Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)

Yesterday at 7:24 AM
I've been criticizing the 'modularity' here since ...
Jul 25, 2015


(instead I've been proposing a versatile Frigate, as in Oct 9, 2015)

and now I became aware of "The Navy, meanwhile, plans to
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on the concept of modularity in part to expand its fleet of ships to 355."
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which apparently is the statement based on the articles
Navy Will Lean on Drone Ships, Modularity to Expand Fleet Size
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and
CNO Richardson: Lessons Learned from Littoral Combat Ship on Modularity Will Guide Future Fleet Development
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plus
Document: Chief Of Naval Operations’ White Paper, ‘The Future Navy’
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let's wait and see
now "The primary difference between the Freedom-class and the Saudi-variant is the lack of modular mission space found in the U.S. version of the Littoral Combat Ship."
Saudi Arabia Set for $6B Lockheed Martin Frigate Deal as Part of Massive $110B U.S. Arms Sale
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Saudi Arabia is set to pull the trigger on a $6-billion deal to purchase four Lockheed Martin-built frigates based on the company’s Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship, as part of a major Foreign Military Sales case, USNI News has learned.

The deal – part of the overall $110-billion FMS case – is intended to be announced during President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh on Saturday, administration sources confirmed to USNI News on Friday.

The purchase of the four frigates for the Royal Saudi Navy is set to be the centerpiece of a refresh of the country’s Eastern Fleet as part of the Saudi Naval Expansion Program II. SNEP II has been in the works for more than a decade and is estimated to cost a total of $20 billion.

Representatives with Lockheed Martin declined to comment on the sale.

“Foreign Military Sales are government-to-government decisions, and the status of any potential discussions can be best addressed by the U.S. government,” a spokesman told USNI News.

In addition to the hulls, the $6-billion will include spares, training and other logistics items for the program.

Last year,
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of the proposed configuration of the Saudi Freedom-variant.

The primary difference between the Freedom-class and the Saudi-variant is the lack of modular mission space found in the U.S. version of the Littoral Combat Ship.

The frigate will be built around an 8-cell Mk-41 vertical launch system and a 4D air search radar. At about 4,000-tons, the frigate can field a crew of 100 to 130. It runs on a power plant of two Rolls Royce MT-30 gas turbines and two Colt-Pielstick diesel engines. The ship will field eight RGM-84 Harpoon Block II anti-ship missiles (ASM), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) sonar suites, and torpedoes.

“This acquisition will enhance the stability and maritime security in the sea areas around the Arabian Peninsula and support strategic objectives of the United States,” read the notification. “The proposed sale will provide Saudi Arabia with an increased ability to meet current and future maritime threats from enemy weapon systems. The Multi-Mission Surface Combatant ships will provide protection-in-depth for critical industrial infrastructure and for the sea lines of communication,” reads a U.S. State Department notification for a
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Saudi Arabia initially “balked at the price tag for the [four ship] package – thought to be more than $3 billion but less than $4 billion – and were unhappy with the time it would take to complete detail design of the ships, carry out systems integration, build the vessels, deliver them and install infrastructure improvements in the kingdom,”
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.
 
"The Navy has planned to transition from its Littoral Combat Ship to a frigate since 2014, but in recent months it has totally revamped its plan for doing so,
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and moving from a faceoff between the two LCS builders to an
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. Program and surface warfare officials
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that more details about the new transition plan would be included in the 2018 budget submission.

Questions that remain are: how many LCSs will be purchased before the frigate transition takes place? In its 2017 budget request, the Navy outlined a plan to buy two in 2017; one a year in 2018, 2019 and 2020; and then two in 2021. However, Program Executive Officer for LCS Rear Adm. John Neagley said at the recent hearing that the two builders, Austal USA and Marinette Marine, needed the Navy to buy three ships a year to sustain their yards and allow them to compete for the frigate. Lawmakers forced the Navy to buy three in the recent 2017 spending bill, but at the hearing Neagley declined to comment on how many ships the Navy would actually buy in 2018 and beyond, only noting that the industrial base required three a year.

