From Defense Aerospace

 

Nation's First Littoral Combat Ship Under Way

(Source: Lockheed Martin; issued July 28, 2008)

 

MARINETTE, Wis. --- History was made today when the nation's first Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom (LCS 1), put to sea for the first time, marking the beginning of Builder's Sea Trials for the first-in-class coastal surface combatant.

 

The agile 378-foot Freedom, designed and built by a Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT - News)-led industry team, is conducting Builder's Sea Trials in Lake Michigan. The trials -- which are a coordinated effort between the U.S. Navy and the Lockheed Martin team -- will include operational testing of the vessel's propulsion, communications, navigation and mission systems, as well as all related support systems.

 

"Freedom is now under way. Our team is looking forward to this trials period to demonstrate all the capabilities our unique design for LCS will bring to the Navy," said Joe North, director for Lockheed Martin's Littoral Combat Ship program. "We're pleased to be closing in on delivering this advanced warship to the Sailors who protect our nation all over the world."

 

Following the completion of Builder's Sea Trials, Freedom will return to Marinette Marine to prepare for Acceptance Trials that will be conducted by the U.S. Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey. LCS 1 will be delivered to the Navy later this year and home ported in San Diego, CA.

 

The Lockheed Martin team's design for LCS is a survivable, semi-planing steel monohull that provides outstanding maneuverability with proven sea-keeping characteristics to support launch and recovery operations, mission execution and optimum crew comfort. Team members also include naval architect Gibbs & Cox, ship builders Marinette Marine, a subsidiary of The Manitowoc Company, Inc. and Bollinger Shipyards, as well as best-of-industry domestic and international teammates to provide a flexible, low-risk war fighting solution.

 

Headquartered in Bethesda, MD, Lockheed Martin employs about 140,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2007 sales of $41.9 billion.

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog

 

What Do Lockheed and the Joker Have in Common?

Posted by Michael Bruno at 8/14/2008 9:00 AM CDT

 

Lots of smiles.

 

Lockheed Martin is proud of its first Littoral Combat Ship, LCS 1, and now it hopes the U.S. Navy comes to share the sentiment. The company is trumpeting its own sea trials of LCS 1 on July 28 on Lake Michigan ahead of the Navy Board of Inspection and Survey’s review starting in the next few weeks.

 

I and several other reporters met Fred Moosally, president of Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors, in Arlington, Va., recently to hear about the builder’s trials – as well as the giant contractor’s efforts to tweak the Navy into settling on a robust shipbuilding plan for the shore-hugging ships.

 

During late-July cruises on the seemingly placid, fresh-water Michigan, the 378-foot, 3,100-ton LCS 1 exceeded 40 knots at times, according to Moosally, who would not offer more details about the speed. The ship practiced 180- and 360-degree turns at various speeds, he further said also without much more detail.

 

Salt water conditions could even add a knot or two to the vessel’s sprint capability, which is powered by two Fairbanks Morse diesel engines providing more than 17,000 brake horsepower and two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines, the largest gas turbines ever to be installed on a Navy ship.

 

“It’s like a race car at sea,” Moosally asserts. “I’m just reading smiles” from Navy representatives, he says.

 

And Moosally hopes to keep it that way. “We do need another ship. We need another contract soon,” he says.

 

Moosally declined to discuss Lockheed’s recent bid for more LCS ships and said the company had expected more information about its plans for the program by Aug. 4. But he called a $460 million per-ship congressional cost cap unrealistic and noted that steel prices alone have jumped 21 percent in recent years.

 

“I don’t see how the 460 number is going to hold up for very long,” he said at one point.

 

Meanwhile, Moosally promoted Lockheed’s move to be a minority investor with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri in the proposed acquisition of the Marine business unit of the Manitowoc Co., as my colleague Andy Nativi blogged about here last week.

 

“This is our way of having some skin in the game on this program,” Moosally says.

 

The all-cash deal, valued at $120 million, is supposed to close at the end of the year. Nevertheless, Fincantieri plans to invest up to $100 million more in the next few years to upgrade the Manitowoc Marine Group shipyards, including Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wis, - one of two shipyards (the other being Bollinger in Louisiana) partnered with Lockheed in the LCS program. Moosally says it could help lead to proposed LCS sales to Israel and other potential future clients like Saudi Arabia.

