USS Freedom - "Fit and Ready for Service"

SAN DIEGO (May 2, 2024) The littoral combat ship USS Freedom (LCS 1) operates in the waters off Southern California. The littoral combat ship is a fast, agile, networked surface combatant designed to operate in the near-shore environment, while capable of open-ocean tasking, and win against 21st-century coastal threats such as submarines, mines, and swarming small craft. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jan Shultis/Released)

The Board of Inspection and Survey has taken a little Pacific cruise on USS Freedom (LCS 1), and issued a grade.

“My assessment is the ship is sound, the engineering plant is good, combat systems are good,” said Vice Adm. Richard Hunt. “The ship rides very well.”

That verdict came after a three-day “special trial” conducted May 22-24 at San Diego by the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, or INSURV. Nearly 200 people rode the ship — normally crewed by 40 sailors — to test the Freedom’s combat, communications and engineering systems; minutely examine the ship’s physical condition; and put the vessel through a series of ship-handling evolutions.

“There were some hiccups in the demonstration in some of the areas,” Hunt admitted, “and there are things that ought to be fixed on three, five and seven” — follow-on ships built to the Freedom (LCS 1) design. “But the things we identified [as problems] are fixable.”

The first thing that needs to be highlighted, I think, is that the TMI worked exactly as designed. I knew as soon as I posted the TMI results there was about a snowballs chance in hell that Freedom would fail INSURV, in fact, I don't think any ship that had their TMI results posted publicly would fail INSURV - which is one more reason I strongly believe the US Navy should be more transparent with TYCOM Material Inspection results since they are moving ahead with the policy of keeping INSURV reports classified.

You have to read all of Chris Cavas's article to get the full picture, which is basically the new baseline for keeping track of issues on USS Freedom going forward.

For me the hawse pipe design problem and the stern door problem stood out as the biggest issues. The design problem related to the hawse pipe forward appears to still be the problem without a solution on Freedom, because it also appears to be a problem on Fort Worth. That problem was on the ship in 2008 - when I rode the ship. That problem is not the Navy, that's the shipbuilder.

So water is still coming in on the stern doors? Again, that was an issue in 2008, and is obviously a design issue because the doors aren't the same on Fort Worth (but no word if the new doors on that ship are working). I note that Independence, Bertholf, and San Antonio (basically the three latest new classes of medium and large ships other than Freedom) have had major stern door problems. I don't think the issue is a show stopper for the deployment, because as I understand it the water seeps in only when the ship is at high speed, but that corrosion in the stern door area is only going to get worse until the stern door has an actual solution vs a mitigation process. 3+ years later though? Come on.

The propulsion plant issue that had one of the diesel engines down isn't that big of a deal to me, and was something that I had heard about previously. From what I understand of that issue, that's basically a 'crew needs more time at sea on the engines' problem because the hot bearing is related to an issue related to a yet to be determined setting for oil pressure. That is a new ship problem that gets fixed when time allows you to tinker with it at sea, something Freedom hasn't been able to do.

The misfire is an analogy just waiting to be defined in the comments, but that doesn't strike me as an issue if the ship has fired 840 rounds and only suffered 2 misfires to date. That's actually pretty good. With that said, in the article Hunt attributed the combat system problem to the crew being unable to load the combat system's software properly. OK... that sounds like a procedural issue, which happens, but I do wonder to what degree that process is done on simulators. I get it that the ship has been down for a long time and that process hasn't been performed much in over a year, but isn't that something that can be done in a simulator? Human error, got it; but a training simulator double check might be worth a look as well, just to be sure.

There were some positives covered in the article, and for the record Chris Cavas and I have both been on USS Freedom when it performs a crash back - and I remember Chris looked at me and whispered wow when it happened - which is probably why he notes Hunts reaction in the article. If you have ever been on a ship moving really fast that comes to full stop quickly, you'll know it can be bumpy. You know, that speed thing bugs me too, but I think for USS Freedom (LCS 1) we can at least say it appears speed has been designed into the ship well. The article ended with one last thing I want to cover.

Hunt said he had seen a great improvement in the Freedom over the past 18 months or so.

“I’m not sure I was a believer a year and a half ago, but I’m there now,” he declared.

Obviously it is noteworthy that the President of INSURV Rear Adm. Robert Wray and Commander, Naval Surface Forces Vice Admiral Richard W. Hunt were both apparently on the bridge during some portion of the 3 day INSURV. The reason I think it is interesting is because I have spoken to Vice Admiral Hunt before, and I know a little about him. For example, he was on USS Underwood (FFG 36) during that ships first deployment, which I think is interesting because USS Underwood (FFG 36) was the first of the FFG-7 class to field the 3 promised capabilities of the OHP - RAST, Link 11, and LAMPS III. In many ways, that gives him a lot of insight into what it means when USS Freedom (LCS 1) is being deployed without some promised capability - like the original modules, because he lived that story with the FFG-7 class as many did. Ten years after his tour on Underwood, Hunt was CO of USS Crommelin (FFG 37), which if you ever talk to a SWO who did a LT tour on a ship class then returned to do a XO or CO tour on the same ship class, you'll know those guys really know that ship class very well. Hunt is basically a 35 year active duty SWO who really knows frigates while also really knowing CRUDES, and he's also the Type Commander - so lets not ignore the irony that the TYCOM Material Inspection (TMI) of LCS 1 a few weeks ago was performed by his people.

I note these little informative details because from my point of view, the story of USS Freedom (LCS 1) is at minimum - always remarkable and interesting. I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait for USS Freedom (LCS 1) to deploy to Singapore, because it's an absolute certainty that the deployment will be remarkable and interesting - the same as it always is with this ship.

Congrats to both crews of USS Freedom (LCS 1). With the constant circus surrounding the ship, you folks are fantastic and have stayed professional through it all. I hope someone is keeping a good journal, because the book on this ships development would likely sell pretty well, and we are only on something like chapter 5 with many more chapters yet to be written.