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2016-05-01

Littoral Combat Ship: More than just a warship

The LCS warships meet and exceed the survivability requirements

The U.S. Navy fleet is often considered the biggest and most powerful in the world. As such, it didn’t take long to the forward-thinking American decision-makers to recognise that the regions with shallow seas might give rise to future threats.

Therefore, they needed smaller ships capable of playing big roles.

The Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) have proved to be a perfect solution as being capable of defeating growing littoral threats and providing access and dominance in the coastal water battlespace.

A fast, maneuverable surface combatant, the LCS provides war-fighting capabilities and operational flexibility for focused missions including mine-clearing, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare.

Not only does it replace and meet the survivability requirements of three retiring ship classes - FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, Avenger class mine countermeasures vessels, and MHC-51 Osprey class coastal mine hunters - but the LCS brings the capabilities of frigates, patrol combatants and mine countermeasure ships into a single ship class.

The LCS programme is a bold departure from the traditional U.S. Navy shipbuilding programmes.

New ship, new features

The LCS is a relatively small surface warship designed to operate close to shore for missions like minesweeping while under the cover of a destroyer, as well as patrolling, port visits, anti-piracy, and partnership-building exercises.

Each LCS has a flight deck and hangar for two SH-60 or MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, a stern ramp for operating small boats, space for a small assault force with fighting vehicles to a roll-on and roll-off port facility.

The ships have Mk 110 57-millimeter guns, RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, and unmanned aircraft, boats, and submersibles.

The LCS concept emphasises speed, flexible mission modules and a shallow draft.LCS’s open architecture enables rapid and cost-effective technology insertion and spiral development capability. LCSs are networked to share tactical information with other naval aircraft, ships, submarines, joint and coalition units and LCS groups, providing the right people with the right information quickly and efficiently.

Regarding the shore support, under the LCS sustainment concept, the majority of legacy shipboard functions of logistics, maintenance and training are moved ashore, thus removing these functions from the ship’s crew and allowing for a reduction in underway crew size.

The Maintenance Support Team (MST) is the enabler for LCS distance support. In order to support a minimally-manned ship, a modest shore support organisation has been established and is being provided the latest distance support tools.

There are three primary facilities designed to support LCS. The first, the LCS Support Facility (LSF), has offices for the LCSRON staff, off-ship core crews and Mission Package (MP) detachments, and pre-commissioning crews.

The second is the LTF which houses key training equipment for qualification and certification of crews and detachments.

The third is the MPSF which provides sustainment and depot maintenance support for all mission modules.

When it comes to maintenance the LCS is again different from most surface ships. The traditional crew level maintenance for LCS is pushed ashore and corrective maintenance is performed using distance support and fly-away teams.

The LCS sustainment strategy calls for frequent maintenance periods to be included in the operational schedule of the ship and associated mission packages - normally once per month for standard preventive maintenance and once every four months for more significant corrective maintenance.

The LCS employs a 3:2:1 crewing/deployment model unique to the surface fleet, in which three rotating crews operate two ships, keeping one of the ships forward deployed.

A key enabler of LCS rotational crewing is the LCS shore-based training and certification capability, which represents a significant advancement in the surface force approach to qualification of individual watch-standers and teams.

Both crew and ship training are based on a virtual ship-centric concept, accomplished through a combination of classroom instruction, vendor training, shore-based trainers and sophisticated virtual reality training systems. This ensures LCS ships deploy with fully qualified sailors, allows for crew rotations while LCS ships are deployed and increases the forward presence time for each LCS ship.

The Freedom class and the Independence class are the first two LCS variants.

Faith in the LCS increases with new orders

In April 2016, the U.S. Navy surface experts ordered two new LCSs under the terms of two separate shipbuilding orders cumulatively worth $1.13 billion.

The announcement of two separate $564 million-worth orders to Lockheed Martin Corp. in Baltimore and to Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama, was made by the officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington.

Contracted to build one littoral combat ship each, Lockheed Martin will build a Freedom-class LCS while Austal USA will build one Independence-class LCS. The ships should be finished by July 2020.

The difference between the two orders is that the Lockheed Martin Freedom class (LCS-1) is a conventional 3,200-ton monohull, while the Austal USA 2,800-ton Independence (LCS-2) class is designed with a trimarin hull.

The Freedom class LCS: Built to fight

What kind of ship has Lockheed Martin been contracted to build? In few words, the Freedom-class LCS is built to fight. The warship meets and exceeds the survivability requirements for the three ship classes it will replace.

It has a steel, semi-planing monohull design that is based on a proven, survivable design recognised for its stability and reliability.

Furthermore, its size and maneuverability allows ships to access more ports and locations than other ship designs, making it more versatile and accessible for the U.S. Navy fleet’s worldwide operations.

