ASW overweight for LCS

The Littoral Combat Ship's anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission package is overweight and can't deploy aboard ship until it drops pounds. Capt. Casey Moton, LCS Mission Module program manager, told the Mine Warfare Association that each of his three warfare modules is given 231,485 pounds for each LCS, but ASW alone surpassed the weight limit. The Navy has hired Advanced Acoustic Concepts, L-3 Communications and Raytheon to find weight-reduction measures. Each team will submit a package to bring the mission module to a manageable weight. Navy will pick the best ideas and use them to engineer development models (EDM). (Source: US Naval Institute News, 07/30/15) Gulf Coast note: Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala., builds the Independence class LCS variant, and Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City, Fla., is developing the LCS mine-counter measures warfare package.