U.S. Navy fires LCS manager--Defense News

The program manager for the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program was fired Jan. 26 due to allegations of inappropriate behavior, according to Naval Sea Systems Command.

Capt. Jeffrey Riedel was reassigned by LCS Program Executive Officer Rear Adm. James Murdoch, pending an investigation into the allegations.

“He will not be reporting back to this command,” NAVSEA spokesman Chris Johnson said Friday.

Johnson said he could not comment on the allegations or the nature of the investigation except to say it would be done by NAVSEA.

Edward Foster will serve as the acting program manager until the investigation is complete, a NAVSEA statement said.

Riedel is the first senior Navy official fired in 2012; there were 22 commanding officers fired in 2011.

It’s not the first time the LCS program manager has been fired. In January 2007, Capt. Donald Babcock was fired for a “loss of confidence in his ability to command” amid program cost overruns.

U.S. Navy Shipbuilding Given Budget Priority

The general state of the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding programs is good, two senior service officials claimed, and construction programs apparently will not be slashed to meet an expected Pentagon-wide $263 billion reduction in spending.

THE U.S. NAVY'S top acquisition official said Jan. 12 that shipbuilding remains a “priority.” The new littoral combat ship Coronado (LCS 4) is shown Jan. 9 just before being launched. (U.S. Navy photo via Austal USA)

"We've placed a priority on shipbuilding," Sean Stackley, the Navy's top acquisition official, told reporters Jan. 12. "You can see a lot of alignment between the defense strategy and what the Navy does."

The Obama administration's fiscal 2013 budget request, scheduled to be sent Feb. 6 to Congress, will show "various impacts," Stackley said, "but we've been careful to hold to the core capabilities we need in our shipbuilding program. It's not just platforms, it's the capability we need in terms of weapon systems to be able to meet the defense strategy."

Speaking at the Surface Navy Association's symposium in Washington, Stackley commented on the progress of the Air Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), a program to develop a primary sensor to go with the Aegis weapon system. Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are competing under-development contracts for the radar, which will be installed on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers beginning with those bought in 2016.

A downselect on the AMDR is expected to take place later this year.

"The AMDR program is going great. And I'm not blowing smoke," Stackley adamantly declared.

"I spent a very concerted couple-week period this past fall, because I've got to see for myself. So I went up to Raytheon, I went to Lockheed Martin, I went to Northrop Grumman.

"I spent a day at each going through not just the data, but looking at the hardware, sitting down and talking with the engineers individually. Getting as much information as I could to corroborate what I'm seeing inside the Navy.

"That program is going very well."

He noted that the AMDR effort is building on existing technology.

"The maturity of the technology is far beyond where folks in the building believed it could be. And the costs that we are seeing are much better than we had estimated just a couple of years ago," he said.

"And the performance - we're at the upper end of the estimated performance range. I'm bullish on AMDR."

With the AMDR installed, the new destroyers will become Flight III of the Arleigh Burke class, supplanting current Flight IIA ships.

Stackley reminded a lunch audience that the Navy would seek a multiyear procurement (MYP) in the new budget for destroyers from 2013 through 2017. Congressional MYP authorization, however, is normally based on design maturity and consistency.

Navy Undersecretary Bob Work, speaking with reporters at the symposium, explained that, for a brief time, the service plans to order both Flight IIAs and IIIs.

"There's an overlap date between the IIAs and the Flight IIIs," he said, with another block buy planned separately for the AMDR ships.

Details will arrive on Jan. 26, when DoD officials preview the 2013 budget request.

7 CRUISERS TO BE CUT?

Earlier, Work, speaking to a symposium audience, laid out the capabilities of the fleet being built through 2022 - and might have inadvertently let slip one of the secret numbers about future ship cuts.

"We're going to wind up with 72 Burkes, and 15 - uh excuse me, I'm not going to tell you any numbers. Rewind the tape," he said, to sympathetic laughter from the professional audience.

The Burke number would reflect the total number of Flight I, II and IIA ships, but the Navy currently operates 22 Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruisers. Speculation has been rampant that some of the cruisers, which range in age from 25 years old to 17, might be decommissioned in line with budget reductions. No officials have commented for the record, but most guesses range between six and nine ships.

Work may have let slip that seven Ticos will be put down early.

But he also exuberantly extolled the virtues of the forces the Navy will have in the future.

"Everyone focuses in on: it's going to be 313 ships, 310," he said. "What the hell do we care? I have BAMS," the Broad-Area Maritime Surveillance aircraft based on the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft.

"Those numbers don't care," Work said. "How many ships would it take to provide the same maritime domain awareness as those BAMS? It's a lot bigger than a [Reagan-era] 600-ship Navy, I guarantee you that."

With the new fleet, "we span the globe. We can concentrate because we can get there in a hurry on 35 knots on the JHSV [Joint High Speed Vessel], 40-plus knots on the LCS [Littoral Combat Ship]. Yeah, it burns a lot of fuel," he said, referring to the LCS. "Yeah, we have refuelers. We get there quickly. We can configure for what we need. We have enormous payload capacity in our big boys.

"This is a different fleet. This is a more powerful fleet. I will take this fleet over a 600-ship Navy … in a heartbeat," Work said, his voice booming.

