fiscal year and will hit various initial operational capability milestones in Fiscal Years 2019, 2020 and 2022, Capt. Ted Zobel said at a briefing during the Surface Navy Association’s annual national symposium. However, the anti-submarine and mine countermeasures mission packages’ anticipated initial operational capability dates have slipped a bit again, despite the progress being made on testing the mission package equipment on two separate LCS hull variants.
The furthest along of the three mission packages is for surface warfare. That package is set to deploy on as many as three LCSs later this fiscal year, with the initial version of the mission package having already reached IOC in 2014 and 2015. The program office is working as fast as it can to finalize the addition of the Surface-to-Surface Missile Module (SSMM) – a Longbow Hellfire missile – in the hopes that one of the ships set for a 2019 deployment, USS Detroit (LCS-7), could take the missile along on its maiden deployment.
Beyond the 30 mm and 57 mm guns, SeaRAM anti-ship missile defense system and small rigid-hull inflatable boats already in the surface warfare mission package, the Longbow Hellfire missile would give the LCS a greater ability to go after fast attack craft (FAC)/fast inshore attack craft (FAC/FIAC). That threat is especially prevalent in the Persian Gulf, where Bahrain-based LCSs would patrol, due to Iranian small boats, and could be relevant in crowded waterways in the Pacific for the Singapore-based LCSs.
“I think it’s pretty fair to say that SSMM, which is a Longbow Hellfire, really is the Navy’s premiere FAC/FIAC weapon,” Zobel said in his presentation.
SSMM completed its developmental testing and began operational testing two months ahead of schedule, Zobel said, and is on track to hit IOC for the Lockheed Martin-built Freedom-variant hulls in the second quarter of FY 2019. Throughout 79 live-fire shots during developmental, integrated and operational testing, SSMM has maintained a 91 percent successful engagement rate. The Navy is buying the first module this year and should wrap up procurement by 2024, but with the modules used for testing the Navy may be able to complete the test, integration and installation work in time for the Detroit deployment.
SSMM integration with the Austal USA-built Independence-variant hulls is a few months behind the Freedom-variant counterpart. USS Jackson (LCS-6) has been identified as the ship that will support SSMM integrated testing for the Indy variants, which should start in the third quarter of FY 2019.
Originally slated as the last to deploy, the anti-submarine warfare mission package will now be the second to reach IOC. This package centers around a variable-depth sonar that puts a transmitter and receiver in the same part of the water column, Zobel said.
“I believe this mission package represents a game-changing capability in the fleet,” he said, echoing previous comments from Navy officials about the leap-ahead improvement the VDS represents compared to current technology destroyers and other surface ships use to detect underwater threats.
In November the program office accepted a pre-production test article and began land-based testing in December.
Just last week the program office began testing at the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center in the Bahamas, using a contracted civilian vessel to haul the mission package equipment. After this ongoing testing is finished, the program office will take the mission package and send it to San Diego, where USS Fort Worth(LCS-3) will be outfitted to accept the mission package and conduct developmental testing in the summer or fall.
Zobel told USNI News after his presentation that the civilian vessel was used for the AUTEC testing to avoid asking an LCS to sail from San Diego around to the Bahamas, the location of the only undersea testing site of its kind.
Congress cut all funding for variable-depth sonar procurement in FY 2019, but Zobel said this funding cut would not hinder the anti-submarine warfare mission package from reaching IOC in FY 2020 – the current plan, but a slip from a previous IOC prediction of 2019. The captain made clear that there was sufficient research and development funding to cover the AUTEC testing and the Fort Worth developmental and operational testing in California.
“If the system continues to perform the way it is, I can’t help but assume that support will follow,” he told reporters of congressional support for procurement funding.
“The zeroing of the funds in 2019 do not impact our ability to get to test in ‘19. That plan is still on glideslope, and we should be able to meet our IOC in ‘20.”
Now the final package to reach IOC, the mine countermeasures package is headed for an FY 2022 IOC declaration, another slip compared to a previous 2021 IOC date and even earlier dates before that.
