USS Freedom LCS-1 soon and very soon
 

If the US Navy can't figure out how to build diesel boats anymore ... the least we can do is find them and sink them. This is going to be one fine ship when she's finished this fall.

http://www.ussfreedom.org/

http://www.ussfreedom.org/assets/pho...istening-7.jpg

The Freedom is being built in Marinette, Wis., and will arrive in the Milwaukee harbor one week before her commissioning.


About the LCS and USS Freedom

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a new class of surface combatants. A fast, agile and networked warship, LCS will execute focused missions to defeat shallow-water threats such as mines, diesel-electric submarines and fast surface craft.

The Freedom (LCS-1) was designed by Lockheed Martin and will be homeported in San Diego, Calif., following its commissioning.

General Characteristics:

Displacement:
3,089 tons, full load

Dimensions, feet
(metres):
379.0 × 43.0 × 12.8
(115.5 × 13.1 × 3.9)

Main machinery:
CODAG: 2 Rolls Royce MT-30 gas turbines; 96,550 hp (72 MW); 2 Fairbanks Morse Colt-Pielstick 16PA6B diesels; 17,160 hp (12.8 MW); 4 Rolls Royce Kamewa 153SII waterjets

Speed, knots:
45

Range, n miles:
3,500 at 18 kt

Complement: :
50

Missiles:
Raytheon RAM

Guns:
1 United Defence 57 mm/70 Mk 2; 220 rds/min to 17 km (9 n miles); weight of shell 2.4 kg. 4-12.7 mm MGs

Countermeasures:
2 SKWS/SRBOC decoy launching systems. WBR 2000 ESM

Combat data systems:
COMBATSS-21

Weapons control:
To be announced

Radars: Air/surface search:
EADS TRS-3D; C-band

Navigation:
NAVSSI/GPS/WSN7V

Fire control:
DORNA EOD EO/IR System

Sonars:
None

Helicopters:
2 MH-60 R/S helicopters or 1 MH-60 R/S and 3 Firescout VTUAVs

Wow, only 50 crew - that's amazing to my mind.

Not only does she have a small crew of fifty ... the USS Freedom will have two captains with two crews.

Gold and Blue crews like on the boomers and ssgn's.

Why the two captains geetrue?

Shes a cool looking warship. Very sleek.

They should do that on the newer Virginia's and 688I's too, IMO. Would really get the most out of the boats that way. And wouldn't have to strain the crews so much constantly.

PD

One captain for each crew ... keeps them sharper and fresher.

They aren't both on the boat at the same time - which is what you're thinking. It's so when returning to port, you switch crews to a fresh crew while the other rests. Allows you to do more with less hardware - seems to be a common form of thinking these days in the military and in business.

-S

Ah thanks. I didn't know that.

Mmmh strange ship - it is completely underarmed for its size!

I don't understand why the Navy just built some more of Israel's Saar5 class corvettes for themselves.
Those ships have a lot more firepower are are considerably smaller => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%27ar_5-class_corvette

I've actually seen a Sa'ar 5 up close, but armament isn't everything, the LCS's are considerably faster, also they have more range (Don't forget that while the purpose is relatively similar, the Sa'ar 5 Corvettes are really made for protecting the Israeli coast in the Med while the LCS's are made for the much larger US coasts)

Oh, BTW, USS Independence (LCS-2) isn't so far from completion either

I did not realize either that LCS-2 (USS Independence) will be very different! So will the final LCS fleet be a mix of the two designs, or will they choose the rest based on some evaluation of these two ships?

It's up in the air, IIRC. They have canceled all LCS's post LCS-2 pending rebidding. The cost overruns got out of hand and they pulled the plug.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/us...n/&oref=slogin

PD

I like the ships, but who would want to serve on something called "Freedom"?

Captain Bligh to CIC...

nevermind the wonderful headlines if she sinks..

I think you are thinking that what is listed above is everything. If I am not mistaken, the LCS's were designed to be modular and could accomidate what was needed for the mission. No other ship can do this.

Some additional details here - http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...p/lcs-mods.htm

So you are seeing the base platform - weapons and sensors can be added as needed.

-S

This reminds me of the WWII Deutschland which was renamed because if a ship called Deutschland would sink, it wouldn't be too good for morale...