"One thing I would regret, quite frankly, is I would rather have 100 SSNs [nuclear-propelled attack submarines]. But in almost every other case, I'll take this," he said."

"And if you aren't excited" about the new fleet, he concluded, "you don't have a pulse."

Asian Navies Shift to Bigger Vessels, Downplay Littoral Ops

TAIPEI - As Western navies build fewer aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines, Asian navies are moving in the opposite direction, ignoring the littorals with construction and procurement of larger warships and submarines.

The U.S. and Europe have stepped back from larger platforms designed for the Cold War and invested in smaller platforms such as the U.S. Navy's Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). But this is not the case in East Asia and the Pacific, where there have been increases in spending on destroyers and submarines in Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, said Bob Nugent, vice president of naval advisory services at AMI International, based in Seattle.

One of the most notable cases involves Taiwan's procurement of four Kidd-class guided missile destroyers and plans to procure eight submarines. Japan and South Korea have also invested heavily in guided missile destroyers equipped with advanced phased array radars.

Even in budget-challenged Southeast Asian countries, the trend has been a shift from smaller to larger platforms, such as frigates and large corvettes. Examples include Singapore's Formidable-class frigates, Indonesia's SIGMA-class corvettes, Malaysia's recent decision on the SGPV/LCS frigates, and Vietnam's plan to buy SIGMAs and the pending delivery of Russian-built Kilo-class submarines.

The main reason regional navies are ignoring littoral capabilities has to do with geography. In the region, "the home team enjoys an enormous advantage of range and proximity and the attacker would have to be prepared to conduct pre-emptive strikes against the coast state's bases before conducting operations in the littoral," said Sam Bateman a regional naval specialist at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore.

The U.S. Navy should "think twice" about deploying classic sea control/power projection capabilities, such as carrier battle groups, within range of subs and land-based strike aircraft, Bateman said. The U.S. Navy's new LCS will be "hugely vulnerable without close-air support and that cannot be guaranteed."

The U.S. and Singapore have recently agreed to allow the U.S. Navy to station the LCS in Singapore.

Air support is the "elephant in the room" with littoral warfare, Bateman said. Littoral warfare is dependent on fire support directed against targets on land, either from aircraft close-air support or naval gunfire. Despite all the advances with missiles, "the big caliber naval gun remains an attractive and effective way of putting down fire in coastal areas."

Another problem in the Asia-Pacific has been increased tension over exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims, particularly in the South China Sea. Many countries, including China, claim restrictions over naval operations in their EEZs.

Some within the region have invested in stealthy vessels to avoid detection in the littoral environment. Singapore's Formidable-class frigates are based on the stealthy French-built La Fayette-class frigates and Singapore's ST Engineering is conducting research to develop the 27-meter Stealth Interceptor and 57-meter Stealth Patrol Vessel.

Taiwan wants to build a stealthy 900-ton catamaran corvette and is manufacturing a stealthy 180-ton fast-attack missile patrol boat, armed with Hsiung Feng-2 anti-ship missiles. The stealthy SIGMA-class corvettes procured by Indonesia and now being considered by Vietnam are other examples.

For Asian countries dealing with the littoral issue, the challenge is finding the right investment balance among intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and defensive and offensive technologies, Nugent said.

"Unmanned systems are critical to ISR and defense in the littoral now and will become more so for offensive littoral warfare as unmanned maritime systems are more widely armed for all domains in the future," he said. Investments in better sensors and C4ISR are the other areas where the "gaps that create vulnerabilities in ship's self-defense against missiles and torpedoes in the littoral are getting a lot of attention."

Another area of growing interest is the use of unmanned surface vehicles (USV) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV). ST Engineering is developing the 9-meter Venus USV ostensibly for harbor patrol, but the vessel has potential for littoral warfare.

USVs and UUVs will be "particularly useful for littoral warfare as they can be launched outside the EEZ or convenient surveillance range of the coastal state, which is unlikely to have the capabilities of detecting them," Bateman said. "They can be used for surveillance/intelligence collection and as an offensive weapon - to lay mines or fire torpedoes," he said.

There is also potential for anti-submarine warfare, but that capability is as yet "unrealized."

Malaysia Firm Wins $2.8 Billion Navy Ship Deal

KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian shipbuilder says it has won a 9 billion ringgit ($2.8 billion) deal from Kuala Lumpur for six naval vessels developed by French manufacturer DCNS.

In a filing with the local bourse Dec. 16, Boustead Naval Shipyard said it was given a letter of award by the Malaysian defense ministry to build and deliver six "second generation patrol vessels littoral combat ships."

"The delivery of the first of class ship is estimated in 2017 with follow on ships every six months thereafter," it added.

Last week Boustead said it had been selected by Malaysia's navy to build the corvettes, which DCNS says can stay at sea for three weeks and are designed to navigate coastal areas and island groups to fight piracy and patrol fisheries. The vessels are 330 feet long and can each transport one EC275 helicopter made by Eurocopter, a subsidiary of EADS.

DCNS already had a relationship with Boustead through a joint venture in 2009 to maintain two diesel-propelled Scorpene submarines used by the Malaysian navy.

