The two Littoral Combat Ship variants, LCS-1 Freedom (far) and LCS-2 Independence (near). (U.S. Navy photo by LT Jan Shultis)
Correct April 6, 2022 pm at 6:15 pm ET: The original version of this story incorrectly stated FFG-63 would be the first Constellation-class frigate to receive a new sonar. FFG-62, the lead ship in the class, will be the first.
WASHINGTON: Following an announcement earlier this week that the Navy would cancel a key anti-submarine warfare effort bound for the Littoral Combat Ship, the service today also said it would replace that technology with an alternative system onboard the new Constellation-class frigate.
Rear Adm. Casey Moton, a senior officer overseeing both ship classes, told a small group of reporters that “following an assessment,” the Navy chose the CAPTAS-4 variable depth sonar (VDS) made by Advanced Acoustics Concepts, a subsidiary of DRS and Thales, as the new frigate VDS.
“The Navy assessed CAPTAS-4 as a low risk VDS option for FFG-62 due to its proven performance, overall technical readiness level, low risk integration with the SQQ-89 ASW combat system, ability to integrate with the frigate platform design and ability to meet the in-yard need date for FFG-62,” Moton said. Breaking Defense, which was not on the call, obtained audio of the discussion.
Moton’s announcement follows word of the service’s decision to stop pursuing the anti-submarine warfare mission module for the Littoral Combat Ship, a decision Navy officials made public on Monday during the president’s budget request rollout.
Like other parts of the LCS program, the service has had a variety of problems with the anti-submarine warfare mission modules over the years. The prior sonar of choice, Raytheon’s Dual-mode Array Transmitter, was bound for the Constellation-class frigate, but in February the service published a request for information to industry seeking alternative technologies.
The consequences for the last-minute change to the Navy’s contract with Raytheon are still being worked out, Moton said, but he added that the company had been “professional” throughout the process to date. The admiral also said he does not anticipate “very much of a change” to the ship’s cost as a result of the new VDS.
During the call, Moton sought to dispel the notion that the decision to cancel the LCS mission package, the Navy’s request to retire nine Freedom-class vessels in fiscal 2023 and the choice to change the new frigate’s VDS were connected.
“The frigate timing was more driven by the fact that we are proceeding to a critical design review for the ship [and] that we are proceeding to production readiness review of the ship,” he said.
That it happened “in concert” with the changes announced to the LCS program during the budget rollout were “almost coincidental… the common factor, obviously, was what we were seeing in the tests of Raytheon’s sonar, and what our assessment was of the risk of overcoming the problems with the sonar.”
