Issue #45 October 2013

Naval SITREP Page 1

Table of Contents

The Naval SITREP is edited by Larry Bond and is published biannually by the Admiralty Trilogy Group (AdmiraltyTrilogy.com). Price per digital issue is $3.00 US. Article contributions should be sent to AdTrGroup@aol.com. Include name, postal

address, and phone number.The Admiralty Trilogy is a registered trademark of Larry Bond, Chris Carlson, Ed Kettler, and Mike Harris. Harpoon is a registered trademark of Larry Bond and Chris Carlson. Command at Sea is a registered trademark of Larry Bond,

Chris Carlson, and Ed Kettler. Fear God & Dread Nought is a registered trademark of Larry Bond, Chris Carlson, Ed Kettler, and Mike Harris.

©2021 The Admiralty Trilogy Group

Product UpdatesFeaturesFix the Littoral Combat Ship! 2 Defining Vulnerability 3 The Two Ships 4 Comparing Corvettes 6 Too Revolutionary for Tradition? 8 Other Corvette Designs 9 LCS Timeline 11 Bibliography 12Seen at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition 13Harpoon Scenario: The Sri Lankan Crisis 15 Counters for the Sri Lankan Crisis 23 Annexes for the Sri Lankan Crisis 18Graf Zeppelin in Detail 26Donald Featherstone 1918 - 2013 27CaS Scenario: Midway Cruiser Action 28INS Sindhurakshak Lost 29Admiral Sir John Woodward 1932 - 2013 29Rules Changes & ClarificationsBlue Parrot Radar Range Correction 30Product Updates 1Dragoman’s New Releases 1Book ReviewsThe First Naval Air War, by Terry C. Treadwell 30

Cover: INS Ranvir (D54) and INS Kulish (P63)

U.S. Navy

Dragoman is one of several miniatures vendors on Shapeways, which is carrying an ever-expanding line of miniatures in scales from 1/700 to 1/6000. Some of the latest offerings are from Dragoman, who has produced: • Harbin SH-5 in 1/300, 1/400, 1/600, 1/700, and 1/1200 scales • P-8 Poseidon in 1/1200 scale • Australian E-7A Wedgetail in 1/1200 scale • Boeing 737 x 2 in 1/1200 • Kawasaki P-1 in 1/400 and 1/1200 scale • Shaanxi Y-8/An-12 in 1/1200 • Shaanxi Y-8 ASW (w/MAD stinger) in 1/400 and 1/1200 • Shaanxi Y-8 Model 600 in 1/300, 1/400 and 1/1200 scales • A set of Shaanxi KJ-200 AEW & Y-8 ECM variants in 1/1200

Dragoman’s New Releases

Dragoman’s P-8 Poseidon in 1/1200 scale

• A set of modern patrol aircraft in 1/2400 scale: 4 P-8 Poseidon, 2 E-7A Wedgetail, and 4 Kawasaki P-1

He also produces many single-engine offbeat WW II and pre-WW II aircraft in 1/200 and 1/300 scales. And he’s open to suggestions and requests.

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See the article on page 29.

In Print Andy Doty’s Rising Sun Form 10s product is being assembled, and will be available soon. It has over 350 Form 10s covering the ships that are used in the surface engagements from the Rising Sun supplement for CaS, which has scenarios covering the first half of the Pacific War. Don’t worry, there’s an index. Actually several, sorted in different orders. And in an effort to save many defenseless trees, it will be offered as one of a downloadable pdf files at The Wargame Vault (see below). Shattered Armada, Mike Harris’ supplement for the Spanish Civil War, is on track for a Cold Wars ‘14 release. On Line We will soon begin offering its prod-ucts for sale as downloadable pdf files at

The Wargame Vault (www.wargamevault.com). Releases will include Naval SITREPs, supplements, and rules, as well as other products. As a special offer during its debut, customers who purchase $40 worth of elec-trons before April 1st, 2014 will receive a free copy of Dance of the Vampires. This is a writeup of the three battles Tom Clancy and I played as part of our research for writing Red Storm Rising. During this introductory period, the product will only be available as part of this promotion. Also, this fall Clash of Arms will be updating and improving its website. If you haven’t visited lately, check it out. I’ll post updates on the Wargame Vault project and the website update on my Face-book page, along with the progress of other projects.