DCNS has previously sold 11 frigates to Malaysia's neighbor Singapore, five of which were built in the city-state.

LCSs Sail Through Trials, Tackle Challenges

Launching and recovering small boats. Checking performance in high sea states. Testing firing procedures. Measuring fuel use to find the best speeds to operate the ships. Comparing simulated training with the real thing. Figuring out whether 40 people really can operate a state-of-the-art small combat ship. Fixing what doesn't work.

The U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ships, including the Freedom, are being tested as the program is debated in Washington. (U.S. Navy)

That's just the beginning of the list of what the crews of the U.S. Navy's new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) have been up to over the past year or so. While the program's future continues to be debated in Washington, the Navy and its industrial partners are testing out the first two ships and their complex mission modules. Problems are identified and addressed, and if need be, fixes are made on the in-service ships and design changes drawn up for follow-on ships.

"All designs evolve," said Joe North, the director of Lockheed Martin's LCS program. "Nobody gets everything right the first time around."
In general, however, the Navy seems pleased with its first two LCSs, the Freedom (LCS 1), delivered by a contractor team headed by Lockheed Martin, and the Independence (LCS 2), from a General Dynamics-Austal USA effort.
"It's a good program, in good shape," Adm. Jonathan Greenert, soon to be the new chief of naval operations, said July 28. "Now we need to refine it."
A myriad of items and procedures need to be tested, validated, certified. The ships are filled with new fittings - a situation doubled because there are two unique LCS classes. Each ship introduces a new combat system, has a different propulsion plant, features different mission bay handling systems. New maintenance and support schemes are in place to help the tiny, 40-person core crews keep the ships running.
And tests and trials continue for a variety of vehicles and systems for the mission packages that are the LCS' reason for being.
The development and training efforts are being directed from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in Washington, and the LCS Squadron in San Diego. NAVSEA oversees design and development of the ships, their systems and the mission modules, while the LCSRon is in charge of training and fleet support.

