Navy Unveils Surprise Plan For Littoral Combat Ships

WASHINGTON: The Navy plans to put its new Naval Strike Missile on 31 of its 35 Littoral Combat ships over the next 18 months, while outfitting 15 ships with an anti-submarine module, and 15 others with anti-mine capabilities. 

That breakneck pace of the proposed LCS upgrades is the clearest sign yet of the Navy’s concern over its being outgunned by the Chinese surface navy, and the premium being placed on keeping eye on new generations of capable Chinese and Russian submarines prowling below. 

The new details were offered by Adm. Mike Gilday in testimony before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, representing his most ambitious public comments concerning the LCS fleet to date.

The LCS class has struggled to find a place in the fleet after its original mission modules — designed to be moved on and off ships given whatever mission they were performing — failed to develop as planned. But Adm. Mike Gilday told the committee today, “we’re very bullish on LCS” moving forward, a departure from previous comments where he portrayed the class as a problem to be surmounted.

Earlier this year, the Navy announced it would stop accepting delivery of the Lockheed Martin-built Freedom-class LCS while the company tests and fixes a major propulsion issue found on all 16 ships. The halt was another black eye for a program that has yet to prove its utility, despite the delivery of around 20 ships across two classes over the past decade. 

The Naval Strike Missile, the result of a Raytheon-Kongsberg partnership, is quickly emerging as a weapon that will play a central role in the Navy’s plans to defend itself at sea. Not only will the missile, with a range of about 115 miles, be bolted aboard 31 Littoral Combat Ships, but it will also be aboard at least the first 10 Constellation-class frigates slated to enter the fleet later this decade. 

The Navy work will be contingent on funding, and with the 2022 defense budget not expected until some time in May its unclear what systems will be a priority. Earlier today, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Jack Reed said that his committee won’t begin their markups of the budget until July, a delay on work usually done in May.

The delay will leave the month of May open for hearings to consider the two dozen nominees the Biden White House has sent the Senate in recent weeks. Reed also said he expects Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the members of the Joint Chiefs to testify about the budget some time in June.

House Armed Services chair Rep. Adam Smith has said Congress might not be able to fully tackle the budget until the Fall, if its release slips into late into the spring. A House staffer said today that House leadership is still considering a timeline for markups and debate on the budget, depending on when it is released.

The proposed work on the LCS is in keeping with broader plans for the Naval Strike Missile hatched by the Navy and Marine Corps over the past two years.

Early efforts so far include possibly outfitting some amphibious ships with the missile, a move in line with the wider push to add more punch to the US fleet as China and Russia deploy their own medium and long-range weapons out to sea.  

The Corps has been working for two years to develop a way to launch anti-ship missiles from shore-based ground vehicles, and has developed a plan to launch the NSM from the back of a modified Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. 

The emerging Marine vision to support the Navy at sea from land-based systems — first reported by Breaking Defense — calls for the development of 14 new precision strike batteries dubbed NMESIS (Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System). By 2030, the Marines want to have at least 252 launchers stacked with hundreds of Naval Strike Missiles, a powerful threat to hold enemy ships out of the range of the missile. 

The submarine and mine-hunting technologies would also play a key role in protecting the surface fleet at a time when China’s sub fleet is slated to outgrow the US. Over the next decade, estimates hold that China will have around 76 submarines to the US Navy’s 66. Beijing’s undersea fleet has grown increasingly capable in recent years and is continuously improving, the Office of Naval Intelligence has concluded.