Should the Navy decide to downselect to a single builder, Lockheed Martin [LMT] is confident its Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) will emerge victorious against Austal’s Independence variant, a company official said Monday.
Although the service originally planned to split its 52-ship buy between the two vendors, the companies may face a head-to-head competition if the Pentagon implements a December memo from Defense Secretary Ashton Carter directing the Navy to cut the LCS program of record to 40 ships and to downselect to a single builder in fiscal year 2019 (Defense Daily, Dec. 17, 2015).
Until the Pentagon finalizes its acquisition strategy, it’s impossible to gauge how the shipbuilders will be impacted, Joe North, Lockheed Martin’s vice president of littoral ships and systems, said during a briefing to reporters held before the Surface Navy Association’s national symposium this week.
However, North said he was confident that the company would be well positioned for a competition.
“We know we have a good product,” he said. “I have no idea what that acquisition strategy is, so I don’t know the criteria would be measured against.”
The company expects a contract award for LCS 25—the final ship in an 11 ship block buy—by the end of March. That work will keep Fincantieri’s Marinette Marine’s shipyard humming on Freedom-class vessels until 2022, he said.
After that, however, the schedule becomes hazier. North predicted that a contract for ships to be procured in 2017 and 2018 could extend work at Marinette Marine until the mid-2020s. A request for proposals is expected by the end of the year, but Carter’s directive could reduce the buy from three vessels per year to just one. Then, if the Navy decides to downselect to a single builder in 2019, the winner will make all of the remaining ships.
In the meantime, Lockheed Martin is working to complete its contracted LCS vessels on time, he said. The company has delivered three ships so far to the Navy and has seven ships in some stage of sea trials, production or long lead procurement.
It is also awaiting the outcome of U.S. discussions with Saudi Arabia on a potential four-ship buy of frigates based on the Freedom-class.
“Depending what the agreement is between the governments, we plan that those ships would start to work their way into the yard at 2017,” North said.
The newly delivered USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) broke down at sea last December after metal debris in the gear lube oil system caused the ship to lose pressure. It is currently undergoing repairs at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Va., and in about a month will head to Mayport, Fla., to get prepped for shock trials, he said.
It’s still unknown whether the issue that caused the breakdown is confined to the Milwaukee or could affect other ships in the class, he said.
“We’re still going through the root cause analysis with the Navy on that,” he said. “It’s complicated because it’s through the propulsion train, so we’ve got to go through all of the logic statements,” he added, referring to the software within the ship’s controls system.
The company wrapped up builder’s trials for the USS Detroit (LCS-7) late last year, and acceptance trials are slated to begin in spring, he said. USS Sioux City (LCS-11) is scheduled to be launched on Jan. 30.
USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) is currently conducting its first deployment to Southeast Asia, and the Navy recently extended the USS Freedom‘s (LCS-1) first selected restricted availability to complete additional maintenance.