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Fix the Littoral Combat Ship!by Larry Bond

Usually, articles in the Naval SITREP are about history or naval technology, or rules in one of the Trilogy games. This one has a very different purpose: To describe the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship, the program that created it, and why construction of these vessels should be immediately halted while they straighten things out. It’s my considered judgement that the original design and the program to build it are failures, and even if the program proceeds with no further problems, the LCS in its current form will provide minimal capability for far too high a cost. It will not meet the Navy’s needs. This article will argue that: 1) The original concept of the vessel was flawed. 2) The vessel(s) designed failed to meet that specification. 3) The management of the construc-tion, both on the programmatic and techni-cal side, has been poor. 4) The vessels, even when complete, will have limited utility.

The Idea The decision to build a small combat vessel was the outgrowth of vigorous debate in the 1990s regarding the increasing costs of warships and their decreasing numbers. Different concepts were discussed, with names like “Streetfighter,” and “Sea Swat.” When the first Spruance-class destroyer was commissioned in 1975, and at 6,000 plus tons, displaced more than a WW II Atlanta-class light cruiser, many wondered if the Navy could build a small ship. Smaller ships would be cheaper, meaning more hulls for the same money. Many in the Navy resisted the idea. A blue-water fleet needed capability and endurance, which demanded relatively large ships. More practically, a new type of surface ship would have to compete with, and possibly siphon off funds for the other ship types. Admiral Vern Clark, who became CNO on July 21, 2000, championed the small ship concept as a way of modernizing the fleet and increasing its numbers. The number of ships in the fleet was shrinking, meaning the Navy couldn’t always be where it needed to.

There were many missions that could be performed by something smaller than a 4,000-ton guided missile frigate. His own personal experience as captain of USS Grand Rapids (PG 98), an Asheville-class gunboat, taught him the utility of smaller warships. Admiral Clark’s appointment as CNO in many ways marks the birth of the Littoral Combat Ship in the U.S. Navy.

The Concept On November 1st, 2001, the Navy issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a new series of advanced technology warships. The DD-21 family included the DD(X) and CG(X), destroyer and cruiser, and the Lit-toral Combat Ship (LCS), a small warship. This was described as “a small, fast, maneu-verable and relatively inexpensive member of the DD(X) family of ships” by Gordon R. England, Secretary of the Navy. All three designs would embody radical hull designs and be loaded with advanced weapons and sensors. Technology would link them into a “Networked Battle Force,” sharing sensor data. The CG(X) was canceled in 2010. The DD(X) became the 14,500 ton Zumwalt class, now under construction, and not without its own problems. The LCS was envisaged, first of all, as inexpensive, on the order of $200M. This is cheap, compared to the cost of a Burke DDG at roughly $2 billion, and an aircraft carrier at about $7 billion (that’s without the air group, and no moon roof ). Inexpensive means small, since you buy warships by the ton. With the O.H. Perry FFG class representing the smallest blue-water U.S. combatant at roughly 3,000 tons standard displacement, the next smaller size would be the “corvette” or “light frigate” (FFL). They’re still considered blue-water ships, not coastal vessels. Traditionally, smaller vessels can’t carry the weapons and sensors to perform a range of maritime missions, so instead they’re optimized to perform one mission well. The most typical missions are anti-submarine warfare (ASW), surface warfare (SUW), or mine warfare (MCM). The only mission a corvette cannot perform is area antiair warfare (AAW), because the radars and missiles required to engage hostile aircraft at long range are too large and heavy for a hull of that size.

