More than half a million dollars is what it cost to own and operate this ship, per day!
That’s what you get for decommissioning a 2-year old warship that cost over $360 million dollars
just to build, let alone operational costs! But not only the US Navy is decommissioning this ship,
all active sister-ships in her class will be gone as well. And to make matters more confusing,
6 brand new ships of the same class are going to be built! But the reason
for disposing of 9 modern warships, only to build 6 more of them, is Not What You Think!
In the late 1990s, the US Navy had planned to retire all of its remaining guided missile
frigates and patrol coastal ships without any replacement on the horizon. This would have left
only twenty-six dedicated mine warfare vessels, 40% of which were not in their best shape.
With the impending block retirement of over fifty destroyers and frigates,
in 2001, the Navy announced it would build a fleet of small, fast,
and stealthy Littoral Combat Ships as part of its new DD(X) surface combatant family of ships.
Two classes of Littoral Combat Ships or LCS were developed. The Freedom-class, and the
Independence-class. These new classes of Littoral Combat Ships, were supposed to be cost-effective,
required few crewmembers, had a high sprint speed, and were capable of handling multiple
types of missions; specifically surface warfare, mine countermeasure warfare, and anti-submarine
warfare. The first LCS ship was commissioned in 2008, and the LCS drama hasn’t stopped since.
The LCS class was designed to have a sprint speed of over 47 knots, even though the initial concept
mentioned speeds of up to 70 knots. To accomplish this, a new propulsion system was proposed,
made up of combined diesel engines and gas turbines that would power
4 steerable water jets. The idea was to use diesel engines for cruising speeds, and when needed,
engage the gas turbines to achieve high sprinting speeds. A complicated combining gear was used to
fuse and transmit power from the four separate engines to the ship’s waterjet propulsion system.
But by the end of 2016, 75% of the Freedom-class littoral combat ships had experienced issues
with this gear transmission system, and in some cases, the ships had to be towed back to port.
In 2021, the Navy called the Freedom LCS Propulsion Problem a “Class-Wide defect”,
that had to be fixed by the shipbuilder, Lockheed Martin. Until such a fix was in place, the Navy
limited the use of the two propulsion systems at the same time, which meant Freedom-class ships
could only generate a maximum speed of 10 to 15 knots. This was a big blow to the LCS program.
A unique feature of the LCS-class was its modular design. The ships could be reconfigured for
3 different types of missions by plug&play of a particular mission package that would
include the relevant weapon systems, sensors and mission crews. Swapping the mission packages was
envisioned to happen within a few hours. But in practice, it took days, not hours, and proved to
be logistically difficult to do. In 2016, the US Navy deemed the modular design impractical
and announced that they will abandon the modular concept for LCS. Instead each littoral combat
ship would be permanently equipped with a single module. This was a big blow to the LCS program.
But this meant the ships could still be used with one particular mission package, right?
RIGHT? Mmm … Why don’t we look at the mission packages?
The surface warfare mission package would provide the fleet protection from small boats
and other asymmetrical threats. It can also be used to provide operational security in
interdicting terrorist suspects and pirates, and defending against shore attacks while operating
in the littorals. This package has proven to work well on the LCS-class. This is probably the
only mission package that really demands those top speeds provided by the combined propulsion system.
The second package was to support Mine Countermeasure missions or MCM. The US
Navy’s current MCM capabilities are limited to a handful of Avenger-class ships that were
commissioned between 1987 and 1994. Littoral combat ships equipped with an MCM package,
were considered a replacement for the aging fleet of Avenger-class ships.
The MCM package was supposed to keep the personnel out of minefields,
and instead use a variety of unmanned vehicles to sweep the area. For example
an unmanned surface vessel towing a minesweeper would be sent into the area of interest to mow
the lawn and detect threats, while the LCS and its crew would sit at a safe distance.
There were also in-water components like the Knifefish unmanned underwater vehicle,
that could be launched from the LCS to then submerge and find mines buried in the area.
This is in addition to aviation-based systems that would be launched from the MH-60 Seahawk
helicopters housed on the LCS-class ships. Many of these systems are still being tested.
The third and final package was the anti-submarine warfare module or ASW. A key component of the LCS
anti-submarine package was a towed variable depth low-frequency active sonar,
a capability that the US Navy does not yet have in its fleet. This variable depth sonar
could give the Navy more tools to detect the newer sophisticated Russian submarines.
But the variable depth sonar, built by Raytheon,
suffered stability problems while being towed underwater. As a result of its poor performance,
in March of 2022, the US Navy announced the termination of the ASW module.
This was a big blow to the …. No this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Instead of a fast, modular fleet, the Navy ended up with single-missioned ships that had major
propulsion failures. The low operational costs that were promised at the inception of the LCS
program have also been replaced with expensive maintenance costs due to gearbox issues as well
as an increase in the crew size. The initial crew size of 40 assigned sailors and officers grew
to 70 sailors when the surface fleet decided to permanently assign each LCS with a single mission.
Some estimate the annual operating cost of each littoral combat ship to be $70 million dollars,
even though the US Navy says it’s closer to $50 million.
In comparison, operating an Arleigh Burke destroyer cost about $80 million dollars per year.
With no ASW mission package and unexpected costs to repair the combining gear problem,
Navy officials said it wasn’t worth keeping the 9 Freedom-class littoral ships in commission.
But two questions remain: First, how is the US Navy going
to handle the missions that Freedom-class ships were supposed to accomplish?
There is still a need for mine countermeasure missions and anti-submarine warfare.
And second, why on earth would the Navy decommission all 9 active Freedom-class
ships, and at the same time continue with the construction of 6 new ships of the same class?
Why not just fix the existing 9 ships and stop building the new ones?
The decommissioned Freedom-class littoral combat ships are being
replaced by the new Constellation-class frigates.
Anti-submarine warfare would be a major part of this emerging frigate program,
which will be equipped with a towed sonar array that has a proven track record, having been
widely used in Royal Navy’s Type 23 and Type 26 frigates and a variety of other navies.
As for mine countermeasure capabilities, remember,
there is still a second class of littoral combat ships, the Independence-class. The US Navy will
most likely end up installing the MCM package on those ships.
As for the second question, there is a way to fix the combining gear problem on the 9 Freedom-class
ships that are currently active. But it requires each ship to go into dry dock for several months,
and then the ship’s hull has to be invasively cut open in order to remove and replace the gears.
In contrast, the 6 ships that are still under construction can be more easily fitted with the
new combining gear. In addition, the Navy has announced that the 6 new Freedom-class ships
will be fitted with a variation of the surface warfare mission package,
which has proven to work well on the existing LCS classes.
There were too many new ideas and technologies implemented in the LCS class,
and if you recall, this is also what doomed the Zumwalt-class destroyers.
But isn’t innovation and pushing the boundaries what is needed to get ahead of the game?
Or does the US Navy owe a big apology to American taxpayers?