By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
Cracks, Corrosion, Tests Keep High-Priority Ships Sidelined
Throughout its decadelong existence, the littoral combat ship (LCS) program has had one enduring characteristic — promise.
Critics have had a field day decrying the U.S. Navy program’s concepts, management and execution, while supporters herald the ship type’s advantages. But eight years after construction began on the first ship, one inarguable fact remains — no LCS has yet been sent on a mission for which it was designed.
Public support for LCS remains strong at the top of the Navy. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Adm. Jon Greenert, chief of naval operations (CNO), eagerly and repeatedly proclaimed the new ship’s value during Capitol Hill testimony this spring.
“The LCS is one of the backbones of our fleet today and for the future,” Mabus told the Senate on March 7.
“These are relevant ships for the relevant future and they resonate with the need out there,” Greenert said alongside Mabus. “They’re not only incredibly competent and capable now, but they will continue to be over the lifetime that they are in our fleet,” Mabus declared March 1 before the House.
The Navy leaders repeatedly spoke of the deployment of the first ship, Freedom (LCS 1), to the Caribbean, its participation in the last Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and its upcoming deployment to Singapore.
But they were less eager to highlight when those events took place or are to happen. Freedom’s Caribbean drug-hunter demonstration cruise and RIMPAC participation took place in 2010, and it will be at least another year before it begins its proof-of-concept cruise to Singapore. It has spent much of the past year under repair.
Specific accomplishments of the second ship, Independence (LCS 2), are harder to quantify. For more than a year, the ship has toiled in Florida waters, testing components of the anti-mine mission module and remaining out of sight of much of the fleet and the Navy’s public-relations machine. Observers have begun referring to the angular, trimaran ship as the “stealth LCS” — not for its design, but because of its remarkably low public profile.
Another RIMPAC is set to begin in June — the exercise is held every two years — but no LCS will take part. Independence will be on the Pacific coast — it left Florida on April 7 to transfer to San Diego — but it will be engaged in a series of ship tests. Freedom, now wrapping up a repair period after springing another leak earlier this year, is scheduled to begin yet another maintenance period in July.
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