The Concept The Navy was okay with the idea of a single mission vessel, but didn’t want to have to commit to fixed numbers of each type. Instead, it would place the weapons and sensors needed for each mission in modules that could be swapped out, changing the role of a ship and allowing the fleet to tailor its force as needed. In essence, the LCS would be a “sea truck”, a hull with a helicopter pad aft that could be used in a variety of different roles. The basic concept of operation in-volved a “seaframe” with a core crew of 40. It would be fitted with one of three mission modules for ASW, SUW, or MCM. The module would have its own 15-man mission detachment, and all the modules included an MH-60 helicopter with a 25-man avia-tion detachment. The modules would emphasize off-board sensors and weapons, such as unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like the MQ-8 Fire Scout, in addition to the helicopter. The hope was to engage hostile forces with the remotes while the LCS stayed out of harm’s way. It was planned that the modules could be changed in 24 hours, with the ship fully mission capable in 2 1/2 days. In addition to the core three missions, ASW, SUW, and MCM, the LCS could also perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), homeland defense, maritime intercept, special operations, and logistics (carrying cargo instead of a mission module).

The Detail Design The seaframe would be armed with a 57mm gun, a RAM launcher, and two .50 cal. machine guns. The sensor suite would include a multifunction radar, ESM, and a high-frequency mine avoidance sonar that could also cunction as a shallow-water search sonar. In addition to the modular concept, the ships would be fast, much faster than the standard 30+ knots of most warships. The Navy wanted 47 - 50 knots. The hull would have a shallow draft, for close-in work in coastal waters. It would use waterjet propulsion for the same reason. It would also have a reduced signature.

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To support the UAVs and MH-60, the LCS would have a large flight deck and hangar. The hangar could also accommodate containers of other mission-related equip-ment, as needed. A stern or side ramp would allow boats, UUVs, or unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to be launched. To reduce size, the ship would be heav-ily automated, with 40 crew performing the same duties as five or six times the normal crew for a ship of that size (my WW II-era destroyer, at 3,000 tons, had a crew of 300). Initially, there would be two core crews for each ship, “Blue” and “Gold,” just like an Ohio-class submarine, with the crews ro-tating in and out on station at four-month intervals, wherever the ship was deployed. Eventually, as the LCS force expanded, there would be three crews for every two ships, something the Navy called the “3-2-1 Plan.” The ships would remain deployed for periods as long as 16 months, although they would operate out of local ports for periods of up to 21 days. Additionally, as part of (or a conse-quence of ) the minimum manning concept, the core crew would perform only the most basic maintenance on board. If a piece of equipment broke down, it would stay down until the ship returned to port.

rigorous process designed to make sure that the ship the Navy ordered would accom-plish the mission it was intended to, for the smallest amount of money. Instead, the RFP issued in 2001 was a surprise to many in the Navy. Ronald O’Rourke, a naval specialist with the Con-gressional Research Service, has described the RFP as an “...analytical virgin birth.” When pressed by Congress during the FY 2003 budget hearings for analysis supporting the LCS’s concept of operations, Navy officials had to admit that it had not been done. They promised to perform such analysis, in the both FY 04 and FY 05 hear-ings, but by this time, the ships were already being designed by LM and GD. The Navy described it as “targeted anal-ysis to support concurrent development.” In other words, they would do analysis, but it would start with the assumption that the LCS concept was valid. • Too single-mission. While a corvette design may be optimized for a single role, a glance at typical ships (see pages 9 and 10) shows that they retain some minimal capa-bility in other warfare areas. The exception is mine countermeasures, which has always been performed by single-mission vessels. But an LCS fitted with an ASW mod-ule has no SUW capability except its 57mm gun and its RAM launcher - both very short-ranged. It can be sunk by a fast-attack craft (FAC) or patrol boat a fraction of its size firing anti-ship missiles.