The Independence-variant ships are now certified to operate all three aviation assets – the COBRA Coastal Mine Reconnaissance system, the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) and the Airborne Mine Neutralization System (AMNS) – after COBRA was certified recently. COBRA testing aboard Freedom-variant hulls will begin next month and should be certified by the end of 2019, Zobel said.
Integrated testing on the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) and the Knifefish unmanned underwater system began on USS Independence (LCS-2) just before Christmas and wrapped up last week, Zobel said. Those systems will be certified for Independence-variant hulls by the end of the year, and will be certified on the Freedom variant by next year.
In a separate news release, Naval Sea Systems Command noted that the UISS and Knifefish integrated test event was important because it validated the communications link between the ship and these two offboard systems as well as their ability to be launched and recovered – the final two to be tested on the Indy variant, after successful testing with the MH-60S helicopter and MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter.
The entire mission package will go through developmental and operational testing in FY 2021 and will reach IOC in 2022, according to Zobel’s presentation.
Separately in LCS news, the Navy last week awarded Lockheed Martin a contract for one FY 2019 Freedom-variant ship, LCS-31. In December the Navy awarded two 2019 ships to Austal and declined to say whether the third ship was guaranteed to go to Lockheed Martin or would be awarded competitively. With LCS-31 now on contract, Lockheed Martin now has 16 ships built, in construction or on contract, compared to 19 for Austal. This contract is for the last LCS, as the Navy will move to the frigate as its small surface combatant beginning in FY 2020.
The littoral combat ship USS Montgomery (LCS 8) departs Naval Base San Diego to conduct routine operations and training in the Pacific Ocean. US Navy photo.
The Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) conducts operations with an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 8, during exercise Phoenix Fire 2018, Nov. 1, 2018. Phoenix Fire is a small-scale littoral combat exercise conducted in southern California by Helicopter Sea Combat Weapons School Pacific to enhance combat readiness through robust, realistic training while providing joint and combined partners the ability to work with multiple assets in a maritime and littoral environment. US Navy photo.
Fincantieri to Build LCS 31
Maritime Executive
Freedom-class LCS (file image courtesy USN)
BY MAREX 2019-01-21 18:40:48
Within the Littoral Combat Ship Program (LCS), the US Navy has awarded the consortium consisting of Fincantieri, through its subsidiary Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM), and Lockheed Martin Corporation, a contract to build an additional LCS.
LCS 31 will be the 16th ship of the LCS Program Freedom-variant, one of the US Navy’s main shipbuilding programs. The Fincantieri and Lockheed Martin team is in full-rate production of the Freedom-variant, and has delivered seven ships to the U.S. Navy to date. There are seven ships in various stages of construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine.
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 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. LCS Freedom-variant vessels have been successfully deployed to the Western Pacific.
Navy Statement on Littoral Combat Ship: Lockheed Martin
By NAVSEA, Office of Corporate Communications | Jan. 15, 2019
On January 15, the U.S. Navy exercised a contract option with Lockheed Martin Corporation to purchase one Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), completing the acquisition strategy for fiscal year 2019 as authorized and appropriated by Congress. The ship is designated “LCS 31” and will be built at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin.
The LCS is a small surface combatant that plays a vital role in American maritime security. The ship provides the Navy the ability to rapidly counter small boats, submarines and conduct mine countermeasure operations close to the shoreline. The Navy’s 2016 Force Structure Assessment revalidated a warfighting requirement for 52 small surface combatants (LCS and Frigates). A total of 35 (LCS) ships have been procured through fiscal year 2019.
The LCS class consists of two variants, the Freedom variant and the Independence variant, designed and built by two industry teams. The Freedom variant team is led by Lockheed Martin and the Independence variant is led by Austal USA.
A view of the Marinette Marine shipyard from the Menominee River as the future littoral combat ships USS Billings (LCS 15), left, and USS Indianapolis (LCS 17) are moored in front of USS St. Louis (LCS 19), before St. Louis’ christening, Dec. 15, 2018. US Navy photo.
