How they do thing: Focused-Mission High Speed Ship Concept Studies [FMHSS]

Focused-Mission High Speed Ship Concept Studies [FMHSS]

The Navy went out with a recent Request for Proposal to obtain industry concepts for a High Speed Ship. The Navy would review the concepts for possible applicability to the Littoral Combat Ship. With this in mind, the contract was not for LCS, rather studies that would further refine the Navy's requirements and knowledge of technology options for the proposed Littoral Combat Ship and other future ship classes.

On 8 November 2002, six companies were each awarded a firm-fixed-price contract worth $500,000 for the performance of focused-mission ship concept studies intended to explore a range of approaches in an overall effort to define future ship requirements. These studies would further refine the Navy's requirements and knowledge of technology options for the proposed Littoral Combat Ship and other future ship classes. This was a part of the Naval services tranformation into the 21st Century and a part of the foundation for future warships. The focused-mission ship to be studied was envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals. Its primary missions would be prosecution of small boats, mine-countermeasures, and littoral anti-submarine warfare.

The companies, Bath Iron Works Corp, Bath, Maine, Gibbs & Cox, Inc, Arlington, Virginia, John J. McMullen Associates, Inc, Alexandria, Virginia, Lockheed Martin, Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems - Marine System, Baltimore, Maryland, Northrop Grumman - Ship Systems, Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Textron Systems, Marine & Land Operations, New Orleans, Louisiana, each performed a 90-day ship concept study to research innovative concepts for a focused-mission, high-speed ship. These contracts were awarded following a full and open competition, during which eighteen offers were received.

The General Dynamics team was led by Bath Iron Works, and included leading US and international defense contractors. Team members are The Boeing Company, Austal, USA, of Mobile, Alabama, British Aerospace Corporation (BAE), Maritime Applied Physics Corporation, CAE Marine Systems and five other General Dynamics business units. The team developed an integrated system that delivered significantly enhanced capabilities to naval, joint and coalition forces operating within the littorals. In defining system design characteristics, the team addressed FMHSS integration with FORCEnet, the information network into which the Navy planned integrate sensors, decision aids and weapons, as well as other joint and coalition information networks. The spectrum of technologies to be evaluated by the team would include all forms of remotely deployed and operated vehicles, distributed sensors, modular payloads, weapons, communications, command and control and automation systems as well as advanced propulsion technologies and hull construction materials.

The team had chosen to base its FMHSS hull design on advanced Trimaran hull form technology. Results of recent Office of Naval Research sponsored high-speed Trimaran studies completed by Bath Iron Works would be coupled with an existing Trimaran design available through Austal, USA, to create a highly automated ship capable of speeds in excess of 50 knots. This ship would have significantly lighter displacement than the Navy's FFG-7 Oliver Hazard Perry Class of frigates designed and built at Bath Iron Works and would be capable of extended independent operations with a crew of just 25-30. The advanced Trimaran design offers outstanding efficiency and performance in all sea conditions, endurance and reliability for sustained independent operations and a high degree of flexibility/adaptability to meet evolving military requirements through open architecture and modular configuration. The system was expected to enable advanced operational concepts such as those employing high speed, enhanced maneuver, distributed forces and reduced signatures as well as the ability to efficiently embark from a broad array of aircraft, amphibious, land and marine vehicles.

On 22 October 2002, the Northrop Grumman Corporation announced that it had signed a cooperative agreement with Kockums AB and its parent company, Howaldtswerke Deutsche Werft AG (HDW), under which Kockums would join a team assembled by Northrop Grumman's Ship Systems sector to compete for the US Navy's Focused Mission Vessel Study. This study was expected to result in the development and construction of a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), one element of the DD(X) family of surface combatants planned for construction by the Navy during the next quarter century.

