Will the LCS Deploy Early?

As reported by Geoff Fein of Defense Daily (subscription only).

"Following the successful completion of Acceptance Trials Two, the CNO has directed the OPNAV staff and USFF to evaluate the feasibility of USS Freedom (LCS-1) conducting a short deployment earlier than originally envisioned," Lt. Clayton Doss, Navy spokesman, told Defense Daily Friday. "The CNO is interested in employing the unique capabilities of this new class of warship as soon as practical, taking into consideration the milestones associated with a first of class warship."

Should the Navy determine Freedom is ready for a short-term deployment, she could be outfitted with any of the three mission packages being developed for the class: Surface Warfare (SuW), Mine Warfare (MIW), and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW).

All three mission packages have been delivered in various states of completion, Doss noted.

It isn't a bad idea. The risk is political more than operational. Trial by fire may also give the Navy more information to make decisions on adjustments for future ships.

For me, I'm more interested in seeing how the LCS deploys in regards to the crew than I am seeing the ship itself deploy. Will the blue crew take over the ship, work up for deployment for a few months, then deploy for a few months, or would the gold crew deploy and the blue crew swap in overseas? How would that work exactly? I see that as one of the more interesting discussions of a possible LCS-1 deployment.

In the end, a deployment will justify some of the talking points of the ship. It will not be able to deploy with a full capability module, so the flexibility of adjusting payloads enabled through modularity will be emphasized. The ship will also be able to highlight its "littoral" capability by emphasizing speed in whatever assured access environment the ship deploys to.

I do like the idea of testing the ship in operational conditions though, particularly as part of a larger group. The LCS really is designed to work, and empower, other ships in a force, and I think there is something to that concept that could be very useful from the perspective of a force commander directing the LCS operations to support a task force objective. I also think the lessons in logistics will be very useful regardless of how mature any mission module may be.

I look forward to hearing about what this thing can do.