LCS Remains the SSC and Distributed Lethality Choice

The FF/LCS combination remains the best choice for U.S. small surface combatants, given the present financial, political, and operational issues. The class has remained well beneath the 2011 Congressional cost cap, and represents good value; even for just the sea frame minus the mission modules. The class has shown that it can accommodate weapons unforeseen at the conception of the LCS program. USS Coronado has successfully deployed with four Harpoon missiles to Singapore and has proved its worth in local operations where it recently evaded several shadowing Chinese frigates by sailing through waters too shallow for her pursuers to follow. USS Detroit recently tested the Longbow Hellfire missile as an additional component of the LCS’ surface warfare module. Armed with: 16 Over the Horizon missiles, VLS and Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles, Longbow Hellfires, 57mm gun, twin 30mm or 20mm guns, and electronic warfare and decoy systems, the frigate designs being touted by the LCS shipyards are not paper tigers. No one has ever suggested that LCS was a perfect program and many mistakes were perhaps made in its early development. That said the class has worked through these and completed operational testing and Full Ship Shock Trials.

LCS is still the best choice for the Distributed Lethality operational concept. Three LCS (at $479 million per unit) can be purchased for the cost of one likely “blue water” frigate. One larger, conventional frigate that is lost in action may take with it 8-12 or more antiship cruise missiles (ASCM). Three distributed LCS with four or more ASCM’s each is a better choice in that if one is lost, the whole antiship capability does not sink along with it.

Some have suggested that smaller missile corvettes such as the export sale Ambassador III class would be a better choice than LCS for a distributed lethality combatant. The Ambassador is a much smaller ship than a conventional frigate or LCS, and may not be capable of employing its weapons under the same weather conditions as larger vessels. This missile corvette would be equally dependent on network support for targeting its weapons (as would LCS,) but lacks the communications capability and especially the helicopter facilities of the larger ships that allow for communication with other friendly assets when networks are down or compromised. The Ambassadors are not as capable of multiple missions as are the larger ships would need extensive logistics support even greater than that currently employed for LCS, and are more vulnerable to damage than the larger warships. Finally, and perhaps most significant, the Ambassadors, as small ships susceptible to the effects of weather and in need of greater logistics support, would not be able to move between theaters as fast as a conventional frigate or LCS. The U.S., as a global naval power, can ill-afford to possess ships that cannot move effectively between theaters of potential combat. The Ambassadors would be effectively imprisoned within their home operating areas and could neither transit to other theaters quickly, nor perhaps quickly retreat or reposition.

The best choice in shipbuilding is often one of compromise. LCS has the size, capability, and modular flexibility to take on most of the tasks of the missile corvette while being cheaper and nearly as capable in anti-surface and potentially anti-submarine warfare as the larger and much more expensive conventional frigate. The air-defense frigate that many demand is an outdated feature of the Cold War that is no longer fit to stand in the salvo line of battle. Those frigate variants employed by European navies are their version of the U.S. DDG force and are built under conditions that cannot be duplicated by U.S. shipbuilders. There is no space within the current budget deficit to run up Reagan-style defense budgets, and political deadlock on Capitol Hill largely prevents additional funding for a larger frigate. Under these conditions, the current FF/LCS combination remains the best choice for the U.S. small surface combatant force for the immediate future.

Steven Wills is a retired Navy surface warfare officer. Steven has completed and defended his Ph.D. dissertation in Military History at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio). He will graduate at the end of this month.

This first appeared in RealClearDefense here.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.