And that reminds me of:
:lol:

PD

No onboard Sonar? :o That's an interesting development. Makes sense though but you'd have thought she'd have some form of active sonar, unless it's a Greenpeace related issue. Good to see that she's making full use of Fire Scouts too. She should be quite the ship in littoral deployments. Good luck to her :up:

Sonar may not have a place in the 'core' capabilities of the ship to cut down on costs and crew requirements, but as mentioned above, both LCS classes are built on the premise of modularity, a concept probably best pioneered by the Danes. So you can be sure that an anti-submarine warfare mission module, air-transportable in a neatly packed TEU, would enable an LCS to embark some kind of more specialized underwater sensor systems. Here is a pretty simple diagram that sums up the modularity concept:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ignconcept.jpg

A littoral fighting ship is a sensible role for the world's navies to fill but I think both of these ships - Freedom and Independence - are unfortunately overengineered and overpriced solutions. The logistics runaround that the USN will need to contend with when shuttling around the TEUs containing the mission modules also does not sit well with me.

I'm impressed, it's a good idea. I look forward seeing how it works out once they've got the initial logistical and design bugs ironed out.

That's a module. See my link above.

Here is the Anti Submarine option:

Anti-Submarine Warfare

In all mission configurations the LCS shall have core systems that provide the capability to detect threat torpedoes at sufficient range to permit initiation ofeffective countermeasure and/or maneuver action to defeat the threat. When equipped with the appropriate ASW Mission Package, the LCS will conduct multi-sensor ASW detection, classification, localization, tracking and engagement ofsubmarines throughout the water column in the littoral operating environment. The LCS will have the capability to embark ASW/multi-mission helicopters and unmanned vehicles, and will utilize Undersea Surveillance Systems, environmental models and databases. The Mission Package will enable LCS to:

• Conduct offensive ASW operations. The LCS must achieve a mission abort or sink a threat submarine, if the submarine target of interest is transiting through a designated key choke point or operating (e.g., patrolling) in a designated search/surveillance area.
• Conduct defensiveASW operations. The LCS must defeat threat submarine attacks against units operating in company with CSGs, ESGs, or LCS squadrons. The LCS must achieve a mission abort or sink a threat submarine that poses a threat to any friendly units.
• Conduct coordinated ASW, contribute to the Common Undersea Picture, maintain and share situational awareness and tactical control in a coordinated ASW environment.
• Maintain the surface picture while conducting ASW in a high-density shipping environment.
• Detect, classify, localize, track and attack diesel submarines operating on batteries in a shallow water environment to include submarines resting on the sea floor.
• Perform acoustic range prediction and ASW search planning.
• Conduct integrated undersea surveillance employing on-board and off-board systems.
• Achieve a mission kill ofASW threats through engagement with hard kill weapons from on-board and off-board systems.
• Employ signature management and soft kill systems to counter and disrupt the threat's detect-to-engage sequence in the littoral environment.
• Deploy, control, recover, and conduct day and night operations with towed and offboard systems, and process data from off-board systems.
• Employ, reconfigure, and support MH-60R in ASW operations.
• Conduct ASW Battle Damage Assessment after engagements against undersea threats.

Lockheed Martin Sea TALON (Tactical Littoral Ocean Network) system successfully completed several significant testing milestones in mid-2006 in its development as an Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) mission module for the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Sea TALON is a unique undersea surveillance system that uses a Remote Towed Active Source (RTAS), a multi-band transducer networked with a Remote Towed Array (RTA), to provide search, detection and localization of quiet submarines in the littorals. Each array is towed by an unmanned, semi-autonomous, semi-submersible Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMV), an ASW-variant of Lockheed Martin’s AN/WLD-1 Remote Minehunting System. The RMV, launched and controlled remotely from a forward-deployed LCS, will provide the Navy’s first unmanned, organic, real-time ASW capability, significantly enhancing ship and crew safety.


Testing conducted in mid-2006 offshore of Lockheed Martin’s Riviera Beach, FL facility verified two important parameters for the Sea TALON program’s capabilities to serve aboard the LCS. The tests demonstrated that the RTAS and RTA could achieve the necessary depth for the best acoustic performance and that the RMV’s stability was not affected during the towing of the active source and passive receiver at various speeds and depths. Sea TALON successfully leverages several important Navy programs and technologies, including towed array development, use of common software baselines to achieve efficient use of computer programming resources, plus the unmanned vehicle and architecture from RMS.
Further in-water testing was conducted in late 2006 at the Navy’s test facility at Seneca Lake near Syracuse, NY. Final integration and test were conducted in 2007 at Lockheed Martin’s Riviera Beach, FL facility. Its rapid development and maturity enabled delivery to the first LCS ASW Mission Package in 2008.