Littoral Combat Ships (LCS)

what's happened, happened:
Littoral Combat Ship
Perhaps the program most changed over the course of the year was the LCS program. In February,
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that the service would continue to operate the Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle included in the LCS mine countermeasures (MCM) mission package only to collect operational lessons learned, and would in the coming years shift to the more reliable
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to tow the AN/AQS-20A sonar and eventually to the Knifefish Unmanned Underwater Vehicle with built-in sensors. The following month, the Navy announced it officially canceled the RMMV acquisition program but that the AQS-20A sonar, which has performed very well in tests,
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.

Also in March,
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that would address manning requirements and the crewing construct – currently three crews manning two ships, one of which is forward-deployed; assessing how to balance simulated and shipboard training; evaluating whether the current contractor-based maintenance model will fully support the ships while forward deployed; looking at the operational and warfighting capability in the mission packages and how to best deploy them based on theater requirements; and how many mission modules the Navy would need to buy based on any changes recommended to the LCS warfighting concept. In September, Commander of Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Tom Rowden said the
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, like the ballistic missile submarine community’s blue and gold crew scheme, with each crew being about 70 sailors large and trained to focus on one of three mission areas – instead of the previous idea of a smaller 40-sailor core crew with fly-on teams to perform certain warfare missions.

Other changes will need to be made in the LCS training and ship design as a result of
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over the past year.
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two were crew errors, two were deficiencies in ship construction and repair, and one was due to ship design. Naval Sea Systems Command initiated an engineering review of the LCS propulsion systems, and training will be altered as needed to avoid crew errors going forward.

As part of its plan to beef up the LCS’s warfighting capability, the
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(LCS-4) off the coast of Hawaii during the Rim of the Pacific 2016 exercise. Though the service fell short of its goal of
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, in part due to
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, officials said the test on Coronado yielded positive results.

USS Jackson (LCS-6) and USS Milwaukee (LCS-5)
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, with the Navy reporting that full test results weren’t available yet but that early results indicate only “
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” would be needed on the ships.

In a nod to the future, the Program Executive Office for LCS told USNI News it
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,
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. It would take the ACTUV vehicle and call it a Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vehicle, which could be used to launch smaller unmanned systems, conducting mining operations and more.
part of Top Stories 2016: U.S. Navy Acquisition
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I beg your pardon, USNI News
Top Stories 2016: International Acquisition
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More Details Emerge of Saudi Frigate Design
so what? LOL
The backbone of Saudi Arabia’s fleet new eastern fleet will be a guided-missile frigate based on Lockheed Martin’s Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship design.

In May, additional details of the ship emerged showing the ship would be a departure from the initial LCS configuration.

“The frigate will be built around a 16 Mk 41 vertical launch cells capable of fielding the Raytheon Enhanced SeaSparrow Missiles (ESSM) or Raytheon [Standard Missile]-2 and an Airbus TRS-4D active electronically scanned array (AESA) air search radar suite,”
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at the company’s booth at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition 2016.

The configuration offered to the Saudis was similar to the model seen by USNI News, industry officials told USNI News.

The four frigates will be the center of the $20-billion fleet refresh.
 

dtulsa

Junior Member
So the Saudi's now get the ship that the US needs with capabilities the LCS can only dream off I really think that if the jugheads in DC would have thought this thru a little bit we would also have them to if procured in the numbers the current ships are the economics of scale would take over thus driving the price down to an acceptable figure
 
while "Frigate Acquisition Strategy Rushes Procurement in Light of Continued Unknowns"
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I marvel at issues like this:

"For the Independence variant, air defense testing continues to be delayed and its
completion is now in doubt as well because of higher priority testing of the CVN 78
air defense systems. Additionally, the Program Executive Office for LCS sent a letter
to the Navy’s Surface Warfare Director (N96) stating that Independence variant air
warfare testing cannot be executed at current funding levels.The Navy had planned to
conduct the first of the planned operationally realistic live-fire events on the
self-defense test ship in FY16, but postponed the test indefinitely because of anticipated
poor performance predicted by pre-test modeling and analysis of the planned test event
scenario. Without these tests, an adequate assessment of the Independence-class
probability of raid annihilation requirement is not possible. Based on the Navy’s most
recent plans, DOT&E expects that the Independence variant will have been in service nearly
10 years by the time that air defense testing is complete, which at the time of this
testimony is not anticipated before FY20."

(Mine Countermeasures Package is even a bigger mess, for example the USN calling Unmanned Surface Vessel 'game changer' (what else, huh) in 2012 and ... funding Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle instead to ... 'halt its further procurement' in 2016 etc. etc. EDIT and I chose not to read about SuW and ASW Packages):

STATEMENT
BY
J. MICHAEL GILMORE
DIRECTOR, OPERATIONAL TEST AND
EVALUATION
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
BEFORE THE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
ON
THE NAVY’S LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP PROGRAM
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and it'll get very interesting in the light of the promised 350 (or more!) ships Navy!
 
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dtulsa

Junior Member
There in lies the overall problem every one seems to overlook about all defense programs not only LCS but the whole defense establishment after all of the contractors, managers, employees are are paid their inflated salaries and fees for this that and the other thing there isnt enough left over to see if the things being built actually WORK that is the crux that may never be solved and its the people that actually have to fight the things that end up paying the price lots of times
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
There in lies the overall problem every one seems to overlook about all defense programs not only LCS but the whole defense establishment after all of the contractors, managers, employees are are paid their inflated salaries and fees for this that and the other thing there isnt enough left over to see if the things being built actually WORK that is the crux that may never be solved and its the people that actually have to fight the things that end up paying the price lots of times
There is an entire set of procedures to test these military ships and equipment. First by the builde before being turned over to the military. Then by the military before being accepted and commissioned. This involves months and months on existing designs, and up to 2-3 years on new designs.

When an administration like the Obala administration, and to soem degree the Clinton, and the arter administration, tries to save money by cutting maintenance and testing dollars...or other admins with hair-brained ideas...that is where the problem lies.

But the defense contrators and the military kow how to get things desinged, buit, tested and maintained...if the pols will just let them.

But, when they don't, word of it trickles back to the people from their sons and daughters and from officers and head NCOs and some of the politiscians who are sickened by it and usually this can help turn over politicians, or get them defeated.

I beleve we saw some of that (among other things) in this most recent election.
 
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Q: What’s in the near future for LCS? Is that the only deployment scheduled for 2017?

A: That is correct.

Q: You don’t have another LCS deployment scheduled for 2017?

A: No, I don’t think so.

says who?! Vice Admiral Thomas S. Rowden
Commander Naval Surface Force
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in January 8, 2017 Interview: Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, Commander, US Naval Forces
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bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Jeez.... January 20th can't get here soon enough.....I hope to see some real change in the defense industry..most notably accountability!
 
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