LCS 1

The Freedom, first of the breed, is in a San Diego drydock undergoing a $20 million, four-month overhaul, or "availability." Fixes for several problems are being made on the ship, which will run final contract trials this fall.
A new impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP) system is being fitted to the ship's four water jet tunnels to fix a corrosion problem that caused "minor pitting" in the tunnels, North said. Zinc anodes that were intended to prevent the corrosion problem are being removed, having deteriorated. The same modifications have been made to the Fort Worth (LCS 3) and future ships of the LCS 1 class.
"The ICCP will fix this from ever occurring again," North declared.
Capt. Robert Randall, commodore of the LCSRon in San Diego, said a new coating system will be applied to the water jet intake tunnels.
North noted that the Freedom did not suffer from corrosion on the water jet intakes, a problem that has been widely reported on the Independence, but the original fittings were labor-intensive and expensive. A new design built into the Fort Worth was chosen - a modification, he added, that saved "hundreds of hours" on installation costs.
Another fix will be made to the anchor fitting on the starboard bow. The original design allowed water to come into the anchor compartment when the ship ran at high speeds, causing corrosion. The anchor will be moved to the foredeck, with a new windlass based on the Navy's existing destroyer design.
While in drydock, the ship's hull is being cleaned. The Navy's decision to leave the aluminum superstructure unpainted has not changed, although Lockheed and the Navy are looking at ways to possibly "age" the aluminum.
The metal takes about eight years to fully oxidize, North explained, and will in time change to a dark gray color. No decision has yet been made.
The compressors that provide air to start the ship's gas turbines are being changed. The original compressors had reliability problems, and units similar to those used on the Navy's DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have been installed beginning with LCS 3.
"We expect performance to be a hundred times better than what we saw," North said.
Another change incorporated into LCS 3 will be the addition of 43 metric tons of fuel to expand the ship's range. The Freedom might also get that change in an upcoming yard period.
A new type of water jet will be fitted to the ships beginning with LCS 5, North said, with a more efficient axial flow version of the Ka-Me-Wa water jets.
Changes also will be made on the Freedom to the seals on the aviation hangar's door to eliminate water leaks, and a new mezzanine to store helicopter gear is being built into the forward hangar.
Several changes have been made to the mission bay areas - the heart of the LCS. After the original handling system contractor filed for bankruptcy, a new vendor, Oldenburg, was contracted earlier this year to build the overhead cranes, launching systems, elevators and hatches.
"We overcomplicated" the original system, North admitted. "We probably got a little too complicated in how we thought we needed to do it, with special servo unloaders and stuff like that."
The new system, he said, simplifies the motor designs and controls. The overhead rail system remains, but it is being modified to permit continuous transfer between wet and dry mission bay zones.
The side door that was originally intended to allow the big Remote Minehunting Vehicle (RMV) to be launched and recovered will be smaller starting with LCS 5, North said - a change made because the Navy changed the specifications for the RMV. Since the vehicle now will be moved only through the aft doors, a smaller and lighter side door can be fitted.
One repair that won't be made on LCS 1 will be to the launch ramp in the stern, which was bowed after the big 11-meter rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) was stowed on it - contrary, North said, to the manufacturer's specs. Properly operated, the boat should be moved off the ramp for storage.
The ramp is "something we're going to live with" on the Freedom, North said.
But the seal between the ramp and the bottom of the stern doors is being changed. Lockheed and the Navy tried three different seal designs and found them all unsatisfactory.
"We had the whole thing redesigned for Three, and it's a backfit on One," North said.
The Navy is continuing to look for ways to reduce corrosion from the salt environment in the wet mission zone.
"We found that we had equipment mounted in that space that had corrosive material to it. It starts to rust, you've got to worry about it," North explained.
Changes already made or under consideration include moving various items out of the zone, switching to nonrusting composites, and the use of different coatings. The Naval Surface Warfare Center is examining several alternatives.
Permanent repairs to a 6-inch hull crack also will be made to the Freedom while in dry dock.
The Navy and Lockheed said the problem is not with the design, but is a workmanship issue in a particularly difficult area of the hull, in a chine area where different angles come together.
The rest of the chine area on the ship was X-rayed, North said, and no further problems were found.
Lockheed and its Marinette shipyard in Wisconsin have changed the way that area on the ship is built, he said.
"They said it was difficult. Now I know what it is, now we're going to do it different," North added.
The Freedom's aluminum superstructure also suffers from cracks, a condition predicted before the ship was finished in 2008.
At least 14 areas have been found with cracks, North said, and most of those were repaired before the current yard period - "none that we're worried about or are going to limit her in her operation," he said.
Changes have been made in the Fort Worth, North added, that should alleviate the problem.
The ballast tanks added to the Freedom's stern to improve the way the ship sits in the water are built into the hull starting with LCS 3.
"The door arrangement on those has been pushed back," said Capt. Jeff Reidel, NAVSEA's LCS program manager. "It's given some additional room in the bay."
More equipment might be added to the stern area, including a lightweight torpedo decoy system similar to the widely used Nixie system, and a towed variable depth sonar (VDS).
A VDS competition for the anti-submarine warfare module is expected to be take place beginning next year, said Capt. John Ailes, the Mission Module program manager for NAVSEA, with a down-select expected in 2014.
Another change that could be made to the ships is the removal of the fin stabilization system, which could eliminate as much as 28 tons of equipment. Sea tests will determine whether the fins stay or go, North and Reidel said.
Topside, the extra-high frequency satellite antennas originally fitted on LCS 1 have been replaced by super high frequency units, bringing the LCS 1 class into commonality with the LCS 2 design.
One of the more visible changes beginning with LCS 3 is the use of a smaller centerline post in the bridge windows. The wide, triangular metal in the middle of the Freedom's bridge was found to be a distraction. While the post is still necessary for structural reasons, it's been reduced on the Fort Worth and subsequent ships.
After some sea time, a 60-day maintenance period for the Freedom is scheduled to begin Jan. 30 at San Diego, NAVSEA said.
The Fort Worth (LCS 3), launched at Marinette in December, is expected to begin dock trials before the end of August, North said. Builder's sea trials are expected to take place in September on Lake Michigan, with Navy acceptance trials scheduled for November.
Lockheed and Marinette are shooting to deliver the ship in February, North said - six months ahead of the August 2012 contract date. Construction of the Milwaukee (LCS 5) is expected to begin in late summer, he added.

LCS 2

Less information is available on changes made to the Independence. Neither Austal USA, builder of the ship and the prime contractor for the third ship on, nor General Dynamics, which oversaw the first two ships of the LCS 2 class, responded to persistent requests to provide an expert to discuss the ship's current state.
The Navy, in general, also has not matched its public relations efforts on LCS 1 with similar news about the Independence, which has been operating out of the relatively obscure base at Mayport, Fla.
Reidel and Ailes, however, noted the ship has been conducting trials with the RMV and has fully demonstrated its mission bay handling systems, including the twin-boom extensible crane (TBEC) that launches and recovers vehicles out the stern.
"From a mission perspective on LCS 2, the platform has been completed, signed off, sold and operating," Reidel said. "The doors have been tested and operating. All the emergency recovery systems and the reliability fixes have been done and are operating."
The TBEC has been tested at sea, he said. "We were a little bit behind where we wanted to be, but we're in a situation right now where it's full steam ahead. Launch, handling and recovery will no longer hold up our integration testing with the mission packages."
The internal computer networks on both ships are "pretty stable," Reidel said. "The only area [where] we've made changes is some software in the combat systems side. From a network perspective, we've made no changes. Both systems are operating well."
At least for now, one change requested by the crew of the Independence will not be made - the installation of bridge wings to make it easier to navigate the ship in tight spaces.
"It's something we're looking at," Reidel acknowledged. Stealth concerns are not an issue, he explained, since there is no radar cross-section design requirement.
"It's a weight issue," he said, along with concerns about other impacts on the design.
Overall, Reidel said, the LCS effort is in good shape.
"I think that at this point, the program has put itself on pretty stable grounds," he observed.
Later this year, the Independence will shift to Panama City, Fla., to test mine warfare components. Before the end of the year, it is planned to sail through the Panama Canal to transfer to San Diego.
Austal USA is expected to launch the Coronado sometime this year, and began construction of the Jackson in early August.

