Is the LCS really the next generation of surface combatant or just a test platform for a successor?
Six years have passed since the late Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski and Captain Wayne Hughes proposed their concept of "Streetfighter," a "small, fast, tightly manned ship" that would screen the battle group entering the littorals as destroyers had screened task groups.1 Streetfighters would capitalize on developing technologies to create a ship that would he economical to build, operate in large numbers, and take advantage of networking sensors and communications to multiply their effects. Early descriptions were of a 45-knot ship of about 1,200 tons manned by 30 to 40 people. They would fulfill the argument that "numbers count" and would he effective by expanding the battle space anil forming nodes of a network in which the individual components had small value but would be very powerful when linked together.2
Early Criticisms
The concept met with severe criticism, primarily on counts of endurance, seaworthiness, effectiveness, and economy. First, small ships lack the combination of transit speed and range to respond to crises, as well as the endurance to perform the presence mission. Not only are small ships limited in their time on station, but also getting to station requires non-integral logistieal support. Assignment of the USS Inchon (MCS-12) to the Mine Warfare Command was necessary to get six minesweepers from the United States to the Mediterranean. Using this measure-an LHA/LHD-size mother ship for every six Streetfighters-indicates that the real initial investment in small ships would be substantially greater than the originators predicted.
Critics also pointed out that structural integrity in small ships is expensive and hard to achieve. They tend not to last long, i.e.. all the World War II corvettes and frigates were retired within four years of the end of the war with less than ten years service. Experience with the coastal patrol ships is instructive. In less than ten years of minimal deployments, the longitudinal stringers are demonstrating weakness. Yet these ships have served only in the Caribbean and Mediterranean-two relatively calm bodies of water.
In addition, small ships cannot carry the large aperture antennae that high-performance sensor/communications suites require. Ships smaller than carriers/large-deck amphibious/command ships cannot receive super high frequency communications because the required antenna is too large. In the Streetfighter concept this is crucial, because much of the command-and-control capability relies on networked "reach back" communications to provide the information-gathering and evaluation that are self-contained in current platforms.3
Small ships are also relatively easy to put out of action. The USS Tripoli (LPH-10) and the USS Princeton (CG-59) took substantial mine damage in Operation Desert Storm but without major casualties or even danger of sinking. HMS Sheffield succumbed to a single Exocet missile. An Israeli experienced in small combatants observed, "the chance of carrying on the fight after taking a hit on a small ship is slim."4
Small hulls limit weapon payload. especially missiles with long reach and large warheads. Because small ships can carry few weapon launchers and have limited magazine capacities, the cost per weapon is much larger in small hulls than in larger ones. The original Streetfighter concept relied on technological development of communication networks and small-si/ed weapons that would give the ship an adequate armament and access to oft-hoard sensors. These would extend the range of their operational effectiveness. The communications and off-hoard sensor network seem to be taking shape, hut ordnance remains large, heavy, and awkward with no technical breakthrough in sight that will ameliorate this condition.
Small ships are proportionally more expensive to build than big ones. The expensive portions of a ship are the crew, engineering plant, and the electronics. Economics of these costs drives one toward larger hulls (the least expensive portion of the ship) to reduce the investment cost per weapon.s This pressure put 24 missiles into Trident submarines when 16 would have been a better number. But to eet the same number of tubes to sea would have required half again as many hulls. This ratio is probably a generous gauge of the effectiveness of small ships-more than three small hulls will be needed to put the same weapons value to sea as in two larger ones.
Small ships with limited eapabilities not only laek broad utility, but their modest investment price and low direct costs of operation are offset by their dependence on external logistic support and increased material maintenance requirements.6 They require more infrastructure than large ones. Because they are more susceptible to damage, are generally more fragile in construction with less redundancy and reliability, and lack crew size to maintain and repair the ship, they have to spend more lime in port and require a larger infrastructure there to repair and sustain them. There were more hands ashore in Key West to maintain the Pegasus-class patrol combatants than there were in the ships' companies.7
Small ships lack crew sizes necessary to sustain operations for more than short periods. As the number in the ship's company decreases, each Sailor must perform multiple tasks resulting in long training pipelines and complex manning. Both reduce the perceived economic benefit from limiting the number of people. The lack of personnel and adequate rally space for damage-control purposes severely limit a ship's ability to sustain damage and survive. The USS Cole (DDG-67), USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58), and USS Stark (FFG-31) could have sunk but were saved because they had good-sixed crews and space in which they could rally.
The Need for Speed
The requirement lor high speed as a basic component of this design, fundamentally as a form of self-protection against missile attack, generated four critical points. First, the size of propulsion plant that would he needed to achieve the speed would reduce the space available for payload. Second, the relative speed between ship and missile would not be appreciably decreased by this high surface speed.8 Third, analysis of the amount of time that ships operate at high versus moderate speed indicates that only rarely would these ships ever use this high speed.9 Finally, high speed requires reducing weight, which translates into lighter hulls with less durability. Both LCS designs use relatively unproven hull material to save weight.
