Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
LCS Test Vs. Fast Attack Boats ‘Unfair': Missile Missing, Navy Says

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!



It would remind me of a conversation between a University student and the administration. The University student would insist that he or she passed the internal exams that they themselves constructed and it was not fair that the University had theirs. LOL.
well, we have all discussed and pointed out FOR YEARS that the LCS needed...desperately needed, a long range ASuM.

Without it they are vulnerable...and IMHO, the Hellfire VL is not it. That's great fro "swarming speed boats." But that is not the thrust of the problem and everyone knows it. They need a Harpoon type missile that can help them counter and be in a position to meet opposition frigates and corvettes that have them.

Now...they are going to get them. Once they are in place, I expect that the situation will change (as it should) significantly.

'bot time...in fact, way past time.
 

Brumby

Major
well, we have all discussed and pointed out FOR YEARS that the LCS needed...desperately needed, a long range ASuM.

Without it they are vulnerable...and IMHO, the Hellfire VL is not it. That's great fro "swarming speed boats." But that is not the thrust of the problem and everyone knows it. They need a Harpoon type missile that can help them counter and be in a position to meet opposition frigates and corvettes that have them.

Now...they are going to get them. Once they are in place, I expect that the situation will change (as it should) significantly.

'bot time...in fact, way past time.

Jeff,
I think you are somewhat conflating here. One of the initial core objective with the LCS was to operate in the littorals against swarming. The Navy needs to make up its mind whether Hellfire is in or out in the configuration. They can't complain about failing a test when configuring Hellfire seems to be operating in some kind of time dilation.
Your point about Harpoon or similar pertains to a shift in recognition to enhanced threats that require a more multi purpose Frigate like vessel. Whether there will effectively be two streams or one general class seems to me is still in limbo.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Jeff,
I think you are somewhat conflating here. One of the initial core objective with the LCS was to operate in the littorals against swarming. The Navy needs to make up its mind whether Hellfire is in or out in the configuration. They can't complain about failing a test when configuring Hellfire seems to be operating in some kind of time dilation.
Your point about Harpoon or similar pertains to a shift in recognition to enhanced threats that require a more multi purpose Frigate like vessel. Whether there will effectively be two streams or one general class seems to me is still in limbo.
No conflating at all.

I believe the LCS will get both the VL Hellfire to handle the swarming speedboat, and the longer range Harpoon. The FF may have both, but certainly will have the longer range missiles.

Time will tell.
 
I do not agree at all.

These are two separate issues, on separate vessels, during separate operational characteristics. That certainly does not imply or point to anything systemic, particularly when you analyze the two incidents.

When you do, you find that they were actually quite different.

It is true they both involve the combing gear...but the Ft. Worth casualty occurred during a test at dock when the personnel did not ensure that the oil was full.

The Milwaukee occurred at sea when foreign objects...shavings...got into the gear.

One was purely procedural while the ship was at rest, the other occurred in operation, and has been stated to be most probably due to some outside physical cause introducing the shavings. A cause that they are still investigating.

As stated, neither of them at this point appear to have been inherently associated with either the design, though the first one is still being investigated as to how the foreign objects got there.

To take those two data points and draw out a systemic issue with design is far too preliminary. There is not enough data, or similarity, to point to that.

There could well be training and/or matinenance issues associated with work load. However, I would submit that the most recent issue is far too routine topoint to workload...more likely training or simply negligence on the part of one or more personnel.

to me it sounds close to what the manufacturer says (I put three sentences in boldface below), while
Navy Seeks Answers as 2 LCSs Break Down in a Month
The
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
is expected to complete a report on the engine issues that sidelined two
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
in the span of 30 days, Lockheed Martin's vice president of littoral ship systems said.

Speaking ahead of Saturday's christening of the LCS Sioux City, the 11th LCS overall and the sixth of the Freedom variant built by Lockheed Martin, Joe North told reporters the contracting company was working with the Navy to determine what went wrong with the USS Milwaukee and the USS Fort Worth.

"We have been with the Navy as part of a root cause analysis that's still ongoing, and the Navy's going to get a report on that in the next few weeks," he said. "It will be their decision and their output at the end of that analysis."

The USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) lost propulsion during its trip from the shipyard at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin to its new home port in San Diego, California. It was near the Virginia coast at the time and had to be towed to Little Creek, Virginia, for repairs and analysis. Navy Times, which had a reporter aboard the ship at the time, reported that metal filings in the lube oil filter had caused a loss of pressure in the combining gear. Repairs are expected to continue into this month.

The Fort Worth (LCS-3) was sidelined in Singapore on Jan. 12 due to a casualty to the ship's combing gears because of an apparent failure to follow maintenance protocol, according to Navy officials.

