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Navy Risks Blowback in Bid to Scrap $5 Billion of Troubled Ships
Bloomberg
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May 11, 2022

By Tony Capaccio (Bloomberg) �The US Navy wants to scrap nine of 16 Littoral Combat Ships built by Lockheed Martin Corp. well short of their projected service lives in order to save a projected $4.3 billion in upgrades and maintenance over coming years.

That decision may get a hard look at hearings by House and Senate panels on Wednesday and Thursday.

While the ships were built to spend 25 years at sea, many of those on the water are in the infancy of their naval careers. That includes the USS St. Louis, now in its third year of service life; the USS Billings and USS Indianapolis, in their fourth years; and the USS Sioux City and USS Wichita, in their fifth, according to a Navy information paper for Congress obtained by Bloomberg News.

The Navy spent $5 billion in taxpayer money getting the ships built and outfitted. But in justifying the early retirement, the service says eight of the Lockheed-built �Freedom-class� vessels were meant to carry anti-submarine warfare equipment developed by Raytheon Technologies Corp. that failed in development. Promises to give the ships capability for anti-submarine warfare were 12 years late when the plan was abandoned this year.

The vessels are also seen as less capable than the �Independence-class� vessels built by Lockheed shipbuilding rival Austal Ltd. That�s in part because they were hobbled by a latent propulsion system gear defect caused by a subcontractor that requires removal and replacement.

One of the ships being retired, the 12-year-old USS Fort Worth, is a test vessel that is considered no longer necessary.

What Navy leaders originally touted as a 55-vessel fleet of littoral ships costing $220 million apiece has dwindled to a currently planned 35 costing on average $478 million each. The proposed retirement would reduce the overall fleet of LCS � designed to operate in shallow coastal waters � to 26.
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Littoral Disaster: Navy Wants To Retire 10 Littoral Combat Ships According To Report
The oldest Littoral Combat Ship on the chopping block is just seven years old.
BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK MARCH 17, 2022
THE WAR ZONE

The U.S. Navy will reportedly seek to decommission between eight and 10 Freedom class Littoral Combat Ships, or LCSs, as part of its budget proposal for the 2023 Fiscal Year. This would despite the oldest example still on active duty being only seven years old. Last year, the service admitted that it would take years to implement critical fixes to the propulsion systems on all of the Freedom class vessels it has acquired to date.

Politico first reported this news today, citing three individuals familiar with the plans. The outlet said that the Navy and the Department of Defense had declined to confirm or deny that the 2023 Fiscal Year budget request, a public version of which is expected to come out sometime this month or in April, would propose decommissioning these ships. The Freedom class is one of two distinct types of LCS, the other being the Independence class, that the Navy currently has in service.

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LCS Little Rock temporarily lost power during sea trials, returned to Mayport
By Megan Eckstein
Jan 27, 04:52 PM

WASHINGTON � Littoral combat ship Little Rock lost power while operating at sea and had to return to port on Jan. 22, according to a Navy spokesman.

The four-year-old LCS was conducting sea trials following a 19-month maintenance period in the dry dock at BAE Systems Shipyard in Jacksonville, Fla. The ship departed Naval Station Mayport on Jan. 21 for the contractor�s trials, LCS Squadron 2 spokesman Lt. Anthony Junco told Defense News.


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11 Days from Outbreak to Recovery: Milwaukee's Vaccinated Crew Back at Sea

4 Jan 2022
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin
The littoral combat ship USS Milwaukee is back at sea, the Navy announced Monday, less than two weeks after members of the crew tested positive for COVID-19.

The ship outbreak is the first since the arrival of vaccines and a sharp contrast from the first major outbreak in March 2020 on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which led to a sailor's death while others were quarantined in hotel rooms on Guam with more than 1,000 sailors testing positive for the coronavirus.

The Milwaukee, on a deployment to South America, paused in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on the day before Christmas after some of the crew tested positive for the disease. The Associated Press reported that about two dozen sailors -- one-quarter of the crew -- tested positive for COVID-19.

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The Navy says it fired the top 2 officers of the combat ship USS Montgomery due to 'loss of confidence in their ability to command'


Michelle Mark
Sat., January 1, 2022, 8:32 p.m.�2 min read

The US Navy fired the commanding officer and executive officer of the USS Montgomery.
The rare action against the officials was due to "a loss of confidence in their ability to command."
Media reports said they were relieved of duty due to their handling of a sexual harassment investigation.
The US Navy announced Thursday it fired the top two officers in charge of the USS Montgomery due to "a loss of confidence in their ability to command."
Cmdr. Richard Zamberlan, the commanding officer, and Cmdr. Phillip Lundberg, the executive officer, were both relieved of duty in a rare termination of two high-ranking officials. Both Zamberlan and Lundberg will be reassigned to the Pacific Fleet's Naval Surface Force, the Navy statement said.
Though the Navy did not reveal the reasons behind the firings in its December 30 statement, The New York Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune reported shortly afterward that both Zamberlan and Lundberg had been removed due to their handling of a sexual harassment investigation.
The details of the investigation and the two officers' roles in it remain unclear. The USS Montgomery is a littoral combat ship based in San Diego.
According to the Navy statement, Cmdr. Dustin Lonero has been named the commanding officer "until a permanent relief is identified."

