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USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) in 2013 trials (navaltoday.com) |
The Director of Operational Test and
Evaluation (DOT&E’s) latest (2015) report on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)
program would at first glance appear another in a long line of damning reports
suggesting the Navy end the troubled littoral combatant effort. A deeper
examination, however, suggests a test and evaluation organization hopelessly
locked in a 1980’s era of naval design. DOT&E demands the highest levels of physical survivability for the LCS
sea frame as if this part of the LCS system alone was to be exclusively
employed in high-end naval conflict. It excoriates the lack of progress in
mission module development and sea frame reliability, and demands greater
levels of testing, but sometimes grounds its disapproval of some LCS program
elements on the result of just one test. The test and evaluation authority is
unhappy that the sea frame crew cannot diagnose and repair all equipment
casualties. This is not surprising as the LCS concept places a substantial
portion of the system’s maintenance with shore-based facilities and units. The
rest of the report is a “gotcha” list of details on the progress, or lack
thereof in the various LCS mission modules and two sea frames. Perhaps it is time for DOT&E to leave the
1980’s and realize that a modular warship cannot be so directly compared with
and tested to the same standards as its multi-mission, unitary capability predecessors.
The first paragraph of the DOT&E
report states, “The now-planned use of the Littoral
Combat Ship (LCS) as a forward-deployed combatant, where it might be involved
intense naval conflict, appears to be inconsistent with its inherent
survivability in those same environments.” The report also says, “DOT&E
does not expect either LCS variant to be survivable in high-intensity combat
because the design requirements accept the risk that the crew would have to
abandon ship under circumstances that would not require such action on other
surface combatants,” and “Much of
the ship’s mission capability would have been lost because of damage caused by
the initial weapons effects or the ensuing fire.”
DOT&E personnel must not have read or disagree with the descriptions and
concepts of operations published by various authorities on the LCS program.
Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work’s 2013 Naval War College paper on LCS makes
it very clear that the Navy has always accepted limitations in the LCS’s
survivability in favor of low cost and greater numbers. Both sea frames are
larger and more physically survivable than the Avenger class mine countermeasures ships (MCM’s) and Cyclone class patrol coastal ships
(PC’s) that they replace.[1] They
are still robust ships in that they can survive upwards of 15% of their
floodable length being compromised while remaining afloat.
They are smaller and less physically survivable then the previous Perry class frigates but have equally
robust active and passive defense systems. Unlike the FFG’s, the LCS is not
intended to operate alone in high threat environments. If damaged in battle the
LCS is designed to limp back to base and not attempt to” return to the fight”
as are so-called high-end U.S. surface warships.[2] Large
cruise missiles and torpedoes are the likely weapons of an enemy in what the
DOT&E report describes as “intense naval conflict.” It remains to be seen,
however, that any warship could meet the test and evaluation authority’s
demands for “survivability.” The DDG-51 class USS Cole was completely disabled in an October 2000 terrorist
attack by what some experts described as a 400-700 pound shaped charge warhead.[3]
The Russian supersonic P-270 Moskit cruise missile has a warhead estimated to
be 700 pounds of which 300 are actual explosive.[4]
The impact of even one such weapon at supersonic speed would likely disable any
U.S. surface combatant, making DOT&E’s criticism of LCS survivability in
“intense naval conflict” a moot point if physical resistance to damage is the primary concern. The Navy has accepted limitations in the
LCS design from the inception of the program. DOT&E is welcome to disagree,
but they need to say that in their report and not compare LCS to higher
capability warships that are little more survivable if hit by cruise missiles
likely to be employed by U.S. opponents.
In a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on LCS released last
month, DOT&E was very critical of the lack of testing within the LCS
program. It suggested that, “The sparse data
available do not allow a strong statement about LCS’s ability to meet
requirements in other operational scenarios.”[5]
One month later, DOT&E’s year-end report on LCS questioned the suitability
and reliability of the Independence sea
frame based on testing of one representative of the class. The DOT&E report
lists a number of equipment casualties and other problems, but does not compare
these faults against previous ships under similar test circumstances. A laundry
list of equipment faults encountered during a testing cycle is useless without
comparison to a deployed, functional unit of the class, or another ship engaged
in a similar test and evaluation cycle. Despite this, the operational test and
evaluation authority seems content to fault the LCS program based on the same
limited testing they recently deplored.
