Littoral RMS to get Navy review

U.S. Sen. John McCain is welcoming the Navy's decision to order an independent review of the Littoral Combat Ship’s oft-delayed Remote Minehunting System (RMS) after an August memo about "inflated" estimates of reliability for Lockheed Martin’s remote mine-hunting vehicle (MHV). The August memo from Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, asserted the Navy inflated operating time estimates and concluded RMS was breaking down after 18.8-to-25 hours of use, far short of the required 75 hours. The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman welcomed the Navy's decision Oct. 14 to order an independent review of the 17-year, $700 million RMS program. There is another $868 million earmarked for 54 future vehicles. Lawmakers want the Navy to look at alternatives before buying more. LM spokesman Keith Little says the system's mean time between failures is 117.3 hours, far above the Navy’s requirement. RMS consists of a semi-submersible remote multi-missions vehicle (RMMV) operating with the AN/AQS-20A variable depth mine-hunting sonar. It is designed to detect, classify, identify and locate bottom and moored mines in shallow and deep water as part of LCS’ mine-countermeasures mission package. (Reuters 10/14/15) Gulf Coast Shipbuilding Note: The Navy ordered a review of RMS, and its core Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV), after unacceptable performances in a technical evaluation period that began in September. Gilmore detailed 41 RMS and RMMV failures aboard LCS Independence (LCS-2) while operating primarily in the Gulf of Mexico off Panama City and Pensacola. The tests were conducted using four RMMVs. Failures occurred on all four and in numerous areas, including equipment and software. LCS-2 was built by Austal USA’s shipyard at Mobile, Ala.