In November, the Norwegian mine hunter Orkla caught fire, capsized, and sank, all in a very short time. The incident is significant because it might indicate that glass-reinforced (GRP) hulls, such as that of the mine hunter, have little capacity to resist fire damage. Similar materials probably were used in the Swedish Visby class—which has received considerable recent publicity as a potential prototype for the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)—and in the Norwegian surface effect fast-attack craft Skjold. For some years, several navies have used GRP to build mine countermeasures ships, on the ground that it is far more durable than wood, the alternative nonmagnetic material. In the 1980s, the U.S. Navy considered adopting both a surface effect hull and GRP construction for a new class of coastal mine hunters, but it abandoned the plan when a sample hull section delaminated during a shock test.
Fire is always a threat to warships. Many modern antiship missiles are likely to add fire to their designed explosive effects, simply because they still will have unexpended fuel when they hit. The old Soviet Styx (P-15/P-20) had its fuel tank deliberately placed near the shaped-charge warhead so that it could feed a fire started by the warhead. The Silkworm, which equips most Chinese warships, is similarly arranged. Missiles such as the Harpoon, the Russian Kh-35 (SS-N-25), the Otomat, the Chinese C-802, and the new Block 3 Exocet are all liquid-fueled with turbojet engines. They are unlikely to have emptied their tanks by the time they hit. The older solid-fuel Exocet is a particularly potent fire threat because it is impossible to extinguish whatever remains of its solid propellant (combining fuel and oxidizer) when it hits, as in the attacks on the HMS Sheffield and the USS Stark (FFG-31). Indeed, in both cases it seems that fire damage considerably exceeded any damage by the warhead. It can be argued, then, that any hull material that is not inherently fire resistant is a substantial danger.
Proponents of GRP will point to its valuable combination of strength, light weight, and low radar cross section. Light weight is important if high speed is sought. High speed, however, probably also requires more powerful engines, which, packed into a small hull, present their own fire hazards. The Orkla incident, then, opens the question of just how valuable sheer speed is likely to be. This is not a new issue. Periodically, major navies, including the U.S. Navy, have toyed with buying specialized fast ships, both for coastal and for high-seas use. For example, in the early 1960s the U.S. Navy built a series of conventional-hulled Asheville (PG-84)-class motor gunboats specifically to deal with proliferating Soviet-built torpedo and missile boats. It was never clear why they, rather than shipboard missiles (which did not yet exist in the U.S. Navy), were the best countermeasure. At about the same time, experiments conducted with standard air-to-air missiles showed that these weapons could hit small fast-attack craft. Later missiles such as the Harpoon seemed to be effective countermeasures, and the Ashevilles did not last long in U.S. service.
About a decade after the conception of the Ashevilles, the U.S. Navy bought the first 6 of what were to have been 30 hydrofoil missile gunboats (PHMs). They offered a considerably better ride than the Ashevilles, but they were extremely expensive, and their hydrofoils were subject to expensive damage and erosion. Ultimately, the ships were deployed to the Caribbean, in theory to counter possible Cuban naval activity. There was some interest in buying more of them for the same purpose, but analysis in the 1980s showed that the very high speed achieved by their unique design was not particularly valuable.
All of this directly affects the choice of a design for the new Littoral Combat Ship. The LCS designation was first applied to a frigate-sized alternative to the "Streetfighter" concept of the 1990s. At that time, the idea was that if the U.S. fleet were to operate in a littoral area, it might employ a squadron of specialized combatants to seize local sea control before larger ships could be risked. The littorals present several problems. One is that the enemy fleet, including coast defenses, already is in place. Under some circumstances the enemy might have the option of firing first, and a U.S. fleet may not enjoy much reaction time because it might already be too close to enemy weapons. This problem was dramatized when enemy small craft sank an amphibious squadron during the recent Millenium Challenge war game. Rules of engagement generally allow us to fire only after a potential enemy shows a clear hostile intent. How much initial loss can a U.S. force accept?
What if an enemy felt compelled to fire at ships whose loss would be relatively acceptable? One concept of the LCS falls into this category. A related hope would be that stealthy enemy units, such as bottomed diesel submarines, would reveal themselves by firing at an inexpensive LCS. It is not clear why an enemy would feel compelled to give up a major potential tactical advantage to destroy a minor U.S. combatant. What would the LCS be doing that would be so unacceptable that it would have to be sunk?
