DOT&E; FY2011 Annual Report

The DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report (PDF) is out, and I noted that Wired is focused on the LCS report (PDF). The reason the Wired article on LCS reads like it's reaching for straws to find news in the LCS report is because the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Report on LCS lacks new information. The DOT&E report basically details exactly what ADM Pandolfe told everyone at Surface Navy Association conference - in January of last year (in 2011). Hard to get worked up about issues openly discussed over a year ago.

What I did find interesting about the report is that the report heavily focuses on the MIW module problems, but only one aspect of the module - the airborne pieces expected to be used on the MH-60R helicopter (AN/AQS-20A and ALMDS). Does that mean the rest of the MIW module is doing well? I don't know what the absence of concerns for the SUW and ASW modules means either. Does that mean the program components of those modules aren't mature enough to evaluate, or does it mean they don't have any concerns right now with those components? I don't know.

About the only thing I learned in the LCS DOT&E report is that DOT&E is still actively sounding the bell on the survivability issues of LCS, and the Navy is still not ready to discuss that issue about LCS with anyone. Everything else in the DOT&E report reads like first in class ship stuff. I still think Austal should have seen the corrosion issue coming, and I don't like that there has already been a crack in LCS1, but these are issues where Navy folks involved appear comfortable with the corrections made to address those issues.

While LCS is likely to get lots of attention early (the program is the Navy's attention whore these days), there really isn't much in the DOT&E report on LCS that was new, and certainly nothing worth getting worked up about.

If you want to see what a truly damning report in the DOT&E FY2011 Annual Review looks like, check out LPD-17 (PDF). The report uses several hundred words to detail how the class is "assessed as capable of conducting amphibious operations in a benign environment, but not operationally effective, suitable, or survivable in a hostile environment due to significant reliability deficiencies on major systems affecting communications, propulsion, and self defense."

LCS has nothing even remotely close to damning as that assessment.