Littoral combat ship
The
Littoral Combat Ship is the first of the
U.S. Navy's planned next-generation surface combatants. Intended for operations in the
littoral region close to shore, the LCS is smaller than the Navy's
guided missile frigates and sacrifices air defense and surface-to-surface capabilities for speed, mission module space and a shallow
draft. It will have equipment to support anti-mine and special forces missions, plus robotic air, surface, and underwater vehicles. The first LCS was laid down in
2005; it is slated for delivery in
2007.
The concept behind the Littoral Combat Ship, as described by
Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England, is to "create a small, fast, maneuverable and relatively inexpensive member of the
DD(X) family of ships." The ship is to be easily reconfigured for in multiple roles, including
anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, anti-surface warfare,
intelligence,
surveillance and
reconnaissance, homeland defense, maritime intercept, special operations, and
logistics. It is also intended to be able to operate with
carrier strike or surface strike groups.
In
2004,
Lockheed Martin,
General Dynamics and
Raytheon submitted preliminary designs to the Navy. It was decided to produce two vessels each (Flight 0) of the Lockheed Martin design (LCS-1 and LCS-3) and of the General Dynamics design (LCS-2 and LCS-4). After these are brought into service, and experience has been gathered on the usability and efficiency of the designs, the future design for the class will be chosen (Flight I). This may be a straight decision to use one or the other design in whole, or a combined form made by cherry-picking the best features from each.
On
9 May,
2005, Secretary of the Navy Gordon England announced that the first LCS would be named
USS Freedom (LCS-1). Her keel was laid down on
2 June 2005 in
Marinette Marine,
Marinette, Wisconsin. [
1].
In late
December 2005, the House and Senate agreed to fund another two LCSs. The Navy currently plans to build 55 of these ships.
On
19 January,
2006, the keel for the General Dynamics
trimaran,
USS Independence (LCS-2), was laid at the
Austal USA shipyards in
Mobile,
Alabama.
Some believe that LCS is a "preemptive strike" intended to create a successor to
frigates before
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can replace them with "Streetfighter": a concept for a series of
corvette-sized attack boats.
An international task force has been put together to determine the usefulness of the Littoral Combat Ship in the navies of the
United Kingdom,
France,
Italy and
Germany.
*
Freedom class littoral combat ship*
Independence class littoral combat ship*
Defense Industry Daily LCS info, pictures, timeline, links to pages about LCS robot vehicles.
*http://peoships.crane.navy.mil/lcs/
*http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/lcs.htm
*http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Government/Military/Navy/Ships/Surface_Combatant/Littoral_Combat_Ship/
*http://www.austal.com/
*http://www.angleinc.com/ Contracted by Lockheed Martin to develop Lockheed Martin's LCS tradeshow graphics, animations, and simulations.
