Congress again is hung up on a budget, but lawmakers have left town to fight the midterm elections, leaving the Pentagon to wait and see what happens in one budget year before it can nail down the next. Meanwhile, there’s work to do, and the US Navy has several major decision points coming up — questions that need to be decided regardless what Congress ultimately comes up with.
At the top of the decision list sit three programs: the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS); the Small Surface Combatant (SSC) and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). A decision on how to skew UCLASS — toward surveillance or strike — had been expected by the end of summer. But with Pentagon officials unable to reach a consensus, it has been punted off into a murky future.
Likewise, a decision on what the SSC — a follow-on to the LCS — looks like is still kicking around the upper levels of the Navy Department, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wants a recommendation in time to shape the next budget submission. That means only a few months, if not weeks, are left to sign off on something.
Even more imminent — although hardly anyone outside the surface warfare community has noticed — is what to do with the next eight littoral combat ships, the first of which comes up in the next budget request. The Navy has a chance to make major fixes in the designs of the ships, but also runs the risk of building ships that might not fit in with LCS support and manning schemes, and won’t match up well with the SSC.
On all these issues, the Navy is being tight-lipped, refusing even to discuss the situation much less what options are on the table. That’s particularly true with the surface ships, where many of those briefed on the task force findings reportedly are being forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.
The shipbuilding industry also is looking for a decision on the basic configuration of the LX(R), a new amphibious ship that will be based around the existing LPD 17 San Antonio-class hull, a different existing design, or a new, “clean-sheet” effort. Funding for the first ship isn’t planned until 2020, but the Navy has said a decision on a preferred design configuration could be announced in the spring. The choice of a hull is important, as it allows industry to get to work on designs to present to the Navy.
Other decision points await action by Congress. Among them are full funding for the nuclear refueling of the aircraft carrier George Washington; full funding for the 12th ship of the San Antonio class, LPD 28; the number of littoral combat ships to be funded in 2015; and the future of 11 cruisers and two amphibious ships the Navy wants to lay up but Congress wants to keep running.
All those issues are tied up in deliberations over the 2015 budget, and Congress is split in varying degrees over what it wants to do. On those issues, until Congress acts, the Navy really can’t.
But the service will have to do something about UCLASS, the SSC and the LCS.
What is UCLASS?
Internal arguments have been going on for years about whether an unmanned, carrier-based jet should be primarily a strike platform, able to carry weapons deep into an enemy’s territory, or another ISR asset. The question is clouded by philosophical and cultural issues of arming a robot and reducing the number of pilot seats in aircraft. Yet there is a sense of urgency within the Navy to develop some sort of operational, unmanned carrier jet.
The Navy had intended to issue a UCLASS request for proposal (RFP) this summer, and as late as mid-August officials were still talking as though an RFP was imminent. It’s understood that draft RFPs have been produced that skew to either choice, and a final decision was to have been made in high-level Pentagon meetings. Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman were all eagerly standing by for the RFPs, which were to have been kept secret.
But at an Aug. 26 meeting chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work, serious questions were raised including, according to sources, the role of the aircraft, but also affordability and competition. Pentagon sources said participants were split into three camps — a strike-based or ISR-based UCLASS, or a larger and likely more expensive multimission version. In the end, a decision was postponed, rolled into an internal Pentagon-wide ISR review.
Pentagon sources said the ISR review is just one of a series of capability reviews underway to inform the 2016 budget process. But putting off a UCLASS decision in favor of more study could be an indicator of other factors.
Bryan Clark, a former special assistant to the chief of naval operations and now an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, noted that “the UCLASS costs are already sort of captured. The decision is what we want them to be.”
Officials, he said, are “continuing to kick it down the road because you’ve got this fundamental split between the acquisition community — get it out there, get some experience with unmanned aircraft on the carrier. A big segment of the Navy air community feels the same way. Then you’ve got a big chunk of the policy community and Navy leadership — outside naval aviation — on board with UCLASS being a more survivable, more strike-oriented platform.”
One Capitol Hill source is more suspicious about where UCLASS could be headed.
“A study does not necessarily lead to an immediate or near-term announcement of a preferred course of action,” the Hill source said. “It certainly seems clear now that the study seems to set the stage for some other decision-making process that appears to be less structured in terms of who’s involved or when the timing of the ultimate announcement will be made.”
The move to an ISR portfolio review, along with stated concerns about affordability, the Hill source said, “could be a ready-made excuse to cancel the program. They’re creating the framework.”
The SSC
Much of the naval community is eagerly anticipating the results of the SSC task force recommendations to see how the Navy intends to field a larger, more heavily-armed fighting ship to succeed the LCS. The group turned in its report July 31, but Navy officials have said nothing about what it contains.
Congress as well is eager to hear what the report says, and weeks ago the House Armed Services Committee scheduled a Sept. 9 closed-door briefing to find out. But, according to sources in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, the Navy planned to do little more than outline its process in digesting the report, and the hearing was canceled.