 

Interestingly, in the meantime, Lockheed Martin shipbuilding officials would feel comfortable splitting the Navy’s LCS program with competitor General Dynamics if the Navy would order five or six ships per year, according to Moosally.

Pics of LCS-1 on sea trials ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty pictures, but I don't have the same impression of smoothness in her surfaces than in other stealthy designs:

La Fayette and derived designs:

http://www.netmarine.net/bat/flf/lafayet/photos.htm

http://www.netmarine.net/bat/flf/lafayet/monde/index.htm

Forbin/Horizon:

http://www.netmarine.net/bat/fregates/forbin/photos.htm

Daring:

http://www.clydeconnections.com/

Visby:

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor.../visby-pics.htm

Pretty pictures, but I don't have the same impression of smoothness in her surfaces than in other stealthy designs ...

 

Readily noticeable, though, is how almost the entire superstructure of LCS-1 is enclosed, as compared to many of those other designs.

From DefenseNews

 

Insurv Recommends Accepting LCS 1

By philip ewing

Published: 27 Aug 17:00 EDT (21:00 GMT)

 

U.S. Navy inspectors have recommended that service officials accept the first littoral combat ship, the Freedom, after the ship finished its acceptance trails Aug. 21 on Lake Michigan, top acquisition officials announced August 27.

 

The Board of Inspection and Survey concluded that the Freedom was a "capable, well-built and inspection-ready ship," according to information provided by Allison Stiller, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisitions. She and other top acquisitions officials spoke at a rare roundtable with reporters at the Pentagon.

 

Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, said he rode the ship for part of its trails and made a point to compliment the crew on the Freedom's fit and finish.

 

The InSurv turned up 21 "starred" systems, said Wilmot Summerall, executive director of combatants for the Navy's Program Executive Officer for Ships, and the ship had about 2,600 trial cards overall. That's far fewer than the class-leading destroyer Arleigh Burke when it entered the fleet, which generated more than 15,000 trial cards, Sumerall said, but acquisition officials conceded the 9,000-ton destroyer is much larger and more complex than the roughly 3,000-ton Freedom.

 

Still, McCoy said, nothing in the InSurv was surprising. "We didn't get any real, 'I gotchas,' out of the report," he said.

 

But the ship also didn't test out all its systems, the acquisitions officials said; it couldn't fire its weapons in the lake, power up all its combat systems, or test parts of the ship it can't use in fresh water, such as its bilges. Some of the weapons the ship will eventually carry, such as its Non-Line of Sight missile, are still in development.

 

The Freedom has been cleared for the first of its two 40-person crews to move aboard Sept. 18, said Lt. Cmdr. Victor Chen, a spokesman for Stiller. After the ship is commissioned this November in Milwaukee, it will travel down the East Coast and eventually end up at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., although the exact details of its travels are still in the works, said Adm. Michael Mahon, deputy director of surface warfare for the office of the chief of naval operations.

 

Also unclear Aug. 27 were the latest figures for the cost of the Freedom, which have ballooned after yard delays, design changes and even a shipyard fire. Reports from earlier this year have put the ship's price tag at over $600 million. Congress has imposed a cap of $460 million per copy for subsequent ships, which lawmakers said was necessary if the Navy is to reach desired fleet of 55.

 

The Freedom will enter an extensive test phase, along with the second littoral combat ship, the Independence, which is finishing construction in Mobile, Ala. The ships must test their seaworthiness and their integral systems, then experiment with how they use the three interchangeable mission modules they'll carry for specific assignments: anti-surface, anti-submarine and mine sweeping operations.

 

Once that's complete, the Freedom is projected to be ready for its first operational deployment in 2011, Mahon said, whether or not there's a growing fleet of follow-on ships. Some of the original concepts of operations for the LCS called for the ships to operate in LCS-only squadrons, but the Freedom could also sail as part of a carrier or expeditionary strike group, Mahon said. "It depends on what the fleet wants to do."