The littoral combat ship (LCS) has seen more than its fair share of challenges, but much of the criticism regarding its capabilities and limitations is more myth than fact. Here are seven assertions that are not accurate.
1. World War II-era ships were better armed and more capable.
A warship from World War II might at first appear to be more survivable than her modern-day counterparts because of armor and the simplicity of her weapons and sensors. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Even the heaviest ships of the 1940s were vulnerable to sinking by one-shot, powerful weapons. The Japanese Long Lance Type 93 torpedo and the German Fritz X tv-guided glide bomb both scored notable successes against enemy warships with one or more hits. World War II–era ships had limited radar and communications gear and primitive fire-control equipment for their guns. Their torpedoes were straight-running and relatively short-ranged. The one advantage they perhaps had is in the simplicity of their equipment, which supported manual operation in the event of damage to the fire-control system—although manual gunfire is notoriously inaccurate.
Warships from 70 years ago lacked rotary-wing aviation facilities that extend both the surveillance area and combat capability of even small warships. They did not possess missiles or the countermeasures needed to defeat such weapons. The average World War II or early Cold War destroyer could be sunk by a single cruise missile, and even larger units were rendered as “mission kills.” The development of the cruise missile during the Cold War did much to accelerate the retirement of older, less capable warships.
The ships that won World War II are proud elements of many warship parks around the country and worth a visit to understand how naval warfare was conducted three-quarters of a century ago. They are not, however, viable combatants for the networked, digital, missile, and directed-energy fleets of today.
2. LCS is poorly armed compared with foreign contemporaries.
That U.S. warships are underarmed in comparison with their contemporaries is a recurring assertion. The last vessels so accused were the Spruance-class destroyers that entered the fleet in 1975. In fact, when modernized in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the class boasted a vertical launch missile battery larger than even the modernized Iowa-class battleships.
LCS, with upward of 100 tons of available weight within its mission-module capacity, is well positioned to support additional weapons in its service life. And while the designated mission modules are one method for upgrading the ship, other systems and designs are possible. LCS could be the basis of a number of variants, including amphibious transport (perhaps with the Finnish 120-mm AMOS mortar in place of 57-mm gun), a missile combatant with eight Naval Strike and Hellfire missiles, or a drone carrier with armed unmanned aerial vehicles.
New weapon systems already are on board several LCSs. The USS Indianapolis (LCS-17) now sports the SeaRAM point defense system; the USS Detroit (LCS-7) successfully tested the Longbow Hellfire missile, and the USS Montgomery (LCS-8) recently completed fitting for the Naval Strike Missile. While the Montgomery did not deploy with that weapon system on board, the Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) will start her deployment later this year so armed. No other U.S. ship class currently in service or planned for acquisition boasts so many possible configurations. LCS—like the Spruance class destroyers, built in an underarmed condition because of cost factors—provides space for future, additional capabilities. It is “underarmed” only for those who lack vision beyond the initial, installed armament.
3. Both LCS variants are overweight and lack margins for growth over their service lives.
This accusation is driven largely by a 2014 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that includes a table of LCS weight allowances. According to GAO, LCS is supposed to have a 50-ton weight allowance for growth over its life expectancy, but that figure is based on a general equation used for all ships. It is the same figure applied to the larger and longer FFG-7 class in the 1970s. It seems unfair to label a modular ship with excess margins for fuel and mission systems as “overweight.”
One warship design philosophy suggests that a larger ship with room for growth over its life span will equate to financial value because the ship can be upgraded rather than simply replaced when its equipment becomes outmoded. This is one theory, and it is more about getting the most value out of the ship than about combat capability.
LCS represents a different design ethos in that the class manages weight growth over time within its modular weight of about 180 tons. At least 75–80 tons likely will be reserved for aviation and small craft fuel, but 100 tons for additional weapons, sensors, and other equipment is a healthy margin for improvement over the life of the ship. GAO notes in its report that the full load LCS displacement in fact includes that 180 tons of modular weight, but it does not credit that tonnage as potential space for growth over the ship’s service life. The application of one equation for service life weight growth for both conventional and modular ships is misleading.
4. LCS failed operational testing.
While the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) has been critical of LCS’s performance during operational testing, the variants of the class continue to complete testing as required. In fact, as of 2018, LCS no longer appears in DOT&E’s annual oversight report.
Ships already are a complicated subject for testing. As the late Reuven Leopold, an influential ship designer of the 1960s and 1970s, noted, “The naval ship is significantly different from a weapon, a tank, or even an airplane because of three primary ‘peculiarities’: large size, non-homogeneity, and technical complexity.” To this already complicated test and evaluation process was added the concept of modular systems. The spiral development process of the mission packages creates a much longer testing period, as any change in LCS mission package (significant or minor) requires another complete round of testing. It is perhaps not surprising that given these conditions, the LCS test and evaluation process appears long and seems to evidence “failure” for many because of that duration.