As for the frigate, when will the Navy complete its requirements development and begin to compete design contracts to industry? When does it believe it can award construction contracts? How much will the frigate cost? Some or all of these questions may be answered in the Navy’s outline of the FYDP."

is LCS related part of
Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Set to Answer Lingering Navy Acquisition Questions
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dtulsa

Junior Member
"The Navy has planned to transition from its Littoral Combat Ship to a frigate since 2014, but in recent months it has totally revamped its plan for doing so,
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and moving from a faceoff between the two LCS builders to an
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. Program and surface warfare officials
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that more details about the new transition plan would be included in the 2018 budget submission.

Questions that remain are: how many LCSs will be purchased before the frigate transition takes place? In its 2017 budget request, the Navy outlined a plan to buy two in 2017; one a year in 2018, 2019 and 2020; and then two in 2021. However, Program Executive Officer for LCS Rear Adm. John Neagley said at the recent hearing that the two builders, Austal USA and Marinette Marine, needed the Navy to buy three ships a year to sustain their yards and allow them to compete for the frigate. Lawmakers forced the Navy to buy three in the recent 2017 spending bill, but at the hearing Neagley declined to comment on how many ships the Navy would actually buy in 2018 and beyond, only noting that the industrial base required three a year.

As for the frigate, when will the Navy complete its requirements development and begin to compete design contracts to industry? When does it believe it can award construction contracts? How much will the frigate cost? Some or all of these questions may be answered in the Navy’s outline of the FYDP."

is LCS related part of
Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Set to Answer Lingering Navy Acquisition Questions
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The simple answer would be just adapt the Saudi version and keep on building to fill our requirement but some how I don't think that will happen the RFP was supposed to be done by the of May as I recall
 
... the RFP was supposed to be done by the of May as I recall
what RfP do you mean?

(LOL didn't you confuse with "The Navy Frigate Requirements Evaluation Team (FFG RET) ... result ... once completed later this spring." from Apr 13, 2017
Navy Considering More Hulls for Frigate Competition, Expanding Anti-Air Capability
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maybe? sorry if you didn't)
 
Mar 6, 2017
for those who still remember Apr 7, 2016

Pentagon blocks publication of potentially embarrassing cost overruns for two new Navy vessels
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and now "The budget also sets aside $636 million for a single Littoral Combat Ship ..."
DoN $180B Budget Request Emphasizes Readiness; Reduces Spending on Ships, Aircraft
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dtulsa

Junior Member
Mar 6, 2017

and now "The budget also sets aside $636 million for a single Littoral Combat Ship ..."
DoN $180B Budget Request Emphasizes Readiness; Reduces Spending on Ships, Aircraft
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It's a catch 22 kinda if ya ain't ready to fight because you d8nt have parts or logistics then all the new fancy hardware in the world won't do ya any good on the other hand if ya have to many parts for things that are no longer in service or d9ny fit them your grounded also so it's a fine line by the way the LCS at 600 million is just a tad to much money don't ya think
 
May 16, 2017
pork request inside Document: Senate Letter to President Trump on Littoral Combat Ship Program
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now sorta answer
UPDATED: Pentagon Requests Just 1 Littoral Combat Ship in FY 2018 Budget Despite Navy’s Industrial Base Concerns
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The Navy intends to buy just one Littoral Combat Ship in Fiscal Year 2018 – in line with its previous long-range shipbuilding plans but not enough to keep the two yards currently building LCSs open and competitive in the upcoming frigate competition.

The Navy has repeatedly said it would have to buy three LCS hulls a year to sustain the workforce at Austal USA and Fincantieri Marinette Marine. However, its long-range shipbuilding plans were previously trimmed to two this current fiscal year and one a year going forward to keep in line with a December 2015 Pentagon decision to truncate the LCS program and move to a new frigate instead. The frigate program was recently pushed back by a year, though,
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, putting Austal and Marinette in a precarious position if the Navy were to follow through with the Pentagon’s plans to only purchase one ship a year in 2018 through 2020.

Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley told USNI News earlier this month that Austal and Marinette would have to compete in a full and open competition for the frigate contract in 2020, but he noted they may have an advantage in that they have hot production lines with the reduced costs that come along with that – giving them a potential quality and cost advantage over other bidders without production experience. Breaking their production line, however, would put people out of work and hurt their chances of winning frigate work.

In December 2016, when Stackley was serving as the Navy’s acquisition chief, he told USNI News that
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.

“If the shipyard doesn’t have a backlog, it’s out of business,” he said, adding that the 2017 contract awards keep the yard busy through 2020 or 2021 but that new ships must continue to be awarded to keep the workforce and the suppliers busy.