Rebuffed by U.S. Navy, Lawmakers Order New LCS Study

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., recently rebuffed by the U.S. Navy in asking the service to review its Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, has turned to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to further examine the shipbuilding effort.

In a July 27 letter to the GAO, Hunter, joined by Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., cited his concerns about the program's historic cost overruns and schedule delays, and more recent corrosion and structural issues with the ships.

Hunter and Wittman asked the GAO to "review and as necessary update the August 2010 [GAO] report on the LCS program." Specifically, the lawmakers want GAO to examine:

■ what the Navy is doing to overcome technical design flaws in the first two ships;

■ what the Navy is doing to make sure follow-on ships are delivered with cost and time estimates;

■ what actions the Navy has taken to make certain that mission packages have the capabilities they were intended to have; and

■ provide performance and operational maintenance date on the propulsion systems for both LCS variants.

Hunter, in a July 1 letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, had asked the service "to immediately conduct a formal review of the entire LCS program, provide an assessment of the technical design flaws of the current fleet and determine the best way forward to include the possibility of rebidding this contract so that the program can be put back on a fiscally responsible path to procurement."

Mabus, in a July 7 reply, said the Navy had "faced and overcome the program's past cost and schedule challenges," and addressed many of the issues presented in the GAO's 2010 report.

Noting that both ships have yet to complete all test and trial programs, Mabus wrote that the service now "is confident that we are on a path of success" with LCS.

In addition to Hunter, a group of seven senators, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have questioned the Pentagon's handling of the LCS program. In a July 12 letter to Pentagon acquisition chief Ash Carter, the group questioned the Pentagon's certification procedures allowing the program to go forward, and asked for more information on corrosion problems affecting the ships.

Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter, explained that the San Diego-area congressman's intent "is not to terminate the program."

Rather, Kasper said, "it's about efficiency of production, it's about efficiency of dollars. And if there's an opportunity to improve production and reduce costs in the process, then that's important and something worth considering."

U.S. Navy Gets a New LCS Program Chief

The U.S. Navy's effort to develop and field the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) got more focused after the July 11 establishment of a single program executive office that combined ship and mission module development efforts under a single leader. Rear Adm. James Murdoch, a previous director of the LCS ship development office, is the new PEO LCS, returning after about a year of working on fleet maintenance.

Despite the recent award of several construction contracts for both LCS variants, the program remains under occasional fire from congressional opponents, spurred by high costs, program decisions sometimes seen as hasty, reports of corrosion on Austal USA's USS Independence (LCS 2), and superstructure and weld cracks on Lockheed Martin's USS Freedom (LCS 1).

Murdoch addressed a number of issues during a July 20 interview at his Washington Navy Yard headquarters.

Q. WHAT'S YOUR ASSESSMENT OF THE LCS PROGRAM RIGHT NOW?

A. Overall, the program is pretty healthy. The shipbuilding side has reached a place where we're into the contracts we want; we're in serial production with a stable design. Mission packages, we're getting in to the test phase. The challenge now is to put it all together.

Establishing a single PEO gives an end-to-end responsibility for the warfare capability to one guy. We'll have one organization covering three big themes: getting the shipbuilding in a stable march down the learning curve; testing the mission packages with all their components and then into the ship; and introducing it into the fleet.

I recognize the concerns that recently surfaced, but frankly these are all part and parcel of the challenges in building ships, and complex ships at that. Where there are issues, we're going to assess, analyze and fix 'em.

Q. LCS 1 HAD TWO STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS: PERSISTENT CRACKING IN THE ALUMINUM SUPERSTRUCTURE AND A WELD SEAM BREACH. HAVE THOSE BEEN FIXED?

A. There was about a 6-inch crack in a weld. I'm certainly not happy with it, but this is pretty normal for a new warship design, to have some sorts of issues. My personal perspective is we probably had fewer problems with both of these ships than I might have expected, based on past Navy experience.

All ships work in a seaway. Navy ships go faster, generally speaking, so there's more potential for stress and strain.

When I was working this program earlier, I would see workers putting more scantlings, stiffeners, longitudinal frame members and so forth, into the structure. I would typically ask, "What are you guys doing?" Well, they said, "We were reviewing the design and decided that, based on structural models, we need to put a little more in here." I think actually the designs came out pretty well.

The hull crack in Freedom was in a chine area. I'm pretty confident from the summaries that this was a weld defect, didn't do it right. There are miles of linear welds on the ship and this is six inches. Once again, I'm not happy about that. We've looked at other places in the ship, haven't found any problems we need to go repair. And we've beefed the design a bit in that particular area, added some additional structure around that break point. I think the crack issue is understood; we've addressed it.

Superstructure cracking, frankly, is not uncommon, especially in ships that have aluminum superstructures. Aluminum is lighter by weight, it has the strength to hold the ship together and is more resistant to oxidation corrosion, and you don't have to paint it. But it has to be treated more carefully in terms of its fatigue life. We have the technology to get that right.

This is not something that keeps me awake at night. There are things you worry about in every job, but that's not one of them.

The corrosion that's recently resurfaced on LCS 2, we were looking for this. We've looked at it on both designs.

