The Navy plans to come up with alternatives to the current Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program to meet the service’s overall requirement for small surface combatants by the end of July, according to a recent Navy memorandum.
The March 13 memo establishes a task force to examine the possible alternatives sought by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel after he scaled back the planned buys of LCS from 52 to 32 in February.
Hagel ordered the Navy to seek out a ship more consistent with the capabilities of a frigate and to consider a modified LCS design, or existing and new ship designs. The task force, known as the Small Surface Combatant Task Force, will be led my John Burrow, the executive director of Marine Corps Systems Command, and is due to report its findings by July 31.
The memo was drafted by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert and Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley. For each alternate design, the leaders want the task force to outline top level requirements such as sensors, weapons and combat systems, as well as cost and schedule, and the lethality of the ship for air, surface and undersea threats.
Hagel told reporters ahead of the rollout of the Pentagon’s fiscal 2015 spending request that he had reservations about the survivability of the LCS in confronting emerging technologies, particularly as the Navy increases focus on the Asia Pacific.
Hagel said he was authorizing the Navy to pursue negotiations with the LCS prime contractors for only eight more ships beyond the 20 already being purchased under block buy arrangements and the first four vessels already delivered to the service. That leaves another 20 ships needed to meet the Navy’s requirement of 52 small surface combatants.
The memo also establishes a high level advisory panel containing three admirals and four senior military civilians to provide feedback to the task force.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] is the prime contractor for the Freedom variant of LCS. Austal USA builds the Independence variant.