Navy Set to Restart LCS Deployments this Year, Despite Challenges in Manning, Training
By: Megan Eckstein
January 14, 2019 11:57 AM
USS Wichita (LCS-13) conducts acceptance trials on Lake Michigan on July 11, 2018. Lockheed Martin photo.
The Navy is optimistic it will deploy three Littoral Combat Ships by this fall, after not deploying any last year and grappling with significant gaps in manning and advanced training.
The service was supposed to push forward three ships in Fiscal Year 2018, after a 2016 overhaul of LCS homeporting, command and control and manning constructs. However, USNI News first reported in April 2018 that zero LCSs would deploy in FY 2018. Since then, the Navy had not talked publicly about progress made towards getting ready to deploy its first LCSs since ships from a block-buy contract started delivering to the fleet at about four a year.
Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Richard Brown told reporters on Friday that “we’re deploying LCS this year, it’s happening,” and that two from the West Coast and one from the East Coast would depart before FY 2019 ends in September.
“Two ships are going on the West Coast; one ship is going on the East Coast, followed shortly [by a second] in the beginning of ‘20. And that marks the deployment of LCS; there will always be LCS forward-deployed now, just like we designed the program,” Brown said in the media call.
He said USS Montgomery (LCS-8) and USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) would deploy from San Diego to the Western Pacific, and that USS Detroit (LCS-7) would deploy from Florida, though he did not specify to which location, WESTPAC or Bahrain. USS Little Rock (LCS-9) would follow shortly after in early FY 2020 from Florida.
“We are very excited about that because the naval component commanders are screaming for LCSs because they know what they’re going to bring to the fight.”
The Navy has previously deployed three LCSs to Singapore – USS Freedom (LCS-1), USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) and USS Coronado (LCS-4) – but the first four LCSs have a different enough design from the block-buy ships that the Navy has deemed them research and development assets that will not deploy unless an emergency arises. Since those deployments, the Navy has overhauled how it organizes, mans and prepares the ships for deployment. Between the changes in the organizational structure and differences in the hulls themselves, questions remain regarding how these 2019 deployments will look under the new model.
Despite Brown’s confidence, the Navy has not made clear how it will overcome manning shortfalls and a lack of a plan for how to train and certify the ships for deployment. The Navy did not respond to multiple requests for information over four months from USNI News, and it is still unclear if those issues have been resolved yet.
Manning and Training Shortfalls
According to LCS briefing slides from Naval Surface Force Pacific in late August and reviewed by USNI News, the LCS community has a “lack of distributable inventory” when it comes to sailors, and the Navy has shown “insufficient LCS prioritization to support current/future billets.” There are no excess crews to help fill any gaps, and the crews of precommissioning ships are being drained to support billets gaps in commissioned ships, according to the slides. Those enlisted sailors who report to an LCS crew are not always fully trained, with just 31 percent arriving with a primary Navy Enlisted Classification, which then affects the timeline for the individuals and the crews to qualify to operate the LCS.
The briefing slides note the importance of manning issues on LCS, which has a minimally manned crew that requires each sailor to hold many titles and collateral duties.
Citing the U.S. Fleet Forces Command LCS Platform Wholeness Concept of Operations, the slides note, “One challenge presented by small crews is that each crew member, regardless of rank or rate, is vital to the operation of the ship. … Unlike other ships, there is almost no redundancy within LCS crews and the unplanned loss of even a single crew member may result in major mission degradation.”
According to a Naval Military Personnel Manual, the slide cites, “The LCS design, manning, and policies will be a significant departure from current legacy ways of doing business. Current directives will be inadequate to ensure LCS stays manned with the right people at the right time. Current ‘fit’ metrics will be inadequate to meet LCS needs.”
The slide goes on to note that, due to the minimal manning structure, the fleet needed to aim for 100-percent fit and 100-percent fill on LCS crews, compared to goals of 92-percent fit and 95-percent fill elsewhere in the surface fleet.
The Navy has not responded to several USNI News queries regarding the ongoing manning challenges in the LCS fleet.