Another problem in the littorals is mines. Although an LCS clearly would not be a mine sweeper, it might be envisaged as a platform for remote mine hunting, perhaps on the model the Royal Danish Navy has developed using its small Stan Flex corvettes and unmanned craft. Alternatively, an LCS might support the current U.S. remote minehunting system, or it might function as the command/control center for helicopter mine hunters.
Diesel-electric submarines pose another threat. Unlike their nuclear cousins, they can and do bottom, making them extremely difficult to find, even with conventional active sonar. Some years ago, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the BBN company showed that a combination of explosive charges (to create echoes) and multiple sonar receivers, linked together, could find even bottomed submarines very quickly. A squadron of LCSs, netted together, could be envisaged as a kind of collective submarine hunter. A critic, however, might argue that a field of large-aperture sonobuoys with wide-band data links would have much the same effect. In neither case would the unit processing the data (hence locating the submarine) move in for the kill; that would more likely be a helicopter.
Yet another issue in the littorals is the threat of small-attack craft. It might seem that a small fast craft would be the best counter to other small fast craft, but the experience of the Ashevilles and the PHMs suggests otherwise. Helicopters armed with Hellfires or with some similar weapon seem to offer the greatest anti-small-boat potential. Supporting them would require a fairly large ship. One advantage of the helicopter is that it can attack all the units of a dispersed force in turn, because it is so much faster than the boats. It need not be manned; a big helicopter unmanned combat vehicle might do as well, assuming its communication links survived.
Before 11 September 2001, U.S. national strategy envisaged a force capable of deterring one war while fighting another. It was understood that the ability to fight two regional wars simultaneously would be more desirable, but that it was unaffordable. The terrorist attacks of 11 September proved that crisis could erupt unpredictably in many places. After all, no one had imagined war in Afghanistan (a new book claims that Afghanistan was one of the few places for which no war plan had ever been written). A new U.S. national doctrine, 4-2-1, was framed. It envisaged keeping four simultaneous crises from exploding into war, or defeating an enemy's attacks in two places simultaneously, or winning decisively in one place. It was, incidentally, easy to imagine four or more simultaneous and uncorrelated crises; the number four seems to have been chosen as an affordable goal. In the new context, defeating two attacks might mean, for example, stopping an Iraqi thrust into Kuwait while holding off a North Korean attack across the inter-Korean border. Once that had been done, forces could be concentrated to achieve decisive results in Iraq. At a lower level of violence, it was suddenly rather important to be able to maintain numerous naval strike groups more or less simultaneously. The two-war requirement had been filled by a combination of two forward-deployed carrier battle groups and two forward-deployed amphibious ready groups. At least in theory, the two would have to work together.
The idea that the Navy would have to cover more places simultaneously has been raised before. During the Reagan administration, for example, the Navy formed surface action groups (SAGs) built around the four Iowa (BB-61)-class battleships. It seriously considered using large-deck amphibious ships as surrogate carriers for lower-threat areas. This time both ideas were revived. The Navy would form surface action groups, and the amphibious ready groups would become the cores of new expeditionary strike groups (ESGs).
There were not, however, enough surface combatants, because before 4-2-1 there had been barely enough for the existing carrier battle groups. There was, however, a new surface combatant program at an embryonic stage: LCS. The new strategy converted LCS from a proposal for perhaps a squadron of ships into a desperate requirement for about 50 to 60 new surface combatants. It also completely changed the nature of the LCS, because for some purposes it would have very little in common with the earlier LCS formulation. For a SAG, the key issue is group firepower, so a ship filling out a SAG ought to contribute a long-range gun or vertical missile launchers. For an ESG, by way of contrast, the fill-in ship may be more like the earlier LCS—except that it might also be called on to add fire support.
So what is the LCS? Is it a modernized PT boat or PHM, or is it really a modular frigate or destroyer? The contradiction becomes more acute if it turns out that GRP, which may be a key to high speed in a small hull, is not acceptable. It may be that the most valuable contributions an LCS can make in a littoral area are to provide an effective helicopter facility, command/control (for mine countermeasures), shallow-water sonar, and firepower to support assaults. In that case, the most attractive option might be a fairly large conventional hull with holes for modules to be supplied later, as required. The hull would be conventional to minimize investment in its development. The German MEKO frigates have demonstrated that a modular hull can be sufficiently strong, and the Danes have shown how easily modular systems can be installed and removed. Indeed, their current support ship is a candidate for the LCS design.