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US Navy Warship Sidelined with COVID-19 Outbreak

25 Dec 2021
Associated Press | By LOLITA C. BALDOR
WASHINGTON (AP) � A U.S. Navy warship has paused its deployment to South America because of a coronavirus outbreak, the Navy said Friday.
The USS Milwaukee, a littoral combat ship, is staying in port at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, where it had stopped for a scheduled port visit. It began its deployment from Mayport, Fla., on December 14 and was heading into the U.S. Southern Command region.
The Navy said in a statement that the ship's crew is �100% immunized� and that all of those who tested positive for COVID-19 have been isolated on the ship away from other crew members. The number of crew testing positive was not disclosed. The ship has a crew of a little more than 100.
The Navy said that �a portion� of those infected are having mild symptoms, and that the specific variant is not yet known. COVID-19 cases have surged across the country as a result of the highly contageous omicron variant.

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US Navy accepts first Freedom LCS since discovering widespread defect in combining gear system
By Megan Eckstein
Thursday, Nov 18

WASHINGTON � The U.S. Navy is satisfied with the solution to its littoral combat ship combining gear woes, having accepted delivery of the first ship to receive the new system, service leaders announced.

The Freedom-variant LCS, made by Lockheed Martin at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin, has suffered several propulsion-related casualties over the years. In January, the Navy announced it would not accept any new ships from Lockheed following the identification of a classwide defect: The bearings in the combining gear failed when the ship tried to operate at full power, with the system unable to withstand the pressure of fusing max power from both the gas turbine and the diesel engine to help the ship reach speeds near 40 knots.

Since that time, subcontractor RENK, Lockheed and the Navy underwent a rigorous engineering and testing process, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, Rear Adm. Casey Moton, told reporters Thursday. The parties involved agreed the fix was appropriate, and the Navy was ready to accept delivery of ships outfitted with a new bearing system in the combining gear.

�Based on the results of the land-based and at-sea testing, both Lockheed Martin and the Navy assessed that the combining gear design modification is satisfactory and, once installed, will allow unrestricted operations of Freedom-variant ships,� Moton told reporters in a teleconference announcing the end of testing and the acceptance of the LCS Minneapolis-St. Paul (LCS-21).

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US Navy sees better LCS maintenance from sailors in ongoing Tulsa, Charleston deployments
By: Megan Eckstein ? 20 hours ago
WASHINGTON � The U.S. Navy is seeing improved maintenance on deployed littoral combat ships amid efforts to boost readiness and operational endurance, now that is has switched from contractor-based work to sailor-performed maintenance, the commander of a destroyer squadron said.

The two LCSs deployed to the Pacific are also carrying hybrid surface warfare and mine countermeasures systems � another deviation from original operational plans that called for using strictly defined mission packages that could solely perform in one warfare area at a time.

Capt. Tom Ogden, commodore of Destroyer Squadron 7, told reporters this month that the Navy is trying to maximize the capability and adaptability of LCS in the current deployments of Independence-variant LCSs Tulsa and Charleston.
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JoeP wrote:
The USN has a long history of using outdate ships for trials of new weapons and equipment ...

Here�s when the first two littoral combat ships will be mothballed
Geoff Ziezulewicz
3 days ago

The Navy's first littoral combat ship, Freedom, will be decommissioned in September, less than 13 years after it entered service. (Navy)
Just more than a decade after they entered naval service to great fanfare as the future face of the U.S. Navy, the first two littoral combat ships will be mothballed later this year, according to the Navy�s inactivation schedule for 2021.

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After 15 Years, the Navy's Littoral Combat Ships Are Still in Search of a Mission
16 May 2021
The San Diego Union-Tribune | By Andrew Dyer

Almost 15 years ago, the U.S. Navy christened the first of a new class of warship designed to fight the Global War on Terror. The so-called littoral combat ships would be fast and agile, operating close to shore against missile-firing boats and small submarines.

Today, the Navy has a new mission � or rather, has returned to its old mission, facing off against more capable warships deployed by China and Russia. And the service is still trying to figure out what to do with its $16 billion LCS fleet.

It doesn't help that some of the ships have suffered embarrassing breakdowns in mid-ocean. Or that the Navy discovered recently that the transmission in one of the two classes of ships was defective and needed to be redesigned. And while Congress has eagerly funded construction of the two very different classes of ships, it cut funding from the mission modules needed by the ships to fulfill their missions.

That unfortunate combination explains the ignominious nickname assigned to the LCS by some sailors: Little Crappy Ships.

The Navy intends to spend an additional $61 billion to maintain and operate the ships, according to the Government Accountability Office. But at the same time, the service announced plans last year to retire four of the earliest ships � all based in San Diego � beginning this summer, well ahead of the end of their projected service lives.

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'Super Corvette:' Former Navy Secretary Reveals He Pushed to Rename Littoral Combat Ship
17 Apr 2021
Military.com | By Gina Harkins
When the littoral combat ship was first delivered in 2008, former Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite said he was not a fan.
"I wasn't a fan of it at its inception, but I've become a big fan of it," Braithwaite said this week.
As Navy secretary, the retired flag officer spent time aboard the ships, interacting with their crews and learning about their capabilities. That gave him a different outlook on the LCS, which has long been unpopular on Capitol Hill.
Braithwaite said one of the reasons he feels the ship gets a bad rap is that it was misnamed.
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