North maintained that the incidents were isolated.

"There's no connection between any of the [LCS-]3 and [LCS-]5 issues," he said. "...With [LCS-]5, it's the first issue we've seen on a new gear. When the Navy is done with their assessment of that, they'll report out on where they stand."

He said no new testing or criteria had been conducted with the Sioux City prior to its delivery and added he didn't expect the testing process to change for future ships.

"The tests we do on these ships is through Navy approval of their test procedures," he said. "They're all tested the same way and delivered to that criteria."

There are six more Freedom-variant ships under contract for construction at the Marinette shipyard. Marinette CEO Jan Allman said that will create a backlog of work for the shipyard until 2021.
source:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 

Brumby

Major
Pentagon Tester Tells Navy LCS Test Was Plenty Fair
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

UPDATED with full DOT&E memo WASHINGTON: On Friday, a Navy official told us
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
This afternoon, we found out the Pentagon’s independent test office has already circulated a coldly scathing response.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
in favor of larger, more powerful ships. This particular test is one of the Littoral Combat Ship’s core missions, its ability to repel wolfpacks of
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
. In the test, the USS Coronado used its 57- and 30mm cannon, but not the longer-ranged
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
missiles that are planned for — but not yet installed on LCS — a big part of what the Navy official called “unfair.” In essence, the famously tough office of the
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
(DOT&E) is saying

  • LCS should be tested with guns only because the ships will have to go in harm’s way without missiles until at least 2017;
  • Even after lowering performance standards to account for the lack of missiles, the LCS still let the simulated attackers get dangerously close; and
  • Adding the missiles may not make as big a difference as the Navy claims.
“On Saturday, January 30, 2016, Mr. Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., published an article in BreakingDefense.Com titled: ‘
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
,'” the DOT&E letter begins. “In that article, he references an unnamed Navy official who contended the testing of LCS Increment II SUW Mission Package was unfair because it didn’t take into account the planned surface-to-surface missiles that will be added to the Mission Package in Increment III. Regretfully, the Navy spokesman was apparently not familiar with the basis for the test and many of his statements are incorrect or not related to what was being tested.”
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Pentagon Tester Tells Navy LCS Test Was Plenty Fair
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Well, IMHO, the LCS plan to take on swarming speedboats ALWAYS depended on some form of small ASuW missile. First it was the NLOS-LS missile, then that was substituted as a temporary patch with the naval version of the Griffin, and now the Hellfire (which I believe is a better solution).

We have already seen the Hellfire tested taking out four small craft simultaneously.

Sending the LCS into waters where they might be subject to such attacks as environed without the missiles would be foolish IMHO. A test of them doing so, actually should have punctuated the fact that they would not be able to take on 6-8 or more such vessels without the missiles.

As it is, complaining that the LCS will not have any teeth for such an engagement is not really accurate either. Last September if I remember, the Navy planned to put the OTH missiles on the next two LCS to deploy.

"Rear Adm. Pete Fanta, director of surface warfare at the Pentagon, issued a directive on Sept. 17 calling for the installation of an unspecified OTH missile aboard the Freedom and the Coronado, the next two LCSs scheduled for deployment. The Freedom is to deploy to the Western Pacific during the first quarter of calendar year 2016, while the Coronado is to follow in the second or third quarter."

If this is still so, and though it would certainly be overkill, the vessels could use those missiles if necessary to engage such craft...as long as they could do so outside the minimum range requirements, which would be something over 2-3 miles I believe (but am not sure).

But as I understand it, the test was with no missiles whatsoever, and while the LCSs two 30mm guns and the 57mm gun will be able to get a lot done...having hem defeat 8 such vessels simultaneously would be a bit much. IMHO, in such a situation, if they did try it, and they began to get too close, the vessel would have to go to flank speed and egress.
 
Well, IMHO, the LCS plan to take on swarming speedboats ALWAYS depended on some form of small ASuW missile. ...
... but now I looked at charts related to "beefed up" LCS and, if they're accurate, "Ship-launched Hellfire Missile" is only in SUW Package of what's later been classified as Frigate:

SSC-Modified-LCS-characteristics.jpg


SSC-Modified-LCS-Lockheed.jpg

if this was really the plan (charts are from December of 2014), I could modify the example from
Jul 25, 2015
... If info came a hostile submarine was in a nearby Strait, an LCS would be sent from nearby Base with ASW Mission Packages, but what if this info turned out to be wrong, or the submarine just left, and instead a hostile Corvette was there with AShMs? ...
... to include "several FIACs", and the point would be the reliance of LCS/FF on guns in this scenario!

(of course that's an imaginary scenario, and we'll see what the armament of forward-deployed (Bahrain/Singapore) LCS/FFs actually is once they sail on patrols)
 
...