On the training side, it is unclear if the Navy has even decided what the predeployment training and certification process will look like, let alone begun taking actions to implement it in support of the first three ships set for 2019 deployments.
According to the August 2018 slides, several options were on the table for advanced and integrated training: a single- or multi-LCS six-day advanced training event, followed by an integrated training event of up to eight days; an advanced Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training (SWATT) event conducted by the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) that would last about 16 days, followed by a three-day certification event; or a massive event that integrates LCS into existing SWATTs and Composite Training Unit Exercises (COMPTUEX) with other surface ships that could last as long as 36 days.
The slides note repeatedly that a decision had not yet been made, and the Navy has not responded to USNI News queries regarding whether a decision had been made and whether resources had yet been put towards beginning to carry out a decision.
According to the slides, an LCS Training Manual states that the notional 18-month LCS deployment model supports only 10 to 14 days of advanced and integrated training without affecting forward operational availability.
In the aftermath of the 2016 LCS Review, the Navy now fields two LCS Squadrons – LCSRON-1 in San Diego and LCSRON-2 in Mayport, Fla. Each LCSRON oversees divisions of four ships each – one division for surface warfare, one for anti-submarine warfare and one for mine countermeasures – and within each division one ship is designated the training ship and the other three are deployable ships. In Mayport, Detroit will be the first to deploy, but its training ship, USS Milwaukee (LCS-5), had been tied up in a lengthy post-shakedown availability that was extended by more than six months and was therefore unable to commence its training activities to support the original 2018 deployment. Similarly, in San Diego USS Jackson (LCS-6) was in a lengthy PSA as well and would not have been able to support the beginning of training for Montgomery under the previous deployment schedule. However, due to the deployments being pushed back from FY 2018 to 2019, Naval Sea Systems Command told USNI News that both Jackson and Milwaukee are now out of PSA and able to serve as the division training ship.
LCS Role in the Fleet
Brown told reporters during the Friday call that the LCS was built to be a single-mission ship – in the case of these LCSs deploying in 2019, anti-surface warfare (ASuW). He said the ships would focus on ASuW-only activities like partner-building exercises, fisheries patrols and other work suitable for a small surface combatant.
“But it’s definitely up to the 7th Fleet commander, because [Vice Adm.] Phil Sawyer, he’s got [operational control], he’ll be the guy that uses these. They’ll be fully certified to conduct ASuW operations, and all their systems will work, and they’ll have full redundancy when they go,” Brown said.
The surface warfare director on the chief of naval operations’ staff said having the LCSs out in the fleet to handle these lower-threat mission sets would ease some pressure on the destroyers and cruisers and allow them to focus on missions better suited for large combatants.
“The feedback from (past LCS) deployments has been incredibly positive, from the ships, from the fleet, from the allies they work with, across the board. People generally like having U.S. Navy vessels to work with, and this gives us more options. Where we can alleviate the higher-end ships – that’s the whole purpose of the small surface combatant,” Rear Adm. Ron Boxall, director of surface warfare (OPNAV N96) told USNI News in a Jan. 10 interview.
Boxall and his staff are working hard to get additional weaponry to the LCSs before they deploy in the coming months, for added self-protection and offensive capability if needed.
“We now have two really good capabilities that have just come out – number one being the [surface-to-surface missile module], which is an add-on to the ASuW mission package that will allow us to be much more protective in a small-boat environment,” he said.
“I think it has a very good capability, and we expect to deploy that in ‘19. … We’ve been very aggressive about getting that out there as soon as we can, so that’s a goal.”
“I’ve also challenged our enterprise to deploy Naval Strike Missile as soon as possible out on a ship. If it were up to me, I’d try to get it on ‘19 ships as well, but again, if we keep putting things into that backpack in ‘19, then the question becomes, what’s more important: to say we did it in ‘19, or to wait a month or two and get Naval Strike Missile capability on a ship? I don’t know if that’s even an issue, I’m just telling you those are considerations, and I think they’re good ones,” Boxall said.