The cooperative agreement between Northrop Grumman, Kockums and HDW covers business opportunities for the design, development, construction and sale of Visby-class ships and/or derivative technology to the US government for the LCS and other US programs, and for sales to friendly international governments through the Foreign Military Sales program. Northrop Grumman plans to use the Visby as the baseline for development of Ship Systems' proposal for the Navy's LCS program. Combining the proven hull and composite technology developed by Kockums with Northrop Grumman's composite and overall ship integration experience would allow the Navy to rely upon a proven, full-service shipbuilder, with access to state-of-the-art fielded technology, for the LCS program.

In April 2003, at the US Navy League's Sea Air Space Exposition Team LCS, the Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems and John J. Mullen Associates Inc. partnership, unveiled their Littoral Combat Ship design based on Norway's Skjold class patrol boat. Raytheon was the prime contractor and was responsible for the systems architecture and ships systems integration. JJMA was heading up the naval engineering and ship design competencies. UMOE was working on the hull design and manufacturing processes. Goodrich heads up the composite design and fabrication and Atlantic Marine, Inc. was the shipyard.

Also at Sea Air Space Exposition 2003, Lockheed Martin LCS Team unveiled Sea Blade, an Advanced Semi-Planing Seaframe, for the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship program.

Textron Systems and EDO Combat Systems (also at the Navy League's Expo) submitted a ship design, the Hybrid Catamaran Air Cushion (HCAC), that uses Textron Marine & Lands considerable experience with air-supported craft, such as the LCAC. The ship design also had the ability to operate as a catamaran, in which mode it was able to sustain a cruise speed of 18-20 knots.

Preliminary Design

On 10 February 2003 the Navy announced that it would soon issue a formal request for proposals to build the LCS. The Navy said that it would award 3 contracts worth $10 million each, some time in July 2003, for a preliminary design concept. The US Navy plans included a first flight of two ships to be begin construction in 2005 and 2006 and for the follow-on flights to begin construction by 2008.

On 17 July 2003 the Navy announced that General Dynamics (including Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, and Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems), Surface Systems, Washington, DC, and Raytheon Company, Integrated Defense Systems, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, were each being awarded a contract for the performance of Flight 0 littoral combat ship (LCS) preliminary design. Each contractor was to perform a seven-month preliminary design effort to refine its proposed littoral combat ship concept.

A 2003 analysis by David D. Rudko noted that the Navy has stated the Littoral Combat Ship must incorporate endurance, speed, payload capacity, sea-keeping, shallow-draft and mission reconfigurability into a small ship design. However, constraints in current ship design technology make this desired combination of design characteristics in small ships difficult to realize at any cost. Speed, displacement, and significant wave height all result in considerable increases in fuel consumption, and as a result, severely limit Littoral Combat Ship endurance. When operating in a significant wave height of six feet, regardless of the amount of fuel carried, the maximum endurance achieved for a wave-piercing catamaran Littoral Combat Ship outfitted with all modular mission packages is less than seven days. Especially noteworthy is that when restricted to a fuel reserve of 50% and a fuel carrying capacity of Day tanks, the maximum achieved endurance is only 4.8 hours when operating at a maximum speed of 48 knots. The Littoral Combat Ship can achieve high speeds; however, this can only be accomplished at the expense of range and payload capacity. The requirement for the Littoral Combat Ship to go fast (forty-eight knots) requires a seaframe with heavy propulsion systems. The weight of the seaframe, required shipboard systems (weapons, sensors, command and control, and self-defense) and modular mission packages accounts for 84% of the full displacement, and as a result, substantially limits total fuel carrying capacity. Since initial mission profiles required the high-speed capability at most five percent of the time, the end result is a Littoral Combat Ship that has very little endurance and a high-speed capability it will rarely use. Refueling, and potentially rearming, will require the Littoral Combat Ship to leave littoral waters and transit to Combat Logistics Force ships operating outside the littorals for replenishment. Given the low endurance of the Littoral Combat Ship, its time on station is seriously compromised.