Some Thoughts on the Littoral Combat Ship

This has been getting some discussion in the comments, might as well get a topic going on the blog.

From this Navy Times article discussing the USS Independence (LCS 2).

That said, LCS crews will live unlike other sailors. Ship’s company numbers 40, and a mission crew and air detachment bump the complement to 76. Officers and chiefs will live two per stateroom, each with its own head. Enlisted sailors will bunk four per stateroom, also each with its own head, bringing the shipwide head total to 32.

Enlisted racks are built with ample headroom, providing space to add a third bunk to each stack of two if it’s determined later that more crew members are needed. That would scale rack space up to 99.

Let me confirm a few things. LCS-1 can scale to 100. For both ships, extra berthing requires slight modifications to the galley, and LCS-1 would require some additional plumbing modifications as well. It is important to remember the lower crew requirement was mandated to the contractors by the Navy.

As I was looking through the images provided with that article, I noted the welds on the floor seen in this photo. LCS-1 is exactly the same, but it was tiled. Also, that bridge is much bigger.

I'm going through all the data I collected while on Freedom and have accumulated regarding Independence. I know from personal experience with the tape measure I took onboard there is plenty of room in the LCS-1 hanger for 2 H-60s and 3 Fire Scouts, and the same is true for LCS-2 based on all the documentation I have, but there is a catch with Freedom.

The requirements document required the LCS to carry a minimum of 20 mission stations that breaks down like this:

2 Aviation type 1
2 Sea Type 1
2 Sea Type 2
1 sensor
3 weapons stations
9 Type 1 support stations (20 foot TEU)
1 Type 2 support station (10 foot TEU)

If you add an additional H-60, you have to also add capacity for an additional Aviation type 1 station. That is easier said than done, the Aviation type 1 modules would in theory, want to stay on the same deck as the aviation zone. On Freedom this could potentially be put where the current Captains boat is located, because as I understand it that boat is going away. I have no idea how this could be designed into LCS-2, but if it could be places in the mission bays below deck, LCS-2 has a lot more space down there than LCS-1 does.

I don't think I have made this sufficiently clear in the past. The Littoral Combat Ships, and I speak from personal experience being on USS Freedom (LCS 1), have a ton of room for growth. When Chris Cavas and I would wonder around the ship together, we would both keep bringing up just how much space that ship has. These ships were built to grow, and can do that.

Am I critic of the Littoral Combat Ships? Yep. I love the concept, the Navy needs this platform for many reasons. The Navy needs the LCS to move the unmanned systems football down the field. The Navy needs the LCS because the Navy needs hybrid sailors (what I would rename littoral warriors!).

The Navy also needs the LCS for a reason no one ever brings up. Today's US Navy knows fleet deployment in the context of deploying a ship without the need for a tender. The Littoral Combat Ship is going to institutionalize the idea (whether they are ready or not!) that platforms need a tender. In the case of the LCS, the LCS itself is the tender for the unmanned systems. People either dismiss or have not considered the long term value of this cultural change, because if you fully think it through, you would recognize why the LCS concept is very similar to sustaining smaller patrol and coastal vessels from the sea. Ultimately, the LCS moves the mothership concept a considerable distance down the field. The USS Langley analogy means something...

Am I excited about 55 of these ships? Not really, at least not yet. 20-30 makes a ton of sense in my mind, replace the minesweepers because the capabilities added are well worth the costs. This is a learning curve, committing to 55 ships before we even know whether or not we have the concepts right is premature. It could be said committing to even 20-30 before the concept has been fleshed out in premature.

Yes, the costs of buying the LCS far outweighs any costs saved not buying the ship and starting some new program. I am very comfortable with the idea the LCS is a way to start small with motherships. If the Navy gets other stuff out of it with speed, so be it, but ultimately I don't see speed being a considerable factor in the vessel, and won't be surprised if during the evolutionary development process of the platform the speed gets reduced as a cost savings measure.

Ultimately, the Littoral Combat Ship is a technology, not a littoral strategy. The littoral strategy discussion needs to happen, because when it does the LCS will start to make more sense, because it will be discussed in context as an unmanned systems mothership supporting a littoral network for providing security during peacetime and exploiting the littorals during wartime. It does not matter to me that the Littoral Combat Ship is really not built well to operate in the littorals, since it will operate over the horizon and deposit its unmanned payloads into the littoral, nor a combat ship since it is a barely armed logistics ship. The name has no meaning to me, that can be someone elses parochial soapbox.

I think it is going to be very interesting whether the Navy asks for any changes to LCS-3 or LCS-4. I hope they do, and I hope Congress supports them. The learning curve for motherships and littoral warfare is going to be very steep, and if one day the culture in surface warfare becomes more open to the generation of new ideas, getting the contractors comfortable with evolutionary design changes early in the process would be a good thing.

(photo: David Hart, check it out, hi res!)