Hagel, in his Feb. 24 memo directing the SSC effort, told the Navy to consider new designs or versions of ships now being built, including both classes of LCS. With the Navy silent, speculation continues on what the report recommends and what direction Navy leaders will take. But with time to make a decision running short, and Hagel’s direction to buy only eight more littoral combat ships before switching to the SSC, it’s becoming clear that choices are limited.
“It is inevitable that the Navy is going to go with a modified LCS. There’s really no other way you can do it to get to the first ship in 2019,” Clark said.
“I have a hard time believing they’d go with the [Independence-class] LCS 2 as the hull form, just because it would mean doubling down on an aluminum hull — which is not something the Navy’s got a lot of experience with. It’s hard to see the acquisition community saying let’s make that a frigate.
“So it’s likely to be an LCS 1 modification,” Clark said.
Lockheed Martin, prime contractor for the LCS 1 Freedom class, has long been working on more heavily-armed versions of its ship aimed at the international market. It was well-positioned to respond to the request for information sent by the SSC task force.
Austal USA, builder of the LCS 2 class, had in recent years spent less effort in promoting versions of its all-aluminum ship, particularly after original prime contractor General Dynamics bowed out after the second ship.
But the company made a major effort to show how its design could be adapted to SSC needs, and sources say the Austal USA response was particularly impressive. Even if the SSC choice goes to Lockheed Martin, Navy officials seem eager to reward Austal USA, probably by buying more joint high speed vessels, a smaller, civilian-manned ship that can perform a number of low-intensity, small combatant-like missions.
While a decision on the SSC needs to be made soon — either in the next few weeks or certainly before the end of the year — it seems likely the new ships will revert to a more familiar naval name to describe their type.
“They’ll definitely call them something besides LCS,” Clark said. “There’s a desire on the part of naval leadership to move away from acronyms for a name. I imagine it will be a frigate or a light or littoral corvette.”
The Eight-in-the-Middle
Perhaps the most vexing decision Navy leaders need to make soon is how to deal with the eight littoral combat ships still to be ordered before the Hagel-mandated move to the SSC. With the end of two 10-ship block buys coming in 2016, the Navy has an opportunity to fix significant design or programmatic issues in both LCS classes.
Examples could be fitting 76mm instead of 57mm guns, adding a vertical launch system for missiles, moving to a common combat system or incorporating elements from one into the other, making power plant changes, fitting bridge wings in LCS 2, and increasing fuel storage in LCS 1. Officials from both programs say they’re prepared to go with whatever changes the Navy wants.
And Hagel is pushing for improvements, directing that, to the greatest extent possible, changes recommended for the SSC should be incorporated into the eight remaining littoral combat ships.
But the LCS program employs carefully-crafted logistical, maintenance and training support systems, and if the eight ships fall significantly out of whack with the preceding 24 ships, they’d become oddities — a situation exacerbated if only four of each design are built. The problem is so acute, some Navy planners have used the term “Frankenships,” a play on Frankenstein’s monster, to describe the problem.
“If you significantly modify them, there may be installed capabilities that have to be manned and maintained by people,” Clark said. “So those eight ships could have a different crew. If they use rotational crews they’d have to be together” rather than be part of the 24-ship rotation. “That introduces a lot of complexity.”
The Navy, he said, already is thinking about eventually dropping its three-for-two rotational LCS crewing model and going to single crews for the LCS — a likely outcome for the SSC. The mix of 36 LCS crews for 24 ships, eight or 12 crews for the middle group, and 20 crews for the SSC could provoke a plethora of problems, especially since many LCS systems are particular only to those ships and not the rest of the fleet.
“You’ll have 32 LCSs, then these 20 other ships with single crews,” Clark explained. “The Navy appears to be thinking more of a traditional frigate [for the SSC] with a lot of installed capabilities, they’re going to have to look at having your crew on board. A rotational small crew might not be qualified to maintain it.”
All told, Clark said, “I recommended they limit the number of modifications to the eight.”
Many observers feel the Navy is running a great risk by not frankly discussing the issues it faces in reaching whatever decisions it announces — the SSC in particular. If nothing is revealed until the new budget is presented in February — a strategy advocated by some high-level Navy officials — the Navy might avoid some direct criticism, but it will also not likely attract support.
“From their perspective [waiting for the budget rollout] makes a lot of sense — it will be wrapped in with all the other issues and will be harder for people to pick at,” said a second Hill source, a congressional staffer. “But in terms of policy, it’s such a huge issue for the surface force.
“These programs need a certain amount of buy in — not just from Congress, but the media has to bless it with how the stories are articulated,” the staffer added. “There has to be a consensus that it can’t be allowed to fail.”
With LCS, the congressional staffer noted, “they’ve lost the public relations battle. They’ll probably lose it again if they run and hide.”