5. LCS is not survivable in combat and/or the worst ship ever built by the U.S. Navy.
This myth seems one of the most dogged of all LCS accusations and difficult to verify or disprove given the general lack of high-end naval combat since the 1982 Falklands War. But the reality is that given weight restrictions, especially in small ships, it is difficult if not impossible to add much in the way of physical survivability. Modern weapons such as cruise missiles, torpedoes, and mines are much more destructive than previous weapon systems.
Still, there is evidence of the survivability of LCS-type vessels after severe combat damage. The former U.S. Navy high-speed catamaran Swift, purchased by the United Arab Emirates for use as a transport, suffered severe damage from a cruise missile launched by Houthi rebels in 2016 that affected a “mission kill.” Nevertheless, the ship remained afloat and is being rebuilt for service with a Greek high-speed ferry company.
6. The high speed of LCS is useless in modern war and takes away from armament and endurance.
LCS made speed a priority over installed armament systems and endurance. In the post–Cold War environment under which LCS was developed—where the primary enemies were rogue states and non-state actors with minimal naval forces—a forward-based combatant with medium range and a modular capability was reasonable. The relatively short range of LCS compares similarly to the short range of the F/A-18 in comparison with Cold War–era aircraft such as the A-6 Intruder. Different strategic environments generate different platforms.
There is a culture within the U.S. Navy, however, that favors armament over speed. A number of flawed historical strawman examples such as the loss at the Battle of Jutland of supposedly “unarmored” British battlecruisers and the poor showing of the high-speed Italian Condottieri-class light cruisers at the Battles of Cape Spada and Cape Bon are routinely trotted out whenever the idea a warship with high speed is discussed. All are given as examples of “failed” designs that sacrificed armament and range to speed.
There are, of course, other interpretations of these events. Modern scholarship on the fate of the British battlecruisers at Jutland suggests that lack of safety procedures to enable high rates of fire left their magazine spaces vulnerable to flash and subsequent explosion. Some of the battlecruisers sustained multiple heavy shell hits and remained fully engaged in combat. The Italian light cruisers built to fight destroyers came up against a better armed and armored British ship, and it is not surprising that they came off worse for wear.
Some Anglo-American warship bias might be at work here. British naval historian Anthony Preston’s book The World’s Worst Warships is perhaps such an example. According to a review in the Canadian Naval Review,
His examples show ships that have sacrificed too much on the sacred altars of speed and armament, proving to be so flimsy and short-legged that they were rendered ineffective even before leaving port. However, the author’s bias as a proponent of the Anglo-American philosophy of maritime supremacy is evident in his condemnation of innovative designs born of the continental approach to naval power. Preston’s treatment of why states built such unique ships to satisfy national requirements is, unfortunately, cursory.
The designers of LCS equally had their own ideas, deeming speed necessary for combat against the sort of light naval vessels that formed the bulk of the navies of rogue states and non-state actors that were the expected threats to Western forces in the early 2000s. That speed may not matter much in tactical combat against supersonic or hypersonic weapons, and LCS’s high speed was not meant to support that aspect of combat. An additional 10 knots of transit speed, however, equates to an additional 240 nautical miles in 24 hours steaming time. That’s 240 nautical miles closer to an objective, such as a mine danger area, than a conventional ship with an 18–22 knot or even a 25-knot speed of advance could achieve.
7. LCS Manning is too low.
Some argue LCS crew size is too small for all the maintenance and other work required to keep the ship operational on a day-to-day basis. This critique is salient in that some officers assigned to LCS agree (based on the author’s informal survey). However, this belief may say more about the current composition of the U.S. surface fleet than a lack of crew on LCS.
The DDG-51 class forms the bulk of the surface fleet. Smaller vessels such as the Cyclone-class coastal patrol boats and the Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships have operated for decades with very small crews and lower-ranking sailors performing program and maintenance oversight. A 2004 Stars and Stripes article on crew challenges in the Cyclone class mirrors those of LCS: “The ship’s cook makes lunch and dinner, but everyone is on their own for breakfast,” the article notes. “Most sailors are too busy to do much else other than sleep or work. This is no ship for slackers. Everyone has several jobs and duties.” It is not surprising, then, that sailors who spent their formative service years on a larger ship with more sailors to carry the workload would be dismayed by the smaller crew numbers and multiple qualifications required when assigned to the LCS.
The Navy also was slow to commission the shore-side training facilities needed to instruct the large numbers of sailors assigned to the rotational-crew vessels. The combination of a small crew with multiple responsibilities and a lack of specialized training could give rise to the belief that LCS crew size is too small.
The LCS class was a great leap forward, and in retrospect, it may have pushed too many new frontiers for either the Navy or the 1960s-era defense acquisition system to support. It is now poised to deploy in numbers and fulfill many of its intended roles, as well as potentially new ones in this era of great power competition. LCS has seen many challenges and problems on its path to large-scale deployment, and there will likely be others when more of the class deploys. Myths and strawman arguments about LCS, however, should be left behind.