The Contract On May 7th, 2004, the Navy approved two separate designs. Lockheed-Martin (LM) had opted for a monohull vessel, and General Dynamics (GD) for a trimaran. Each contractor would build two Flight 0 (prototype) ships. Experiments and testing would validate the many new concepts incorporated in both designs. After the trials were complete, a refined version of one of the designs would be built in numbers (Flight 1). The Navy’s initial plan was to build 55 seaframes and 64 mission modules: 24 SUW, 24 MCM, 16 ASW. The LCS would replace 30 O.H. Perry FFGs, 14 Avenger MCMs and 12 Osprey MHCs.

Problems with the Concept Even as a paper concept, the LCS concept of operations, and the preliminary designs by both LM and GD, had serious flaws. • Lack of Analysis. Previous Navy ships, from the Perrys and Burkes to older vessels like the Adams and Leahy classes, were only ordered after long consideration of different alternatives. Dr. Norman Friedman’s series on U.S. ship design (Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, etc.) shows in detail how com-plex and detailed the process is. While there was a spirited debate in the Navy about the need for small craft and what they should look like, it was a not a

Defining Vulnerability

From OPNAVINST 9070.1A, 30 Sep-tember 2012, Survivability Policy and Standards for Surface Ships and Craft of the U.S. Navy

“Level I represents the least severe envi-ronment anticipated and excludes the need for enhanced survivability for desig-nated ship classes to sustain operations in the immediate area of an engaged Battle Group or in the general war-at-sea region. In this category, the minimum design ca-pability required shall, in addition to the inherent sea keeping mission, provide for EMP [electromagnetic pulse]and shock hardening, individual protection for CBR [chemical/biological/radiological], includ-ing decontamination stations, the DC/FF [damage control/firefighting] capability to control and recover from conflagrations

and include the ability to operate in a high latitude environment.”

Examples:Patrol CombatantMine Warfare ShipsNaval Strategic SealiftMaterial Support ShipsAll Other Auxiliary Ships/Craft

“Level II represents an increase of severity to include the ability for sustained opera-tions when in support of a Battle Group and in the general war-at-sea area. This level shall provide the ability for sustained combat operations following weapons impact. Capabilities shall include the requirements of Level I plus primary and support system redundancy, collective protection system, improved structural

integrity and subdivision, fragmenta-tion protection, signature reduction, conventional and nuclear blast protec-tion and nuclear hardening.”

Examples:FrigatesAmphibious Warfare ShipsUnderway Replenishment Ships

“Level III, the most severe environ-ment projected for combatant Battle Groups, shall include the requirements of Level II plus the ability to deal with the broad degrading effects of damage from anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), torpedoes and mines.”