It's not a different mechanism of corrosion than what's taking place on [other Navy ships]. Where you have different materials used between the propellers in the water jets and the hull of the ship, you have to do a variety of things to prevent one of those metals corroding in sea water.

We made design decisions on both of these ships with regard to where to put zinc anodes, where are we going to employ impressed current cathodic protection systems. We thought we got the design pretty right, but in this and in other areas, we said, first one we built. So we're going to go in and look at them periodically.

In LCS 2, we found inside the water jet tunnels the paint surface had degraded, and we started having pitting corrosion which was obviously galvanic. So we'll put some additional aluminum plating around the water-jet tunnel area so I can continue operations until I can get her into dry dock, which was a planned evolution.

There is any number of risks, quite a few of which just didn't materialize. I had people telling me the water jet impellers would experience a lot of cavitation, degrade rapidly and not make it to the post-shakedown availability. We've gone in and inspected those, and they're behaving much more on the favorable side of the predicted model than the unfavorable side. So there are things in the design that went very well, better than expected.

I think we did a pretty fair job on this design, especially given the amount of time we took on it. We didn't get it exactly perfect, but it came out pretty well. And the areas we need to go fix are pretty fixable.

Q. COMPARED WITH LAST YEAR'S PUBLIC RELATIONS EFFORT TO SHOW OFF LCS 1, THERE HAS BEEN A DEARTH OF NEWS ABOUT THE INDEPENDENCE (LCS 2). IT'S OPERATING FROM MAYPORT, FLA., RATHER THAN THE MAIN FLEET BASE AT NORFOLK. IT HAS YET TO MAKE A SIGNIFICANT CRUISE. THERE IS ALMOST NO WORD OF ITS ACTIVITIES, FEW PHOTOS ARE RELEASED, AND AUSTAL USA, UNLIKE LOCKHEED MARTIN AND LCS 1, HAS BECOME VERY RELUCTANT TO TALK ABOUT THE SHIP. THE ONLY NEWS THAT'S OUT THERE IS ABOUT CORROSION PROBLEMS. IS LCS 2 BROKEN?

A. There's nothing wrong with LCS 2. Fair observations, I wouldn't dispute you. You could certainly draw the conclusion that you haven't heard about the ship, then, gosh, is there something wrong with it? That's why I'm here. I believe the fleet introduction of these ships is very important. When it comes to these ships, nobody cares like I care.

I guess I agree with you. LCS, in the press, has kind of gone sinker, and maybe we shouldn't have let that happen.

LCS 2 has been doing things. Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, commander of Naval Surface Forces, was on board last month. He watched them maneuver an unmanned vehicle around the mission bay, put it in the twin-boomed extensible crane, launch it from the ship. They operated it, drove it back into the recovery system, picked it up and brought it back aboard the ship. It was the first underway day he had in his new job, on the Independence. So why aren't we getting that message to you? I don't know.

Q. DO THE SHIPS' MISSION BAY HANDLING SYSTEMS WORK?

A. Not only have we launched and recovered and operated an unmanned surface vehicle, we've also recently launched and recovered the remote multimission vehicle. Handling is part of the main battery. I'm very pleased with where we are on both of these.

But we're building these ships at the affordable end of the spectrum here, so over time I expect the industry guys to get smart on these crane systems and provide me something they can procure affordably, that sailors can operate, that are reliable and maintainable.

I'm not looking for continual improvement in terms of being able to lift more weight. Both are pretty good. I'm always looking for something that makes the ship more affordable.

Q. ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT RELIABILITY ISSUES WITH EITHER HANDLING SYSTEM?

A. Not to my knowledge. Both systems are solid designs. I'm pretty confident in the systems.

Q. WHEN CAN THE FLEET EXPECT AN OPERATIONALLY EFFECTIVE, DEPLOYABLE, NON-TEST LCS WITH A MISSION MODULE?

A. By the end of 2012, I would like to have that mine warfare mission package testing over and done with. I need that to wrap that up and the testers need to do all their reporting. The real question you're asking me is, when does LCS 1 go out on its first all-operational cycle of deployment? My suspicion is that would be more likely to occur sometime in 2013.

U.S. Navy Rebuffs LCS Program Charges

Declaring that the U.S. Navy "is confident that we are on a path of success" in the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus on July 7 rebuffed calls by a member of the House Armed Services Committee to review and assess the entire LCS program.

Corrosion problems discovered on the USS Independence have renewed concerns about the Littoral Combat Ship program. (MC2 Justan Williams / U.S. Navy)

"We at Navy have faced and overcome the program's past cost and schedule challenges," Mabus wrote in his letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