“What that means is, the day you award that last ship, you’re going to start laying people off, and you’re going to lay them off until they’re gone. You’re going to lay them off in the sequence in which you build the ship. So when you are going to build another ship, if you are going to stop production and build another ship, you’ve lost your skilled labor and you’ve got to rebuild it,” he said, which would apply to the LCS to frigate transition, as an Marinette- or Austal-built frigate would be based off the Freedom- or Independence-variant LCS, respectively.
“Where that [pause in production] has occurred [in previous shipbuilding programs] we have experienced extreme cost delays and quality issues. So that is something that we as a Navy, we as a nation do not choose to do. We do not want to lay off skilled labor and then try to rehire them a couple years later to restart production.”

Asked to confirm that LCS and frigate contracts would have to be awarded heel-to-toe, Stackley replied, “unless you want to put the shipyard out of business.”

Program Executive Officer for LCS Rear Adm. John Neagley said at a conference in January that
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– though at the time the competition was still limited to just Austal and Marinette.

“Leveraging a hot production line is kind of a key strategy for us. In terms of LCS, we have two production lines at two shipyards; taking advantage of that investment that already has occurred in the shipyards both from a people standpoint and infrastructure standpoint is important,” Neagley said.

In a budget rollout briefing today, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Budget Rear Adm. Brian Luther told USNI News that the decision to buy only one ship was not meant to affect the industrial base. Rather, he said, the Navy is still counting on both yards remaining viable for the frigate competition.

“The intent is to have two shipyards competitive in 2020. The Navy seeks to have a competitive bidding process,” he said.

Asked about balancing industrial base health concerns with Defense Secretary James Mattis’ directive to focus on fleet wholeness and readiness in 2018 and growth only in 2019, Luther said, “the guidance was fix, fill the holes for ’18, but the industrial base is a consideration, for the shipyards, for airplanes, for weapons. So we – the direction was clear – we filled the holes first. And as we go forward for the future we will look at the industrial base. And we will conduct a review to ensure we understand truly what a minimum sustain rate is for an acquisition program, and then we will review what is sustainable. The goal for the Navy is to have both shipyards available to compete for the [frigate] competition down the road, so we would respond accordingly in the out-years if it was necessary.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), who represents the Marinette Marine shipyard that builds Lockheed Martin’s Freedom-variant LCS,
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in 2018, and the letter implies that reduced funding now would lead to rapid layoffs – meaning that the Navy trying to address industrial base health concerns in 2019 or later would be too late.

“In Wisconsin, only two LCS in FY18 would result in approximately 450 direct shipyard worker layoffs, or 20 percent of the workforce at the yard, and a total of 1,200 jobs lost across the state. Only one LCS in FY18 could result in up to 800 layoffs at the shipyard, or 36 percent of the workforce, and a total of 1,850 jobs lost across the state,” reads her letter.

“Layoffs of this magnitude would have dire impacts on the ability of the Marinette shipyard and supply chain to compete for the Navy’s Frigate, which will soon follow the LCS,” she continues.
“That would result in reduced competition in the Frigate acquisition, driving up costs to the taxpayer, and harm to our national security by undercutting the strength of our domestic industrial base. Indeed, Secretary of the Navy Sean Stackley has testified about the importance of preserving industrial base jobs, noting that a failure to do so will ultimately harm the American taxpayer in the form of increased cost and decreased quality.”

Lawmakers like Baldwin may be able to force the Pentagon’s hand, though. This current fiscal year, the Navy requested just two LCSs, in line with the trimmed-down long-range shipbuilding plan. Lawmakers added funding for a third to sustain the industrial base. With the House and Senate armed services committees already pushing for much more defense spending than the Trump administration previewed in its “skinny budget” in March –
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– LCS spending is sure to be a hot issue to watch this summer.
 

dtulsa

Junior Member
May 16, 2017
now sorta answer
UPDATED: Pentagon Requests Just 1 Littoral Combat Ship in FY 2018 Budget Despite Navy’s Industrial Base Concerns
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Which version is being requested that's the
question the second is are we seeing the last ,of LCS in its current form third remember that the budget as submitted now is a long ways from what will actually be funded and not be funded so as always in military terms "hurry up and wait"
 
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