Examples:Aircraft CarriersBattle Force Surface Combatants

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If it’s carrying an SUW module, it has no ability to detect or attack submarines, or even know that it has been fired at by a torpedo. And by the way, even with the SUW module, the FAC still wins. A ship doesn’t always get to choose its opponent. • Speed is Not Life. Naval architects trade off payload and speed. Increasing a ship’s speed requires more power. It is at best a cube re-lationship, so that if a ship requires 35,000 hp to steam at 27 knots, like the Knox class (3,130 tons ltshp), increasing her speed to 30 knots, or 11%, will require upping her engine power to 48,000 hp, or by 37%. Bigger engines of course take up more space, burn more fuel, and are more expensive. The requirement for the LCS was 47-50 knots. This is much faster than the 30+ knots attributed to most U.S. warships. While some small craft can reach 40 or 50 knots, for instance, the Ital-ian Sparviero PTGH, It was a hydrofoil, and displaced 60 tons fl. Getting a ship 2,000+ ton-ship up to 50 knots, even with a wave-piercing bow, is a different matter altogether. The upshot of the extremely high speed requirement was that the LCS had to resort to many radical weight and space-saving measures. The hull is very lightly built (see hull cracking below), and has precious little weight left for other things. Of 2,000+ tons, only 400 tons is used for mission equipment, including fuel, ammo for the 57mm and the RAM launcher, crew, stores, and fuel. Which both LCS designs burn like crazy. Mission modules are limited to 180 tons. The Navy justified the speed as allowing a fast transit to or from a mission area, to pursue small boats, for ASW or mine operations, inserting/extracting SOF forces, or evading attack. This reasoning is faulty, because the high speed can be maintained only in relatively calm sea conditions. Raw engine power might drive the LCS at 50 knots in sea state five, but the battering the ship would take is unacceptable. Chasing small craft with the LCS is unnecessary, because the embarked UAVs or MH-60 helicopter are much faster, and while the Navy talks about evading attacks with high speed, the greatest threat from small craft is short- and medium-range antiship cruise missiles, like the C701 and C802. Fifty knots won’t help the LCS outrun them. High speed also isn’t necessary for ASW or mine warfare mis-sions. Since the concept called for the detection/neutralization of subs/mines to be performed by unmanned vehicles or helicopters, the LCS’s own speed is irrelevant. • Crew Confusion: Combining the core crew rotation scheme with the changeable mission modules, it’s more than possible that not only will a core crew come aboard a ship they haven’t seen in up to eight months, they’ll be working with a mission crew they’ve never met. Would a core crew feel any sense of ownership of the ship they’re assigned to? The Navy discovered this was a problem during the aborted Sea Swap initiative in 2009. • Staying Power: A ship’s durability is its ability to withstand damage and continue its mission, in other words, to “fight hurt.” This has been a long-standing policy in the Navy, and history is full of stories, from many navies, of ships that took damage and fought on. The buzzword for this is “graceful degradation,” meaning that a single hit won’t stop the ship from accomplishing its mission. The concept of operations for the LCS, though, is to accept that a single hit will be a mission kill, and that once it suffers battle damage, it should immediately withdraw.

Freedom FFLDisplacement: 2840 std In class: 2 + 4 + 5Size Class: C/Small In Service: 2008Propulsion: CODAG/Water jet Crew: 40Electrn Cnt: 3rd Gen D Acoust Cnt: NoneSignature: Small/Noisy Armor Rating: 0Weapons: ROFF(1)1 Mk110 57mm/70//1 DORNA EO CA(21)1 Mk31 w/21 RIM-116B-1 RAM Block 1A DPA/SA(1)2 12.7mm C/IntlAft pad (1)1 MH-60R and 3 MQ-8B Fire Scout UAV BSensors: ESM: 3rd GenTRS-3D/16 multifunction radar J/FRG2 Sperry Marine Bridgemaster E (use Decca 2000 series) J/UKRemarks:Freedom, Fort Worth, Milwaukee, Detroit, Little Rock, Sioux City, Wichita, Billings. Lockheed-Martin Littoral Combat Ship Flight 0. Monohull. Fitted with dual stabilizers and helo recovery system. Resupply by helicopter only, not fitted to receive cargo by UNREP. Aluminum superstructure, special damage modifier of -15%.Damage & Speed Breakdown:Dam Pts: 0 22 44 65 78 87Surf Speed: 40 30 20 10 0 Sinks

Independence FFLDisplacement: 2176 lt In class: 1 + 3 + 7Size Class: C/Small In Service: 2010Propulsion: CODAG/Water jet Crew: 40Electrn Cnt: 4th Gen D Acoust Cnt: NoneSignature: Small/Noisy Armor Rating: 0Weapons: ROFF(1)1 Mk110 57mm/70//1 Sea Giraffe CA(11)1 SeaRAM w/11 RIM-116B-1 RAM Block 1A DPB/SB/PA/SA(1)4 12.7mm C/IntlAft pad (1)1 MH-60R and 3 MQ-8B Fire Scout UAV BSensors: ESM: 3rd GenSperry Marine Bridgemaster E (use Decca 2000 series) J/UKSea Giraffe AMB J/SwedenKAX-2 TV/IR sensor --Remarks:Independence, Coronado, Jackson, Montgomery, Gabrielle Giffords, Omaha, Manchester, Tulsa. GD/Austal Littoral Combat Ship Flight 0. Trimaran. Carries Nulka 4th Gen decoy. SeaRAM is autonomous. Aluminum construction, special damage modifier of -25%. Multihull construction, special damage modifier of -25%, treat as being fitted with stabilizers. Maneuvers as Size Class B.Damage & Speed Breakdown:Dam Pts: 0 17 34 51 61 68Surf Speed: 40 30 20 10 0 Sinks