Small warships have little space and minimal reserve buoyancy to allow modernization as future improvements develop. This shortens the useful life of the hull and machinery and reduces the effectiveness of the ship in missions other than the specific areas for which they were designed.1" Previous experience with small, limited-mission ships has not been encouraging. The Cyclone class, designed for Special Forces operations, has been disappointing in other assignments. Other analysis suggested that frigates did not add much to U.S. capability once the Soviet submarine force became nuclear powered.11
Sea-keeping qualities of small ships are poor in almost every respect. Crews are more easily exhausted, and storm deluge can cripple a small hull. As the designs for new hull shapes matured, reservations based on experience with catamaran hulls have not been encouraging. Knowledge of the behavior of multi-hulls at high speed in the open ocean is limited, and we know even less about the behavior of composite materials in similar situations. The Pigeun-class submarine rescue vessels (catamarans) had very poor sea keeping characteristics and the oceanographic research ships, another multi-hull, pitched plus and minus ten feet in a zero sea state with a typical Atlantic swell.12
Aviation and submarine warfare specialists were especially skeptical of the Streetfighter concept of operations, pointing out that other forces, airborne and submarine, could do all of the things that Streetfighter's proponents envisioned but with greater agility, surety, and speed. These tacticians questioned the need for high-speed surface ships to tight their way into littorals that could he penetrated and dominated by aircraft and submarines. While operations in the littoral were touted as their mission, description of the tasks and targets in such waters were vague. Admiral Cebrowski dismissed these arguments as "pretty parochial" and he pursued the concept in games at the Naval War College that brooked little refutation of his thesis."
Evolution of the LCS
As the concept matured, practical considerations for payload, plus the need for machinery large enough to propel the ship above 30 knots, increased the design displacement from a nominal 1,200 tons to 3,500 tons. While the Cebrowski/Hughes stress on speed at the cost of payload and endurance remained, the ship itself grew from its original concept into a replacement for the Oliver Hazard Perrry-class frigates in size if not in capability or mission.
The outcome of this six-year debate and design is two ships. The Freedom (LCS-1) is being built by Lockheed-Martin by Marinetle Marine in Manitowoc Marine. Wisconsin, and the Independence (LCS-2) by General Dynamics-Bath Iron in the AUSTAL Yard in Mobile. Alabama. Bach has a novel and unique hull: Lockheed's is a semiplaning monohull, and General Dynamics' is a trimaran (technically a "stabilized monohull"). These hull forms offer deck size adequate to handle aircraft and provide a relatively large volume for their displacement. Each is designed to go 40 knots and have an endurance of 3,500 miles. Both are propelled by two gas turbines and two diesel engines driving four water jets with a nominal 14,400-shaft horsepower.
Trying to get the best combination of speed, endurance, armor (or self-protection and damage control), and armament has been the crux of surface warship design since the end of the galley period. The challenge to designers is formidable, because these faetors are all at odds with each other. Most especially in the LCS, the high-speed requirement limits endurance and reduces payload.14
These ships are not multi-mission warships. To get an appreciable payload into a ship of this size, most will be packaged in mission-specific modules. The appropriate module is to be loaded into the ship before departure to a deployment task or area. Critics scoff at this concept, pointing to the requirement for a train of support forces, the need for friendly harbors within the theater of interest, and the delay between the identification of need and presence in area. Mission-specific packaging depends on accurate identification of the mission for which the ship will be used well ahead of the need to be on station.
Presently the modules are focused on access missions: antisurface warfare, antisubmarine warfare, and mine countermeasures. All rely on unproven autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles, except the MH-60 helicopter with rockets or with sonobouys and torpedoes.15 The Independence features a roll-on, roll-off ramp capable of handling ground vehicles, thereby offering high-speed transport for forces using her main deck and mission module bay below. Early outlines and promotional brochures include a potpourri of other tasks, but operational concepts for them have yet to be published.16
With all these caveats and difficulties, the LCS designs arc not without sonic real capabilities. Their flight decks will handle SH-60 helicopters, each has a 57-mm dualpurpose gun. the capability to launch and recover autonomous vehicles of substantial size (e.g.. large semi-rigid boats), and generous spaces within the ship for the mission module. This space and modular concept provides room for future improvements or mission changes. Departing from the characteristics of designs since the advent of ships intended exclusively for war in the 16th century, these ships in essence arc weapon carriers, not primarily weapon shooters.
Just a Step . . .
How did we arrive at building these small ships against all the objections from experienced seamen, the principles of naval architecture, and historical precedent? The present Arleigh Burke class, with hulls still under construction, is the best surface combatant in the world and of a size that not only carries a respectable armament but also allows for modernization and improvement. However, the economics of shipbuilding, continuing world-wide presence commitments, and the growth of access missions have argued for exploration of less expensive surface combatants that can meet some of the requirements of the littoral battlefield. The historic division of labor in maritime warfare-e.g., battleship, cruiser, destroyer, frigate-no longer has much meaning. The USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), classified as a destroyer, has the same displacement as a World War II cruiser or a Spanish-American War battleship. "Destroyer" has become a generic term for major surface warship.