That has already been proven by the ship’s successful deployment in Southeast Asia and continued trials with other Freedom-class ships.

The first deployment to Singapore

provided valuable insight into the ship’s concept of operations, maintenance, and crew size, training and rotations.

During deployment, Freedom participated in multinational maritime exercises, conducted strategic patrols of the South China Sea, strengthened relationships with international allied navies and provided disaster relief in Operation Damayan following Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013.

“Over 12,000 people and 500 suppliers in 37 states contribute to this critical programme and will continue to do so as we transition to the new Freedom-class Frigate in the coming years,” said Joe North, vice-president and general manager at Littoral Ships and Systems, highlighting the significance of the Freedom-class LCS.

Since 2008 all Freedom-class ships have sailed more than 200,000 nautical miles conducting missions for the Navy.

Lockheed Martin is expected to deliver the new vessel in 2020. It will be the 11th procured under the 2010 block buy contract and the 13th Freedom-class variant.

The company has already delivered three ships, while seven are in various stages of construction and testing, and three more in long-lead production.

Lockheed Martin recently validated the COMBATSS-21software system that will be aboard the nation’s new LCS. COMBATSS-21 and the ship’s Total Ship Computing Environment provide the hardware and software interfaces for quick integration of new capabilities such as weapons, sensors and communication links.

The ship’s other features include an open architecture integrated combat management system derived from the Common Source Library that produces the Advance Capability Build (ACB) 12 used across the U.S. Navy’s latest Aegis surface combatants.

In addition, the ship’s Intelligent System Manager (ISM-X™) provides a fully integrated plant management system for propulsion, electric plant, auxiliaries and engineering casualty/damage control systems.

It employs open software architecture, distributed processing and an integrated development environment to reduce the labour and material costs of implementation, while improving overall system performance, reliability and flexibility.

The LCS’s modular, focused-mission design will provide combatant commanders the required war-fighting capabilities and operational flexibility to ensure maritime dominance and access for the joint force.

The success in building the LCS warships also demonstrates Lockheed Martin’s focus on affordability in a demanding economic climate since with each LCS built, the cost continues to decrease.

The Independence class LCS: A fast and agile warship

The newly-ordered LCS 26 will be the eleventh Independence class LCS built by Austal as prime contractor, with the U.S. Navy exercising an option in addition to Austal’s existing 10-vessel block- buy contract.

Funding for LCS 26 has been confirmed by the Navy as not to exceed the congressional cost cap of $564 million. It has increased Austal’s order book to approximately $3 billion.

“It is pleasing to see the Navy’s ongoing confidence in Austal’s ability to produce these high quality vessels,” said Andrew Bellamy, Austal’s chief executive officer.

“We are working hard to increase production efficiencies and reduce costs as the programme matures and look forward to constructing the newly funded ship, which secures work at our US shipyard through to CY2021.”

In addition, Austal is a subcontractor - acting as a shipbuilder - for two other Independence class LCS - LCS 2 and LCS 4, with General Dynamics being the prime contractor.

The interest in the Independence class LCS is not without reason. It is a high speed, agile, shallow draft and networked surface ship.

The ships are openocean capable, but are designed to defeat growing littoral threats and provide access and dominance in the coastal water battlespace.

A fast, maneuverable and networked surface combatant, Independence class LCS provides the required war fighting capabilities and operational flexibility to accomplish critical war fighting missions including mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare with inherent capabilities that also support missions.

The LCS Independence Variant also facilities watercraft launch and recovery capability support-focused mission packages outfitted with both manned and unmanned air, surface, and sub-surface vehicles.

A mission bay and three weapons modules provide support service interfaces between mission package weapons, sensors and vehicles and the seaframe.

Furthermore, the 127 metre Austal trimaran seaframe is the platform for the LCS’s mission and weapon systems. This seaframe provides superior seakeeping and aviation as a result of its long, slender central hull and smaller side hulls, known as ‘amahs’.

Located above the mission bay is the enormous flight deck - the largest of any current US Navy surface combatant and capable of conducting dual H-60 helicopter operations and accommodating the H-53, the US Navy’s largest helicopter. That feature is not available on other similar size naval warships.

The vertical location of the flight deck on the trimaran hull form provides the highest flight deck elevation on a combatant ship other than a major amphibious vessel or aircraft carrier.

Austal is also engaged on building other ships for the U.S. Navy. At the moment, the company is progressing well under its $1.6 billion contract to construct ten 103-metre Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) vessels for the Navy.

For the LCS and EPF programmes, Austal, as prime contractor, has teamed up with General Dynamics Mission Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics.

Reference Text/Photo:

www.lockheedmartin.com

www.af.mil

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