The Two Ships

USS Freedom (LCS-1)U.S. Navy

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The problem is that the light construc-tion of the LCS, and the lack of any armor or protective systems (because of the weight) means that any hit has a good chance of also inflicting a mobility kill. In Harpoon terms, a single hit by a typical SSM (Uran, 36 dp), on Freedom, the tougher of the two ships at 87 dp, not only inflicts 40% damage, the ship has to roll on the 0.7 line for Critical Hits, resulting in 3 - 8 criticals. It only gets worse from there. The YJ-83 does 39 dp, the Klub 43 dp. And poor Independence only has 68 dp. Do the math. The small crew and limited repair facilities mean that even if the ship survives the hit itself, they will not be able to cor-rect or mitigate any damage, and may even prevent them from keeping it afloat. • Firepower: Common wisdom in naval circles is that a ship should be able to engage one of its own type effectively. For example, two opposing DDGs should be roughly equivalent in combat capability. The LCS, a smaller combatant (≈ cor-vette), even when fitted with the SUW module, would find itself outclassed in both missile and gun power in a fight with another country’s corvette - any country’s corvette. If it’s on an ASW or MCM mis-sion, then the fight is even more unequal. In fact, most fast attack craft (one or two notches smaller than a corvette) carry far more offensive antisurface firepower. The only vessels the LCS can confidently deal with are lightly armed speedboats.

The U.S. Navy says it never intended the LCS to engage large surface combat-ants, but against anything tougher than a Boghammar, it’s going to lose. The U.S. Navy also argues that the LCS will be operating with other ships that can provide SUW support. That may work, as long as they aren’t too busy themselves. I submit that unless the LCS is capable of engaging similar small craft, she’s a liabil-ity to the formation, not an asset. • Defensive Firepower: The ability of either LCS design to defend itself is also problematic. A 57mm gun, no matter how advanced, is not a powerful antimis-sile weapon, and a single RAM launcher can only deal with two or three missiles at most as they approach. In other words, four missiles, half the load carried by many small craft, will saturate its defenses. While the LCS is fitted with chaff launchers, it does not have a defensive jamming suite. The Navy’s argument for its light defensive suite is that as part of a networked battle force, it can depend on other units to defend against any heavy attack, and the LCS’s weapons would only deal with “leak-ers.” As long as the LCS isn’t specifically tar-geted, that’s true, but a jamming suite is an important part of a ship’s soft kill defenses. Without a jammer to deny or break lock on a hostile missile seeker, the chance of a mis-sile hitting the LCS goes up.

The Big Problem: Vulnerability From the outset, the LCS concept of operations, the RFP, and the two contrac-tor’s designs all raised serious questions about the vessel’s vulnerability to attack. For example, the December 2011 re-port from the DoD’s Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) states that “LCS is not survivable in a hostile combat environment.” The Navy has put forward several argu-ments in defense of the LCS: 1) “The LCS is designed to meet all Level I survivability standards.” This state-ment refers to OPNAVINST 9070.1, issued by the CNO’s office. Basically, Navy ships are designed to three levels of survivability, Low, Medium, and High (see the sidebar on page 3 for the Navy’s definitions of each lev-el). The Navy says the LCS “meets all Level I requirements,” but what they’re really saying is that they’re deliberately planning to build LCS with minimal survivability. While minesweepers, which the LCS replaces, are indeed designed to Level I stan-dard, frigates, which the LCS also replaces, are Level II. And as already mentioned, mine warfare craft are much smaller (less than 1,000 tons) and cheaper than the 2,000+ ton LCS. By the way, the LCS does not meet the requirements for Level I. It’s never been tested for shock resistance, and the Navy has never listed EMP hardening or CBR protec-tion in its specifications.