The concept of operations for these ships recognizes that thev are unlikely to ever have to fight another surface warship. The tasks lie not on the high seas but in proximity to the shore. The true precursors of the LCS are not frigates or destroyers but Andrew Hull Foote's gunboats on the Mississippi in the Civil War and the landing ships and craft that were modified to provide naval gunfire support for amphibious landings in World War 11. such as the LSM(R) and LCM(R).
In his critique of the utility and realistic expectations for the LCS, Commander Stephen Kelley suggested skipping this generation of small ships. He argued that the netted sensor approach that the Streetfighter concept embodied might better be conducted by unmanned vehicles.17 Skipping a generation looks fine on paper but lacks legs in the real world. Advances do not take place in a study hall or gaming center but when technology is being explored. put into use. and pressed. These new ships represent opportunilies to test new hull shapes and materials, new propulsion systems, and the niodular-payload concept. They will oiler the opportunity to evaluate speed versus endurance and crew size versus operational flexibility. Most important, they keep the ship design base active. No matter what size they start, this class of warships will inevitably grow as operations demonstrate unforeseen or ignored demands, or where technology does not match the imaginations of proponents.
British navy historian H. M. Rodgers writes that "frigate" was a 16th century protean word that originally meant "small, very fast, very lightly armed ship built for large crews, minimum armament, designed for short range operations against weakly defended targets." As time went on, "frigates" grew larger, heavier, faster, and more heavily armed. The present LCS designs and concepts are not likely to he frozen but rather to serve as a basis lor further improvements in shipbuilding as well as changes in operational concepts. Will there be 60 of these ships? Doubtful, because LCS is a step, not an end.
1 VAdm A. K. Cebrowski, USN and Capt Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. USN (Ret). "Rebalancing the Fleet," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. January 200.
2 VAdm A. K. Cebrowski, USN (Retired) "....to Meet Today's Needs." Proceedings, July 2004, p. 33.
3 Special Report, Signal, December 2005, p. 25. and Lt (j.g.) Jonathan F. Solomon. USN. "Lethal in the Littoral. A Smaller. Meaner LCS." Naval Institute Proceedings. January 2004. p. 39.
4 Capt Opher Doron, Israeli Navy (Ret). "The Israelis Know Littoral Warfare." Naval Institute Pntceedinngs, March 2003. Doron. p. 69.
5 Norman Friedman, "Is Bigger Better?" U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 2004, p. 4.
6 William O'Neil, "If it Can't Be Big, It Must Be Novel," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedinngs. December 2003, p. 51.
7 RAdm Malcolm MacKinnon, LISN (Ret), former Chief Fngineer of the Navy to the author.
8 RAdm Yadidi "Didi" Ya'ari. Israel Navy. "The Littoral Arena. A Word of Caution." Naval War College Review, Spring 1995, p. 10.
9 Cdr Steve Surko, USN (Ret). "How Fast is Fast Enough?", U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. December 2005. p. 72.
10 Friedman, p. 6.
11 Kenneth S. Brower and Capt James W. Kehoe. USN (Ret), "Designed for the Job," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. October 1996, p. 27 and Trevor J. Bender. "High-Low Must Go," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 1995, p. 55.
12 MacKinnon
13 Greg Jaffe, "Getting the Navy Ready for the Next War. Debate Surrounding Small Ship Poses Fundamental Questions for the U.S. Navy," Wall Street Journal 1 July 2001.
14 David D. Rudko. "Analysis of Design LCS Specifications" www.globalsecurity. org/report/2003/030300-4523.pdf. "The requirement to go fast requires heavy framing and large machinery. The weight of the structural frame, standard shipboard systems (sensors, command and control, and self-defense weapons) and modular mission packages accounts for 84 percent of the full displacement, and as a result, substantially limits total fuel carrying capacity."
15 Vehicles include the Remote Minehunting System (RMS) eventually to be equipped with an antisubmarine sonar. MQ-88 Fire Scout vertical take-off unmanned aerial vehicle (helicopter). Spartan Scout semi-rigid boats with machine guns and rockets or with a modified airborne dipping sonar.
16 Jason Shcrman, "U.S. Navy Lists LCS Modules." Defense News, September 2003. p. 6. Others included in the promotional efforts were Intelligence. Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). Homeland Defense/Maritime Intercept. Special Forces Operations support, and Logistic movements of personnel and supplies.
17 Cdr Stephen H. Kelley. USN. "Small Ships and Future Missions." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 2002. pp. 42-44.
Rear Admiral Holland's first assignment was in the USS Hailcy (DD-556), a Fletcher-class destroyer, where he finished his tour as the gunnery officer. He has contributed to Proceedings for more than 30 years and has won awards in five Arleigh Burke Essay Contests.