“We fully intend to deploy ships in ’19 – again, that’s the fleet’s call – but if there’s any delays it’ll only be because we’re upgunning capabilities that we didn’t expect to have on there, and I think that’s a good idea to do that.”
USS Tulsa (LCS-16) arrives at its new homeport, Naval Base San Diego, Calif., after completing its maiden voyage from the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala. on Nov. 21, 2018 US Navy Photo
Independence-class LCS USS Omaha (LCS-12), USS Jackson (LCS-6) and USS Independence (LCS-2) on March 23, 2018. Photo by Christopher P. Cavas used with permission
USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) in maintenance at BAE Systems in San Diego, Calif. on March 23, 2018. Photo by Christopher P. Cavas used with permission
USS Wichita Commissions Saturday, Will Bring LCS MCM Capability to East Coast
By: Ben Werner
January 11, 2019 1:08 PM
The future littoral combat ship USS Wichita (LCS 13) conducts acceptance trials in July. Lockheed Martin photo.
A new Littoral Combat Ship will commission on Saturday and head up a new mine countermeasures-focused division at Naval Station Mayport, Fla.
The Navy accepted delivery of Freedom-variant LCS Wichita (LCS-13) in August, coincidentally on the same day another Freedom-variant, Sioux City (LCS-11), was delivered. The two ships, the 14th and 15th LCSs delivered to the Navy, were built by Lockheed Martin and the Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wisc. Sioux City joined the fleet in November.
“This commissioning represents USS Wichita’s entry into the active fleet and is a testament to the increased capabilities made possible by a true partnership between the Department of the Navy and our industrial base,” Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer said in a statement. “This ship honors the citizens of Wichita, Kansas, for their longstanding support of the Navy and Marine Corps team, and I am confident USS Wichita and crew will make our Navy and nation stronger.”
Under the current LCS organization structure, most Freedom-variant LCSs are homeported in Mayport, and all Independence-variant LCSs made by Austal USA are homeported in San Diego. Each homeport is host to an LCS squadron (LCSRON) that oversees three four-ship divisions: one for surface warfare, one for mine countermeasures and one for anti-submarine warfare. On the East Coast, Sioux City was the final surface warfare-focused ship, and Wichita will be the first to join the new MCM division.
Though Wichita will begin work on its MCM mission, the Navy is still developing some of the tools the ship will use, such as surface and subsurface mine hunting systems that include a sweep system and an unmanned surface vehicle with mine-hunting sensors. The LCS mine countermeasures systems are expected to achieve initial operational capability during Fiscal Year 2021, according to written testimony the Navy submitted to the House Armed Services Committee last March.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) is scheduled to deliver the commissioning ceremony’s principal address on Saturday. The ship’s sponsor is Kate Lehrer, author and wife of Wichita-native and PBS broadcaster Jim Lehrer.
Navy Tests ‘Littoral Combat Group’ Concept That Pairs DDG, LPD in South America Deployment
By: Megan Eckstein
January 3, 2019 6:05 PM
Sailors man the rails aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) as the ship is underway off the coast of Valparaiso, Chile during a parade of ships, Dec. 2, 2018. Wayne E. Meyer is part of Littoral Combat Group One, which is deployed in support of the Enduring Promise Initiative to reaffirm U.S. Southern Command’s long standing commitment to the nations of the Western Hemisphere. US Navy photo.
The Navy deployed a new ship pairing – a destroyer (DDG-51) and an amphibious transport dock (LPD-17) – to test out a new concept that could supplement amphibious squadrons and surface action groups as a formation in future operations.
USS Somerset (LPD-25), USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG-108) and Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SP-MAGTF)-Peru deployed together as Littoral Combat Group 1 in November and December.
While at sea, the operations the group conducted leveraged both ships’ bread and butter missions: supporting Marines and pushing them ashore, embarking a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment, hosting a surgical team for humanitarian assistance work, and more. The two ships sailed to Valparaiso, Chile, for the Eleventh International Maritime and Naval Exhibition and Conference for Latin America (EXPONAVAL) and the 200th anniversary of the Chilean Navy. Also during the deployment, the 1,000 sailors and Marines from LCG-1 worked with the Peruvian Naval Infantry in a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise in the disaster-prone Chorrillos district outside Lima, and conducted a maritime patrol exercise with Ecuadorian navy assets to counter illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing, among other activities.