USS Freedom with the trial Surface Warfare Module installed. The two low-profile 30mm mounts are located aft of the mast.U.S. Navy

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The LCS’ limited crew and onboard repair capability also raise serious questions about its basic firefighting capability. 2) “The LCS would operate inde-pendently only in a low to medium threat environment. In higher threat environments it would operate as part of larger force.” In other words, it will rely on nearby friendly forces to defend it. This does not recognize the possibility of a unit being isolated, or the threat in a given area from being under-estimated, until it’s too late. 3) “The LCS’ low signature and high speed, combined with warnings from net-worked sensors, greatly reduces the chance of it being attacked.” This argument fails in two ways: First, agreed that the chance of a VSmall (in Har-poon terms) ship being spotted may be less than a Small one, but no ship is invisible, and high speed is not a perfect solution. A pair or armed helicopters with surface-search radars would have no problem find-ing and running down a VSmall LCS. Secondly, both the trimaran and monohull LCS designs do not have reduced radar signatures. While this was part of the original concept, the requirement was de-ferred because of weight and cost concerns. Both ships have non-stealthy weapons and are loaded with radar hot spots. The space between the outriggers in Independence actually increases its radar signature. The Navy has tacitly admitted it, while trying to defend its detectability, by saying that “Both LCS have a signature comparable to similar ships of the same size,” in other words that of a 2,000 to 3,000 ton frigate (Small). This affects not only its detectability by search radars, but the ability of missile radar seekers to lock onto the vessel. A larger signaure also reduces the effectiveness of defensive contermeasures.

The Modules: • The SUW Module was originally to have two weapons systems, the Mk46 30mm gun and the Non-Line of Sight Launch System (NLOS-LS), an Army program in development when the ship was being designed. There are three “holes” in each LCS, port, starboard, and aft, which can accept either two 30mm and a vertical missile launcher aft, or three of the missile launcher modules. Each missile module has 15 missiles. The NLOS-LS had a range of 21 nm and a weight of 53 kg with a 17 kg warhead. The

missile was designed to destroy armored vehicles and similar sized-point targets. The Navy planned to use it to defeat swarm at-tacks by small craft. In April of 2010, the Army recom-mended cancelling the NLOS because of poor performance in tests and increasing unit costs for the missile. The DoD agreed. This leaves the Navy without an antisurface missile for the LCS. The Griffin missile was briefly considered, but it’s tiny, with even a smaller warhead and less range. Other antisurface assets include UAVs armed with 2.75 in rockets and the MH-60R carrying Hellfire. The RIM-116 Block 1A/B also has an antisurface mode. None of these weapons are appropriate for engaging anything larger than a patrol boat, and the helicopter and UAVs would have serious trouble if their opponent had any type of air defense. The 30mm gun modules have actually been installed as a trial on Freedom during her deployment to Singapore (see the photo on page 5). • The ASW Module was originally conceived as allowing the LCS to create a networked acoustic barrier. The Ultra Lightweight Array would be deployed with two unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and then be monitored from a distance. Con-tacts would be prosecuted by the MH-60R and UAVs using multistatic sonobuoys and Mk54 ASW torpedoes. A single incomplete ASW module was purchased in 2008 for $200M, but the Navy quickly announced they were rede-signing it. Problem: The ship would have to stop in the water to deploy the barrier, and once deployed, it was hard to move. The new module has a Thales CAP-TAS-4 VDS and a UAV. An award for the VDS is planned in 2014. Operational tests won’t start until at least 2016. • The MCM Module is emerging as the most important of the three, since the 13-ship Avenger class is overdue for retire-ment. Originally, the module was to use the Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System, a helicopter-mounted 30mm gun designed to destroy mines in shallow water, the Organic Airborne and Surface Influence Sweep System (OASIS), a torpedo-sized influence sweep towed by a MH-60, the Airborne Laser Mine Detection system, the AN/AQS-20A underwater sonar towed by the Remote Multi-Misison Vehicle UUV, and two Knifefish minehunting UUVs.

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