The US Navy is betting big on the eventual success of their Littoral Combat Ship program despite the early teething troubles (earlier posts here and here). The more traditional hull design (there are two distinct designs in the same class) is being built by Wisconsin’s Marinette Marine, as a subcontractor to Lockheed-Martin. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on the latest political hitch in the program:
The littoral program has been dogged by problems, including early cost overruns. The completed ships have suffered from mechanical problems as well as from delays in producing switchable mission modules aimed at making the ships adaptable to varied types of warfare.
Testing has revealed deficiencies with “core ship systems,” according to the July 25 GAO report, which says Congress should consider restricting funding for additional littoral combat ships until the Navy completes technical and design studies.
Littoral combat ships are meant to be fast and capable of operating in shallow waters close to shore in places such as the Persian Gulf.
“We continue to believe that the acquisition approach for this program, with large quantities of ships and modules being bought ahead of key test events, is risky, especially for a new class of ship like LCS,” Paul Francis, a GAO official, said in recent testimony before a House of Representatives subcommittee looking into the program.
“The current LCS program is not the program envisioned over a decade ago,” Francis said, adding the Navy still doesn’t know how well the ships will perform their missions, how well the unique crew and maintenance concepts will work, or how much it will cost to equip and support the ships.
Further, the Navy is still considering changes to the ships and determining whether there are advantages to having two radically different designs — one built by Lockheed and Marinette, and the other by Austal USA in Mobile, Ala.
“These are things the Navy and Congress should know before contracting for more than half of the ships,” Francis said.
