USS Freedom LCS-1 soon and very soon

[PeriscopeDepth]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

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:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia article "United States Fleet"

The United States Fleet was an organization in the United States Navy from 1922 until after World War II. Initially the abbreviation CINCUS, pronounced as "sink us", was used for Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet, officially replaced by COMINCH in December 1941.

PD

[Oberon]

No onboard Sonar? 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

[fatty]

Originally Posted by Oberon

No onboard Sonar? 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

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:



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.

[Oberon]

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.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Oberon

No onboard Sonar? 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

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.

[SUBMAN1]

One thing that you guys may not know - it will be almost as quiet as a sub.

Here is something very peculiar to this ship - notice - No Prop! No prop makes low noise. It also allows it to operate in extremely shallow water:

[geetrue]

No big sonar dome hung on the bow will allow the 45 kts and above top speed.

Sonar wipes out at those speeds anyway ... those little helio's can track sonar bouy's anyway.

[peterloo]

There's no countermeasure for any wave homing torpedo once they home on your wave. The torpedo will keep on making zee-zags around the position of the wave while getting closer to you (a S shaped loop) and it goes BOOM when it gets sufficiently close

BTW, I don't think a LST should be used to detect and sink subs. This job is best left to corvettes or hunter killers

[baggygreen]

Originally Posted by peterloo

There's no countermeasure for any wave homing torpedo once they home on your wave. The torpedo will keep on making zee-zags around the position of the wave while getting closer to you (a S shaped loop) and it goes BOOM when it gets sufficiently close

People keep saying that..... but i dont believe it for one second.

when peolpe used active sonar to track (asdic anyone?) we got around that by developing a decoy that reflected sound waves, representing the target, and hooray, a countermeasure was developed which was effective when employed properly.

When people used passive sonar in homing torps etc, we developed nixie decoys etc, again a decoy to represent the target.

take it away from the ocean, apply it to anything military - when the enemy develops something new to attack you with, you come up with something newer to defend yourself with. So why everyone keeps saying these wake-homing torps are unavoidable i'll never know

[McBeck]

So this baby will be able to track down the Swedish submarine?
(The USN have been very unsuccessful in doing that some tests last year)

[XabbaRus]

Subman where did you get that pic from. Would be good to have some dimensions on it.

[Oberon]

Incredible design, I am very impressed indeed. The cushion design, is that in case of groundings?

[fatty]

Check the link, it's from globalsecurity.org, although it's a diagram of the now defunct Raytheon offering.

[peterloo]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

People keep saying that..... but i dont believe it for one second.

when peolpe used active sonar to track (asdic anyone?) we got around that by developing a decoy that reflected sound waves, representing the target, and hooray, a countermeasure was developed which was effective when employed properly.

When people used passive sonar in homing torps etc, we developed nixie decoys etc, again a decoy to represent the target.

take it away from the ocean, apply it to anything military - when the enemy develops something new to attack you with, you come up with something newer to defend yourself with. So why everyone keeps saying these wake-homing torps are unavoidable i'll never know

ya I know it sounds stupid that this wave homing stuff don't have any countermeasures, but I don't think there is any decoy which is proven capable in misleading them

The only way that I know to reduce the risk is to change the propeller design? (the one that is proposed to fit in the next UK carrier). Not sure whether there are any other which I have overlooked

[Raptor1]

Fooling the wake-homers shouldn't be a problem:

Active Sonar - Spoof the Bounce Contact
Passive Sonar - Spoof the Sound Source
Wake-Homer - Spoof the Wake, I'm surprised such a thing doesn't exist yet

Also, You can always mount something like the old Torpedo-Nets on your stern that will detonate the Torpedo before it gets close, after all, it HAS to come from the stern...