The goal of the LCG-1 deployment was to work out the command and control, which placed a Navy captain as the commodore of two ships and the SP-MAGTF, as is the case with the commodore of an amphibious squadron (PHIBRON) who oversees an Amphibious Ready Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit, or a destroyer squadron commander (DESRON) commanding a surface action group. Still, though the focus of the deployment was on command and control and not the actual missions that a DDG and an LPD could conduct together, it’s easy to see how the Littoral Combat Group could be useful higher up the range of military operations: the DDG firing missiles at an enemy defense system to allow the Marine forces to move ashore, the Marines using their MV-22B aircraft in support of the DDG’s maritime security missions at sea, and so on.
A Navy official told USNI News that Expeditionary Strike Group 3 was the lead on this experimental deployment and will present the command structure and lessons learned to higher headquarters for review. The ESG, which reports to U.S. 3rd Fleet and includes PHIBRON 3, helped organize the disparate ships, leaders and detachments in just three weeks, pulling staff from 28 different commands. LCG-1 was led by Capt. Ken Coleman, the PHIBRON 3 commodore, and included a staff of 30 to 35 on temporary assignment and embarked on Somerset.
“The deployment of LCG-1 was designed to test a command and control concept. Wayne E. Meyer and Somerset were scheduled to participate in EXPONAVAL based on their operational schedules at the time, and LCG-1 provided command and control of those assets under a single commander. The complementary capabilities (brought by the) assigned Navy and Marine Corps units will inform future force development, both in how we organize our naval forces and how we employ them,” 3rd Fleet told USNI News in a written statement.
“In addition to its participation in EXPONAVAL, LCG-1 conducted several partnership training missions while underway and ashore in the [U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility.]”
LCG-1 reported directly to U.S. 3rd Fleet and U.S. 4th Fleet during the deployment, much like a PHIBRON would. Upon returning home – Somerset is homeported in San Diego and Wayne E. Meyer is now homeported in Pearl Harbor – the command disestablished. ESG-3 will take lessons learned from the deployment and make a proposal up the chain of command regarding how, if at all, this construct could be applied going forward, the Navy official said.
The Navy and Marine Corps are revising their concepts to align with the National Defense Strategy that focuses on warfare against a peer or near-peer adversary. Whereas previous concepts relied on conventional carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups to sail into waters uncontested and conduct their operations, newer concepts coming out look at fleet-wide coordination of disaggregated forces that can oppose an adversary in blue-water operations or in the littorals. Both the Navy and Marine Corps are pursuing new anti-ship capabilities for submarines, surface ships and ground forces, and the two services are looking at new ways the Marines can support the battle for sea control from ashore in the same way the Navy can support forces on the ground from at sea. Two key concepts, Distributed Maritime Operations and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment, are being fleshed out now and will inform upcoming acquisition and exercise efforts in the coming years.
Sailors and Marines man the rails aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset (LPD 25) as the ship is underway off the coast of Valparaiso, Chile during a parade of ships, Dec. 2, 2018. Somerset is part of Littoral Combat Group One. US Navy photo.
Lt. Noel Aliceacintron, first lieutenant of the amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset (LPD 25), speaks to military members from Chile, Peru and Brazil during a ship tour Nov. 14, 2018 in the Pacific Ocean. USS Somerset is part of Littoral Combat Group One (LCG-1), which is deployed in support of the Enduring Promise Initiative to reaffirm U.S. Southern Command’s longstanding commitment to the nations of the Western Hemisphere. US Navy photo.
Cmdr. Jeffrey Chao, second from left, the Littoral Combat Group One (LCG-1) surgeon, performs an exploratory laparotomy as other medical team members assist aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset (LPD 25), Dec. 7, 2018, while underway in the Pacific Ocean. US Navy photo.
