ARTICLE

April 2003

Littoral Combat Ship Moving Closer to Reality

Navy keeps options open, could end up buying two different LCS hullforms

by Sandra I. Erwin

For the U.S. Army, transformation is about a family of vehicles called “Future Combat System.” For the Navy, it’s about a fleet of small fighting vessels named “Littoral Combat Ships.”

The Navy envisions LCS operating close to enemy shores, clearing mines, chasing diesel submarines and potential terrorists, and ferrying special-operations forces. It will travel at speeds of up to 50 knots. At least two helicopters or unmanned aircraft will operate from the LCS deck.

Contractor proposals for LCS are due April 14. By August or September, the Navy plans to select up to three industry teams, each of whom will receive a $10 million contract for a seven-month design phase.

The program is on a fast-track schedule. The Navy wants a ship in the water by 2007, a goal that some observers believe is unrealistic. Whoever wins the design competition will have to deliver two Flight 0 ships—one by fiscal year 2005 and the other by 2006, said Jim Heller, the LCS program manager. Those two ships may not be of the same hullform, he said.

Beyond Flight 0, the picture gets murky. Even though the chief of naval operations Adm. Vernon Clark has said the Navy could buy up to 60 ships, industry sources expressed concern about an acquisition strategy that calls for the award of only two ships, without specifying whether the winner of Flight 0 will be guaranteed any subsequent orders for Flight 1, for example.

The Defense Department’s budget has $4 billion for LCS between 2004 and 2009—one ship in 2005, one in 2006, three in 2008 and four in 2009.

Each LCS hull must cost no more than $220 million, in 2005 dollars. The “objective cost,” the price the Navy wishes for, is $150 million.

That cost estimate, however, may be premature, said Cynthia L. Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association. “It’s too early to know the exact cost until the Navy identifies all the requirements,” she said. “They put the number out as a target,” but the price could change, once the specifications are refined further.

Navy officials have described the LCS as a member of a futuristic family of ships that includes the DDX land-attack destroyer and the CGX next-generation guided-missile cruiser. They stressed that by no means should the LCS be considered a replacement for the DDX, as critics have speculated. “The operational concepts for DDX and LCS, although complementary, are fairly different,” said Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton, program executive officer for Navy ships. The DDX, equipped with heavy 6-inch guns, is for “precision volume fire to ranges in excess of any system we have currently in the fleet,” Hamilton said in an interview. Meanwhile, “LCS has to take a variety of mission packages, integrate them at much higher speeds, in a smaller hull. You cannot simultaneously solve the speed equation and get a big gun.”

The size of the LCS is expected to be about 3,000 tons—compared to 12,000 tons for a destroyer. The crew on the LCS would not exceed 40 sailors. A destroyer operates with a crew of at least 300.

The industry’s powerhouses already have lined up teams for the LCS competition, although corporate alliances still may shift before the program reaches the next phase.

The LCS contractor teams include some of the same firms currently participating in the DDX program. So far, the following competitors have announced they will submit proposals:

• Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems heads a team that includes Gibbs & Cox, Bollinger Shipyards and Marinette Marine. Lockheed originally had proposed a catamaran hullform, but later announced that the team was keeping its options open.
• General Dynamics Bath Iron Works is teamed with Austal USA, the Boeing Co., BAE Systems and Maritime Applied Physics Corp. The GD team is proposing a trimaran (3-hull) design.
• John J. McMullen Associates leads a team that is offering a fast missile patrol boat, the Skjold (a Norwegian word that means “shield”), developed by Umoe Mandal. Other firms in this group include Raytheon Co., Delex and Atlantic Marine. The Skjold is a surface-effects ship, combining the features of hovercraft and catamaran hull designs.
• Northrop Grumman heads the only team proposing a monohull ship, the Visby, designed by Kockums, a Swedish firm. The Visby is made of advanced composite materials and features an angular designed that reduces the radar signature, according to Northrop Grumman.

Another potential competitor is Textron Systems Marine and Land, makers of the Marine Corps landing craft air cushion (LCAC).

LCS contenders such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman plan to capitalize on their experience in the DDX program, officials said. Raytheon, for example, may apply to LCS the integrated undersea warfare system and the command-and-control technologies it developed for DDX and the amphibious assault ship LPD-17, said Jack Cronin, Raytheon vice president for DDX.

A John J. McMullen official who did not want to be quoted by name said that any technology transfer from DDX will focus on manning, survivability, weapons and electronics.

Another program tied to LCS is the Coast Guard Deepwater, an umbrella modernization effort that will replace aging cutters, patrol vessels and aircraft. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are teamed as prime contractors for Deepwater. Both Navy and Coast Guard officials have stressed that the LCS and the Deepwater program were intrinsically tied, because the Coast Guard could not afford to develop its own ships and would rather piggyback on the Navy investment.

Lockheed Martin officials, meanwhile, are trying to distance their LCS proposal from Deepwater. Industry sources said the obvious reason for that is that Lockheed’s Deepwater partner, Northrop Grumman, also is its most formidable rival in the LCS program.

During a news conference, Lockheed Martin NE&SS President Fred Moosally, said he is “not sure what the tie is” between LCS and Deepwater. Commonality could be found in the command-and-control networks or the unmanned vehicles operating off the ships, he said. But Moosally said he did not “see a match” when it comes to the ship hulls.

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