From Navy Times

 

Navy official confident about LCS

By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday May 8, 2007 20:53:03 EDT

 

The Navy’s top acquisition official was upbeat and positive May 7 about the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program, telling a Washington audience, “We’re back on track.”

 

Earlier this year, severe cost overruns and manufacturer problems led the service to cancel plans to buy two more LCS ships in 2007 to pay for cost growth on the first ships. The construction contract for one of two LCSs being built by Lockheed Martin was cancelled, and in a touch of ignominy, a fire damaged the first ship late last month while it was under construction in Wisconsin. The service scaled back its original request for three ships in 2008 to two while the program weathered an intense internal review.

 

Congress seems poised to restore that ship and one more to the 2008 budget request, but only if the Navy can demonstrate they’ve got a handle on the program.

 

“We do believe we can execute four ships,” Delores Etter confidently told reporters May 7 after speaking at a Navy-sponsored small business convention. “We stumbled and we’ve got to show [Congress] that we’ve got things turned around and are on the right track.”

 

Etter’s mood was in stark contrast with the stern countenance over past months of Navy officials clearly alarmed by the dramatically negative turn in the LCS program. Costs for the first ship, originally forecast at about $220 million, ballooned to between $350 million and $375 million. In January, program officials were fired and a deep review led by Navy Secretary Donald Winter revealed a host of problems with the shipbuilders and the Navy’s handling of the program.

 

But Etter now is looking ahead. “It’s such an important part of the future Navy,” she said.

From Navy Times

 

Admiral confident of LCS despite setbacks

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer

Posted : Wednesday Jun 13, 2007 15:34:01 EDT

 

Despite major cost problems with the program and some skepticism about the design concepts, Adm. Gary Roughead remains convinced that Littoral Combat Ships are the ships the Navy needs.

 

“I’ve always believed in the LCS, believed in the need for LCS,” he said. “And that’s just reaffirmed to me that that is going to be a ship of the future for the U.S. Navy.”

 

Roughead, the new leader of Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., toured the ships on a recent cross-country trip that also took him to San Diego for the homecoming of the amphibious assault ship Boxer.

 

The LCS program has two different designs for fast ships, crewed by only 40 sailors, meant to operate in shallow water close to shore. Both ships have a large open bay for interchangeable combat modules and mission crews.

 

But Navy hopes for a fleet of 55 Littoral Combat Ships have been hampered by cost increases from $220 million to $400 million in the first ship — not including the warfare modules — and the cancellation of the another LCS due to price hikes. Likewise, the first LCS, built by Lockheed Martin, has been delayed.

 

Navy Secretary Donald Winter told reporters during a visit to the Hampton Roads area on June 6 that the Navy will be looking hard at the way it buys ships, partly because of the LCS snags.

 

“We have some pressurization on the shipbuilding budget. That’s evidenced, if you will, in challenges we’ve seen on programs like the Littoral Combat Ship,” he said. “We’re engaged in a very significant reassessment of how we acquire our ships.”

 

Roughead is taking a look at LCS, too, not as a program, but to ensure that Fleet Forces Command is prepared to man, train for and equip the new ships.

 

“Our responsibility here is the introduction of that ship and to make sure we doing the things here at Fleet Forces Command and in the surface force that introduces those ships to the Navy in the best way we possibly can,” he said in a recent interview.

 

Early in Roughead’s career, he served on Asheville-class gunboats — small, aluminum craft designed for coastal combat. In a precursor to the LCS, his small crew was made up of “hybrid sailors,” who filled several job descriptions aboard ship.

 

“Because of the size of the crew, we didn’t have the luxury of, ‘I’m an electrician. I do electrician stuff.’ Or ‘I’m an engineman. I do engineman stuff.’ All that is off the table,” he said. “And we, because of that, were an incredibly effective crew.”

 

As for the ship itself, Roughead says he found the innovative designs promising for the future LCS crews and the fleet.

 

He said LCS is “a great ship that I see can complement our more traditional formations — the strike groups — but yet a ship that can easily adapt to other operating environments because of the shallow draft, the speed, the reconfigurable nature of the mission capability,” he said. “I just see it being a very versatile, very effective and quite frankly, a likely workhorse of the Navy.”

LCS fire an accident, investigators conclude

 

By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday Jun 26, 2007 6:01:32 EDT

 

Investigators have largely wrapped up their efforts to determine the cause and effects of a fire in April on board the Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship and have concluded the cause was accidental. Based on forensic evidence, arson is not likely, the investigators concluded.

 

Damage to the ship is estimated to cost about $3.5 million and the fire caused a two-week schedule delay, the Navy said June 21.

 

The fire broke out early on the morning of April 25 on board the USS Freedom (LCS 1), under construction at Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wis. According to the Navy and Lockheed Martin, which is overseeing construction of the ship, a subcontractor to Marinette Marine was welding pipe hangers to the ceiling — the “overhead” in ship parlance — of an interior compartment when the heat generated by the welding caused materials on the deck above to ignite.

 

Fire was discovered in the compartments above about 5:20 a.m. and local firefighters were summoned. The flames were confined largely to berthing spaces for chief petty officers on the starboard side of the ship on the First Platform deck between frames 45 and 54. Also in the area were enlisted berthing spaces, a medical treatment room and a passageway.

 

The fire was extinguished around 6 a.m., Lockheed Martin said, and two shipyard workers who first responded to the fire were treated for smoke inhalation at a local hospital before being released.

 

No major system areas on the ship were damaged, according to the Navy.

 

Most of the areas affected by the fire had yet to be painted or fitted with equipment.

 

Smoke, flame and firewater damage affected nearby areas. Four toilet/shower modules were damaged beyond repair and three other modules needed replacement, Lockheed said. Insulation and electrical cable also were replaced and other areas cleaned.

 

Lockheed noted that fire insulation on the Freedom “performed extremely well and prevented the fire from spreading to other areas on the ship. In fact, when the team investigated the areas, they found that the paint under the insulation had not been discolored or damaged in any way.”

 

Among the Navy, Federal, State and industry teams investigating the fire were representatives from Lockheed Martin and Marinette Marine; the Navy Criminal Investigative Service; Naval Sea Systems Command; the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation arson inspector; the FBI and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms fire investigator. The Navy’s Gulf Coast supervisor of shipbuilding — whose territory includes Wisconsin — also is conducting a required Manual of the Judge Advocate General report.

 

In May, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Marinette Marine and subcontractor Jamar for three safety violations stemming from the April 25 fire, fining Marinette $7,500 and Jamar $6,750.

 

The Freedom was about 80 percent complete at the time of the fire. Although construction work on the ship resumed May 4, the Freedom remains behind schedule.

 

In December 2004, when the construction contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin, the Navy hoped to have the ship delivered in May 2007. The ship was launched in September 2006, but completion has been delayed by a series of production problems and design changes, even as costs have grown from about $220 million to as much as $400 million. Delivery of the Freedom now is expected no sooner than early 2008 and perhaps later.

 

Excessive price growth on the Freedom was revealed early in January, when the Navy halted work on a second ship to have been built to Lockheed’s LCS design. The Navy canceled that yet-to-be-named ship on April 12 after it was unable to reach agreement with Lockheed on a cost adjustment.

 

Cost growth also has struck LCS competitor General Dynamics, which is building two ships in Mobile, Ala.

 

As of June 21, the Navy has yet to determine total construction costs for either the Lockheed or General Dynamics ships and continues to characterize the cost growth as “between 50 percent and 75 percent depending on the basis of comparison,” although unofficial estimates are higher for both designs.

 

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