RAND: Trade-Offs in the US Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program

As Naval Research reports go in the open source, I would rate this one decent, not impressive. While it is distributed in the July 2007 stack of stuff for Congress on the work being done at RAND, the report itself appears to be dated to before the QDR last year.

The report examined 6 questions:

1. Where are the optimum locations for LCS homeports and mission package installation sites?
2. How many mission packages of each type should be procured and when?
3. How many mission packages of each type should be stored on available seaframes, at homeports, and at mission package installation sites?
4. What are the costs of acquiring mission packages and facilities for homeports and installation sites?
5. What cost and performance trade-offs and sensitivities occur with various combinations of the number of and the types of mission packages?
6. Relating Performance to Mission Package Inventories, Homeports, and Installation Sites

One thing about this report really bugs me. In their Major Combat Scenario, RAND claims the LCS races ahead of CSGs and ESGs to perform shaping operations. The ability to do this is actually praised, the transformational speed making this possible, and then RAND credits the LCS for being able to spend more time in theater.

Pardon me, but how realistic is it that during a Major Combat Scenario a strike group commander instructs a LCS to zoom ahead of the CSG and start minesweeping or conducting an ASW patrol? During a major combat operation, one wonders how wise it would be to stick your least capable escort in front of the fleet, which would probably be between the fleet and the enemy, and expose the LCS to that kind of unnecessary risk. One would also wonder, how long would the LCS survive in a major combat scenario on the front line without escort?

RAND claims it based all of its information on the LCS CONOP, but I'd argue that if the LCS CONOP has the LCS zooming ahead of strike groups to the front lines, then the Navy has settled the Streetfighter aspect of the LCS debate, and determined the ship is indeed expendable.

The report recommends San Diego, Japan, and Norfolk as LCS bases, while Bahrain and Singapore would be Installation sites for swapping out mission modules. It amazes me the Navy paid for that recommendation. More LCS project funding well spent no doubt.