The letter was a quick response to Hunter's missive to Mabus sent earlier this week. Copies of each of the letters were obtained by Defense News.
Hunter, reacting to reports earlier this year of problems with both LCS designs, charged that the Navy, "instead of enacting proper oversight of this program and development of the ship design … was concerned with appeasing Congress and what has been referred to in Congressional hearings as 'industrial base stabilization.' "
The result, Hunter wrote, was a "toxic environment where the Navy needed to contract to build more ships at a faster rate despite major technical design flaws."
Congress, Hunter added, "was just as complicit in this failed program" when, late last year, it approved the Navy's plan to buy both LCS designs instead of just one, despite risks identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Hunter called on the Navy "to immediately conduct a formal review of the entire LCS program, provide an assessment of the technical design flaws of the current fleet and determine the best way forward to include the possibility of rebidding this contract so that the program can be put back on a fiscally responsible path to procurement."
The LCS program has had a long, complex and often troubled development history since its inception in 2003. Sharply criticized from many quarters, it is nevertheless routinely cited by Navy leaders for its promise of providing new and more flexible warfighting capabilities while at the same time becoming a mainstay of the future 313-ship fleet. Two LCS types - one based on the Lockheed Martin-developed USS Freedom (LCS 1), the other on the General Dynamics/Austal USA USS Independence (LCS 2) - are being built and fielded.
One ship of each type is in service and more are building. By the end of the decade, the Navy plans to buy a 55-ship LCS fleet of both types.
Freedom and Independence have each suffered a series of teething problems. Superstructure cracks appeared in Freedom soon after the ship's 2008 completion, and in March a weld seam opened up while the ship was at sea, causing minor flooding.
More recently, reports have surfaced of corrosion problems on the water jets and water intakes on Independence. Hunter cited those problems on both ships in his letter to Mabus.
But Mabus, while acknowledging the problems, declared that neither of the events "can be attributed to out of sequence work or the lack of a stable design. Both LCS 1 and LCS 2 are first-of-class ships that have not completed all their test and trials."
New types of ships often have developmental problems, Mabus wrote.
"It is not uncommon for the Navy to discover and correct technical issues encountered on first-of-class ships during the post-delivery and trial period. In fact, this is one of the main reasons for the test and trial period," Mabus said in the letter.
"These issues are being repaired and corrected on both LCS 1 and LCS 2 and changes to the designs have been implemented for follow-on ships."
The hull crack in Freedom, Mabus wrote, was due to a weld defect, "a workmanship issue." The superstructure cracks were predicted and design changes have been made to later ships to lower the stresses in the superstructure, he wrote, and Freedom will undergo modifications later this year.
The corrosion issues on Independence, he said, "have been attributed to a design approach undertaken by General Dynamics and Austal USA that proved not as effective as anticipated."
An "interim repair" has been prepared for the ship, Mabus wrote, and a permanent fix will be installed next year during a scheduled maintenance period. A cathodic protection system will be installed on the next ship in the class and is included in the design for subsequent ships, he added.
Mabus noted the service recently established a new program executive office for the LCS program, combining the management and oversight of both the ship development effort and that of the complex mission modules that give the ships their primary warfighting capabilities.
"We are confident that cost and development risks have been retired with the construction experienced obtained [on] the first four ships," Mabus declared, noting the use of fixed-price contracts for current and future ships, as well as efforts to improve production quality and efficiency at both LCS shipyards.
"Rebidding the LCS contracts at this point would undoubtedly increase the cost and delivery time of future LCS platforms," Mabus concluded.

Saudi Arabia Mulling BMD-Capable Destroyers

Saudi Arabia, which has long considered the purchase of American littoral combat ships (LCS) with a lightweight Aegis combat system, is contemplating the acquisition of new DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers that could be fitted with ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability.

The U.S. Navy briefed Saudi officials in late May on the capabilities of DDG-51 destroyers, such as the USS Sterett, above. (U.S. Navy)

The U.S. Navy briefed Saudi officials in late May on the capabilities of the destroyers, which would be far more powerful than any ship currently in the kingdom's service.

