WASHINGTON: After years of delays, budget fights, and searing debates over the role that the ship will play, three Littoral Combat Ships will head out on their first deployments this year. “We’re deploying LCS this year. It’s happening. Two ships are going on the West Coast, one ship is going on the East Coast,” said […]
The debate over the operational relevance of the controversial Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) continues. The Navy has again spoken up for the much-maligned platform, suggesting to Breaking Defense that the LCS could operate in the Pacific like the PT boats of World War II or cavalry units in a Napoleonic army. Rear Adm. Donald Gabrielson said […]
Balancing security and access to data are critical to providing users with trustworthy, reliable data for real-time decisions.
Austal’s Alabama shipyard just got the first Littoral Combat Ship contract of 2017, an award of up to $548 million to build an Independence-class all-aluminum trimaran, the as-yet unnamed LCS-28. Lockheed Martin, which builds the steel-hulled Freedom-class LCS with Wisconsin shipyard Marinette Marine, is still in negotiations with the government, a Lockheed spokesman told me. […]
WASHINGTON: More money for maintenance would allow Navy ships to stay in service longer, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command said today, and accelerate the fleet’s growth to the Trump Administration’s avowed goal of 355 ships by “10 to 15 years with a relatively small investment.” The Navy’s current long-term plan assumes most warships […]
Breaking Defense launches its first eBook, collecting our best coverage of the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship.
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The $13 billion supercarrier USS Ford and the $500 million Littoral Combat Ship are both suffering engine trouble. But Navy Secretary Ray Mabus took pains today to defend LCS even as he derided Ford as “a textbook example of how not to build a ship.” Mabus’ determination to draw a distinction says a lot […]
Why edge and endpoint security can’t be an afterthought.
PENTAGON: After a series of embarrassing breakdowns, the Navy is overhauling how it operates its controversial Littoral Combat Ships. It’s not only big news for the Navy but a cautionary tale for would-be innovators. Both deployed LCS variants will follow the same deployment schedule and crew rotation model, but they will be segregated to simplify […]
After two years of embarrassing breakdowns in both variants of the embattled Navy Littoral Combat Ship, there are worrying signs that a reliability problem is built into the design. At issue: the unhappy combination of an unusually small crew struggling with a uniquely complex propulsion system, one that yokes gas turbines and diesel engines together. […]
[UPDATED with shock trials] The strangest-looking ship in the Navy is conducting two crucial tests. A broad, triple-hulled “trimaran” design likened to a villain’s vessel from Star Trek, the Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship completed its Initial Operational Test & Evaluation on June 3rd. What’s more, the Navy Sea Systems Command announced yesterday, the USS Coronado (LCS 4) wrapped […]
WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter wants to cut the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program to buy more missiles, aircraft, and upgrades to ships. That’s good as far as it goes, eminent naval historian and analyst Norman Polmar told me this morning — “in my opinion the decision should have been five years ago” — but it’s […]
“Tactical operating system” for warfighters has evolved to provide more situational awareness of the battlefield.
CRYSTAL CITY: What’s in a frigate? That which we call a Littoral Combat Ship by any other name would smell as sweet — or stink as bad, according to LCS’s many critics. While LCS is being redesigned and renamed, there’s a lot of hard work and hard choices required to make the improvements real. Yesterday, […]
UPDATED with US Navy response WASHINGTON: Some spectacular glitches marred the first overseas deployment of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, including an electrical failure that left the USS Freedom “briefly” dead in the water. Now Breaking Defense has obtained an unpublished Government Accountability Office study of Freedom‘s Singapore deployment that raises more serious questions about […]
WASHINGTON: Buried amidst the hundreds of pages of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2014 is an unusually sharp rebuke to a high-profile program, the Navy’s controversial Littoral Combat Ship. The defense policy bill has yet to pass the Senate, but assuming the current language stands – and there’s tremendous political pressure not to mess […]
CAPITOL HILL: Bark, it turns out, does not necessarily correlate with bite. The Government Accountability Office is infamous for its often scathing reviews of Pentagon programs, and its latest report on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship — one of GAO’s favorite targets — says Congress should “pause” LCS procurement until key systems are more adequately tested. But, […]