DOT&E criticizes the LCS sea frames crews because, “they do not have
adequate training, tools, and technical documentation to diagnose failures or
correct them when they occur.” The testing agency acknowledges the emphasis on
off-board LCS maintenance when it states, “By design, the ship’s small crew does
not have the capacity to effect major repairs. Instead, the Navy’s support
concept depends on the use of remote assistance in trouble shooting problems
and the use of Navy repair organizations and contractors for repair
assistance.” Despite this admission, DOT&E makes the superficial criticism
that, “the Navy’s limited stock of repair parts for LCS systems, many of which
were sourced from offshore vendors, can result in long logistics delays and
occasionally forces the Navy to resort to cannibalization of another ship in
order to expedite repairs.” These comments sound more like the usual criticisms
of the LCS program from the GAO and CBO, rather than observations on
operational testing of LCS capabilities. This is perhaps not surprising given
that DOT&E Director Dr. J. Michael Gilmore is a veteran of the CBO and was
a critic of the LCS concept while serving in that office’s National Security
Division.[6]
Dr. Gilmore may very well continue to object to the idea of off-board
maintenance support. If so, he should make that clear in his report, and not
blame parts shortages. As with its survivability definition, DOT&E’s
concept of proper ship maintenance seems grounded in past decades where a
warship’s operational and repair capabilities were resident on a unitary hull.
The LCS concept tries to limit the costs of maintenance by separating some
aspects of the ship’s missions and capabilities from its hull as suggested in a
2006 RAND report commissioned by the Navy to investigate the spiraling cost of
naval surface combatants.[7]
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USS Coronado fires 57mm gun in 2014 trials (defenseupdate.com) |
The operational test and evaluation office puts on a different “public
face” when its 1980’s-era testing methods are criticized. In a recent response
to an article by Sidney Freedberg Jr. on the breakingdefense.com website
entitled, “LCS Test Vs. Fast Attack Boats ‘Unfair”, DOT&E fell back on a
familiar defense to justify its criticisms. The office stated that it accepted
that, “LCS is being introduced in an incremental manner,” and that it, “accepted
the Navy’s defined success criteria to assess these events.” Despite this,
DOT&E goes on to say that, “In a real battle, there would be a good chance
LCS might have sustained damage at that point that could have affected its
subsequent capability to successfully repel the attack.” This statement shows
the test and evaluation office insists on measuring the Navy by its own
standards and not those the Navy desired, in spite of accepting the Navy test criteria. It would be helpful for DOT&E
to publish a list of their experts involved in monitoring the LCS program to
assess whether or not the test and evaluation authority has the operational
experience to be as critical as it has been of the littoral combat ship
program.
The 2015 report includes substantial
material from past years’ reporting which makes the laundry list of LCS faults
appear more dangerous and distressing. Such reports on warship faults have been
the stock and trade of Congressional watchdog groups like DOT&E, the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and the Government Accountability Office
(GAO) since the early 1970’s. They are absolute requirements for organizations
whose primary mission and reason for continued funding and existence is finding
fault.
LCS was never intended to be as survivable
in high-end naval combat as previous warships were designed. The modular
warship was designed as a component of a joint, networked battle force whose
payloads are more important than the platforms that carry them. LCS is a
compromise platform that included elements of previous frigate, patrol and mine
warfare platforms. It sacrifices some of the physical survivability of the
previous frigate design in achievement of numbers of ships. It forgoes
redundancy and other physical characteristics of survivability in favor of
active and passive defenses that maximize its ability to field modular
payloads. It does not have to replicate the physical and capability-based
survivability of larger warships. To do so would increase its price, limit its
modular capabilities and needlessly replicate what is already provided by high-
end combatants like the DDG 51 class destroyer. Demanding that LCS be more
physically "survivable" in order to play a role in high end combat,
and retain maximum maintenance and repair abilities aboard represent past naval
designs whose costs are not sustainable in building a low end surface warship for
present need. In demanding legacy, expensive capabilities in LCS, DOT&E is
in effect demanding that MTV play music videos, even when every such program is
available in seconds to a customer on youtube. DOT&E is clearly locked in a
1980's assessment of a 21st century battle network force.
[1]
http://awin.aviationweek.com/Portals/AWeek/Ares/work%20white%20paper.PDF.
P. 44, last assessed 01 February 2016.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0010/18/bp.00.html,
last assessed 01 February 2016.
[5]
http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/674367.pdf,
p. 14. Last assessed 01 February 2016.
[6]
https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/report_0.pdf,
see preface, last assessed 02 February 2016.
[7]
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2006/RAND_MG484.pdf,
pp. 66, 67, last assessed 02 February 2016.
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