The U.S. Navy would not confirm whether the brief included BMD options, but sources did not deny that it was part of the presentation.
Saudi Arabia has been looking at Aegis-equipped LCS designs from both Lockheed Martin and Austal USA since mid-2008. Those designs, which range in size from 3,000 to about 4,000 tons, would be equipped with SPY-1F lightweight Aegis radars similar to those fitted on Norwegian frigates. But the SPY-1F lacks the fidelity and software to perform the BMD mission, and the ships probably wouldn't have the electrical capacity to power a BMD radar.
The U.S. Navy's 9,100-ton DDG 51s are the heart of the fleet's BMD force. About 20 U.S. cruisers and destroyers have had their SPY-1D Aegis systems upgraded to perform the BMD mission, and more are being backfitted. Future DDG 51s will be built with the BMD capability.
A land-based Aegis BMD system also is under development by the U.S. for deployment in Europe as part of that continent's missile defense shield.
Capt. Cate Mueller, spokesperson for the U.S. Navy's acquisition office, confirmed that the "non-binding price and availability (P&A) rough order of magnitude estimate was delivered in May" to the Saudis.
The brief, she said, included information on the capabilities and prices of "medium surface combat ships with integrated air and missile defense capability, helicopters, patrol craft and shore infrastructure."
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a major weapon upgrade for its armed services. The Saudi Naval Expansion Program II is said to be considering the purchase of up to a dozen new warships worth, according to various media accounts, between $20 billion and $23 billion.
The recent U.S. brief provided options that included buying a mix of destroyers and LCS vessels, sources said. One source said the Saudis were considering the purchase of two destroyers plus an unknown number of LCS vessels.
No decisions have been made by the Saudis. Back-and-forth talks are continuing between the countries, a Pentagon source said, with no deal imminent.
The Navy and Lockheed Martin are awaiting feedback from the Saudis, Paul Lemmo, Lockheed's head of Mission Systems and Sensors, said June 10 through a spokesman. He confirmed that Lockheed supported the U.S. Navy's presentation.
Acquisition of Aegis BMD would provide the Saudis with a considerable anti-missile capability, possibly in excess of any other gulf-region country, including Israel.
"The DDG 51 is the most capable destroyer on the planet," said one naval expert. "If the Saudis get anything like that, it would be quite significant."
A seagoing BMD capability would minimize terrorist threats to the system, said one senior retired naval officer.
"It's much more difficult to defeat it - a truck bomb doesn't matter," the retired naval officer said. Moreover, "you can move a ship to a particular threat axis. It's much harder for the other guy to plan against."
But Iran, the primary threat in the region, already operates three Russian-built Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines and is acquiring more small subs, all able to threaten ships at sea. But identification of the target may prove difficult, particularly if an Iranian sub was trying to target Saudi but not U. S. ships.
The addition of BMD-capable ships in the gulf would help the United States, which already maintains at least one such ship in the region.
"If the Saudis always have one in the gulf, it makes it easier for the U.S. Navy to meet its commitments in the region," the retired senior naval officer said.
Several other countries already operate the Aegis system or are building it into new warships, and Japan's four Aegis destroyers are BMD-certified. But the transfer of such high-level technology comes with risks - which could become a concern in Congress, particularly after this year's "Arab Spring" featured anti-government uprisings in several countries.
"If you think the kingdom isn't long for this world, a fundamentalist takeover could put a system in the hands of the enemy," the retired senior naval officer observed.
He harkened back to the late 1970s when prerevolutionary Iran, led by the shah, was a U.S. ally. Several highly capable destroyers were under construction for Iran when the shah fell.
Those ultimately were not delivered, but earlier, the U.S. had certified Iran as the only ally to receive F-14 Tomcat fighters equipped with the Phoenix air-to-air missile, then a state-of-the-art capability. Those aircraft and missiles all fell into the hands of the anti-U.S. Iranian government.

Gates: New Weapons For 'Robust' US Role In Asia

SINGAPORE - Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday vowed the U.S. military would maintain a "robust" presence across Asia backed up with new high-tech weaponry to protect allies and safeguard shipping lanes.

Seeking to reassure Asian allies mindful of China's growing power and Washington's fiscal troubles, Gates told a security conference in Singapore that Washington's commitment to the region would not be scaled back.

Instead, the U.S. military will expand its presence in Southeast Asia, sharing facilities with Australia in the Indian Ocean and deploying new littoral combat ships (LCS) to Singapore, where it has access to naval facilities, he said.

The LCS is a speedy, lighter ship designed to operate in shallow coastal waters.

Gates, who steps down at the end of the month after more than four years as Pentagon chief, said the U.S. military planned to deepen its engagement with countries across the Pacific, with more port calls and training programs.

The U.S. military will be positioned in a way "that maintains our presence in Northeast Asia while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean," Gates said.

The speech came as countries facing a rising China watch the United States for signs of its long-term security plans in Asia, amid mounting disputes over territorial rights in the potentially resource-rich South China Sea.

"The U.S. position on maritime security remains clear: we have a national interest in freedom of navigation; in unimpeded economic development and commerce; and in respect for international law," Gates said.

Citing investments in new radar-evading aircraft, surveillance drones, warships and space and cyber weapons, Gates said the United Sates is "putting our money where our mouth is with respect to this part of the world - and will continue to do so."

The planned weapons programs represented "capabilities most relevant to preserving the security, sovereignty, and freedom of our allies and partners in the region," he said.

The programs also include maintaining America's nuclear "deterrence" amid continuing concern over North Korea's atomic weapons.

Senior U.S. officers have long pointed to China's military buildup, saying Beijing's pursuit of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles as well as cyber warfare capabilities pose a potential threat to US naval power in the region.

Without naming China, Gates said the new hardware was a response to "the prospect that new and disruptive technologies and weapons could be employed to deny US forces access to key sea routes and lines of communications."

Although the Pentagon's budget would come under growing scrutiny and military spending in some areas would be cut back, Gates predicted that investments in the key "modernization" programs would be left untouched.

"These programs are on track to grow and evolve further in the future, even in the face of new threats abroad and fiscal challenges at home."

This would ensure "that we will continue to meet our commitments as a 21st century Asia-Pacific nation - with appropriate forces, posture, and presence", he said.

Looking back on US policy in Asia since he took over at the Pentagon in 2006, Gates said the military had bolstered ties with old allies, such as Japan and South Korea, as well with new partners, including India and Vietnam.

The speech reflected how Washington has sought to strike a delicate balance between countering a more assertive Chinese military with a bigger presence in the region while seeking to defuse tensions through dialogue and exchanges.

Gates, who held talks with his Chinese counterpart Liang Guanglie on Friday, said efforts to promote a security dialogue with China had borne fruit and that military relations had "steadily improved in recent months."