Admiral James Lyons (ret) does not appear to be very happy with the Littoral Combat Ship program. In an editorial titled Ship Shopping List, the editorial turns into a laundry list of specific items about the LCS he isn't happy about. He makes the case against the speed, stealth, aluminum construction, weight priority, cost, and capabilities or lack thereof. I have no intention of quoting the article, but you can read the whole thing at the Washington Times.The problem isn't the ship, at least in my opinion, the problem is the expectations the ship can do too many things it is not built to do, and the belief by too many that the criteria of being seen a certain way is the only way the platform sells. Here is something people need to accept, the ship is already sold, there will be many built. The question is, why and for what purpose? It isn't a tactical question, it is a strategic and political question.
I think the Navy would be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't buy at least 6 LCS in FY11, FY12, and FY13, and it wouldn't be an awful idea in my opinion to buy 5 instead of 3 in FY10. If the Navy bought 5, 6, 6, and 6 respectfully, add in the 4 already built/funded, that would be 27 total, replacing the 26 minesweepers all of which the Navy wants to retire, half of which have already been retired. Beyond building those 27, I've seen no strategic or political imperative that suggests why the Navy should keep going until they reach 55. Twenty seven Littoral Combat Ships would be a really good upgrade of the Navy's MIW flotilla, a political victory for the new administration, a political victory for Congress, and a step forward instead of backward towards sustaining the Navy's numbers.
While building more hulls and political victories for the Navy are important, as a minesweeper replacement the LCS becomes an upgrade in the fleet nobody can argue against except to complain about cost. Complaints about cost are nothing new, and because over the next 4 years there are no alternatives that could be inserted in the meantime, those critics have nothing to suggest replacing the LCS with anyway. However, when suggesting the LCS should replace something besides minesweepers, the critics are right. The LCS only addresses some of the requirements the Navy has in terms of fielding a more capable 21st century force, and pretending the LCS is a frigate does not in fact make it one.
LCS was never intended to be a stand alone ship. Originally, the LCS was intended to be part of a larger networked approach to the littoral battlespace and the unmanned systems carried by LCS were intended to enable scouting in that network. The DDG-1000 and LCS were intended to operate together, enabling the others weakness. The DDG-1000 was supposed to be the HVU littoral warfighter with the range necessary to cover a large swath of sea with deliverable munitions via AGS. The LCS was intended to be a screen for DDG-1000 and would create a broad information network around the DDG-1000 and into land, and using its unmanned systems would provide the information necessary to insure fires hit targets. Without the DDG-1000, the LCS ship is no longer creating an information battlespace in the littoral environment (including onto land) for another combat centric littoral platform. The total littoral network concept was sound at a high level, questionable in implementation with DDG-1000 but still viable, but now that half the network was removed from the concept when the DDG-1000 was cut the current plan isn't a network, rather it has become a single node.
I'm not the biggest fan of the LCS, and I think the comments on my blog represents the opposition community of the LCS more so than anywhere else outside the Navy itself, but I believe this platform has a role to play and just because the Navy doesn't explain it well doesn't mean the ship concept is a bad idea.
I don't know if it is accurate to suggest the big problem here is the technology, because I think the technology is merely a symptom of the problem. The problem is that the Navy does not have a littoral strategy that is articulated well, if developed at all. Until the Navy knows what the littorals are to them, until they have a strategic imperative regarding the littorals that can be articulated, until they have a good reason to be there (and it better be damn good because the littorals can be a nasty place), and until they can define the requirements; I am not sure we will see any sort of comprehensive approach to the littorals by the Navy.
While I have heard officers suggest the littorals are important, words are not reflected by actions. If the littorals were so important, why is the NECC underfunded and so remarkably small the Army and Marines still do most of the river patrols in Iraq? If the littorals were really so important, why have the Marines struggled to get more amphibious ships? If the littorals were really so important, where is the evidence?
I see no evidence, so perhaps the littorals are not as important as was stated a decade ago. Honestly, as much as I don't agree with the Heritage Foundation report we discussed a few days ago, I see no evidence from either the DoD, civilian leader, or from a politician that suggests the Navy should be anything other than a blue water force, so maybe Heritage is right. What is the stated strategic imperative to be in the littorals? It doesn't exist, so why should the Navy spend any money at all moving that direction, including with the LCS?
The LCS is an enabling capability for building a network inside the littoral battlespace, but now that the LCS is the only littoral platform, it is the only node in that network. What this ship is enabling the Navy to do besides scout the battlespace is very much unclear. As an enabling capability, it is supposed to be enabling something to do work in the battlespace. Unfortunately, the combat platforms it will now be supporting in the littorals have by default become 9000 ton destroyers, the same ships the Navy doesn't want to send into complex littoral environments.
The question the Navy needs to answer is what the littoral is to them, then develop the requirements. Once the requirements are developed, it will be easier to see where the LCS fits, and what changes if any should be made. Does it become the HVU of a littoral squadron, or does it become the screen for an armed frigate intended to fight in the littorals? Either way, if there is a strategic imperative to be in the littorals, I believe the LCS does fit somewhere because the unmanned systems it delivers are part of the requirement to enable information in that complex environment.
When people suggest the LCS is in search of a purpose, I don't think that is not accurate. The LCS has a purpose, but the purpose is to support another platform that doesn't exist. The LCS is still part of the littoral requirement set, but the other pieces of the original requirement no longer exist. What the LCS is enabling to do work in the littoral remains a huge question mark in my opinion, and absent something else, the LCS becomes the target of questionable requirements by critics, and assigned additional requirements it isn't designed well to do by supporters who simply want to build more ships.
The Navy should build up to 27 LCS through the first term of the Obama administration, but I hope while they do that, they immediately set about building a $100 million dollar platform the LCS can enable to do its work in the littoral, or perhaps a $600 million frigate if that is a better way ahead. Either way, attempting to turn an enabling capability into an engagement capability simply to sell the program is a poorly designed communication strategy. The LCS is needed if there is a strategic imperative to operate in the littorals, but the necessity for the LCS doesn't conceal the reality something else is still missing and is also needed to meet the requirements of the complex human terrain environment the littorals represent.
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