The Milwaukee occurred at sea when foreign objects...shavings...got into the gear.

... A cause that they are still investigating.

...
... and this popped up at DefenseNews yesterday:
LCS Milwaukee Breakdown Likely Due To Software Issue
An investigation into what caused the breakdown of one of the US Navy’s newest ships is nearing completion, sources said, and it’s hoped the fixes will be less extensive than once feared.

“Right now the root cause points to a timing issue,” said a source familiar with the investigation. “The sequence of stopping engines in emergency stops, and software telling the system how to declutch.”

It was early in December when the littoral combat ship (LCS) Milwaukee, commissioned on Nov. 21 in her namesake city, left the Canadian port of Halifax bound for Virginia. Pushing 38 knots according to a witness on board on Dec. 6, the ship engaged both its diesels and gas turbines in a high-speed run for photographers when a fuel valve problem initiated an automatic shutdown of both main propulsion gas turbines. The Milwaukee’s speed dropped quickly, “to bare steerageway,” the witness said.

But the timing was off for the programmed sequence of events to disengage and re-engage the complex gearing that combined the diesel and gas engines driving the main power shafts – enough, in essence, to severely grind the clutch.

“Basically it burned up the clutch plates,” the source said.

The ship had been running in full CODAG mode — combined diesels and gas turbines — and the gearing was supposed to step down as the turbines shut off, leaving only the diesels running.

“When the gas turbine shut down that clutch should have disengaged,” said a Navy official familiar with the investigation. “It didn’t, it stayed engaged, creating a high-torque event.” The gears remained engaged “for several seconds,” the official said, long enough “so that the clutch failed and basically broke apart.”

The improperly functioning fuel valves that caused the gas turbines to shut down aren’t the real problem, the Navy official said.

“Things fail on ships all the time,” said the Navy official. “It was not a completely new design. It failed because there was a defect” in the valves – a problem, the official added, “of adequacy.”

The real problem, both sources agreed, is the failure of the gearing system.

“There are all kinds of reasons why you’d want to stop,” the Navy official said. “But the gear system ought to be able to handle the emergency stop scenario.

“The hard issue here was getting to the root cause of causing a ship to be towed into port because she destroyed the clutch. If the system had worked as designed we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Everything would have disengaged correctly. It would have come to a stop. It would have come back up on diesels only and she would have gone into port on her own power.”

The Navy and prime contractor Lockheed Martin each set up review boards after the failure. Teams visited the makers of the gearing, the clutch and the clutch plates. Engineers pored over the propulsion plant design — and found no serious flaws.

“We’re not touching the design,” the source familiar with the investigation said. “It’s right to carry the loads. The gear design is not the root cause at all.”

Instead, the fix may be tweaks to the system’s software.

“What we’re looking at,” said the Navy official, “is a software control issue problem.”

The failure review boards are nearly finished with their work, the Navy official said Feb. 3.

“What they’re pointing to is a control system issue associated with the machinery control system software,” the Navy official said. “The software needs to send a signal to the clutch to disengage without creating any other downstream problems within the propulsion plant. That’s the focus on the root cause.”

The emergency stop evolution is not part of sea trials run by the builder and the Navy before the ship enters service. “To my knowledge it’s not a normal evolution conducted during acceptance trials,” the Navy official said.

“During acceptance trials there was the normal shifting of modes between CODAG and other propulsion modes, and diesel or gas turbine propulsion. What was different about this was the emergency stop of the gas turbine because of the loss of fuel coming in the front end of the gas turbine.”

The control system on the Milwaukee is slightly different from systems installed on the first two ships of the Freedom class, the Freedom (LCS 1) and the Fort Worth (LCS 3). Both of those ships will be examined, “although we haven’t experienced that problem on 1 and 3,” the Navy official said.

“Whatever we decide whatever the fix is, it will cross the entire class, including 1 and 3,” said the Navy official. “Until the root cause is identified and the fix is identified we will not accept LCS 7 [the Detroit, scheduled to be delivered later this year]. We will make sure the ship will operate as it's supposed to when it’s delivered.”

Repairs on the Milwaukee are essentially complete.

“Clutch discs and components have been replaced,” the Navy official said. “There are still some repairs to be done on ancillary systems — high-speed shaft components — that are still operational but need to be replaced. That and some of the hard-to-get-to bearings will need to be replaced.”

The Milwaukee is expected to get underway on her own power from Little Creek and head to Mayport, Florida, where the ship will be drydocked and readied for shock trials to be carried out later this year in the Atlantic.

After that, the Milwaukee will move to her home port of San Diego and prepare for operational service.
source:
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
Top