OTH missile for LCS

The Navy hopes to place an over-the-horizon missile onto a Littoral Combat Ship’s deck by year’s end, according to the service’s director of surface warfare. Rear Adm. Peter Fanta said placing an OTH missile aboard an LCS was “an absolute requirement” for the Navy. Despite mid-fiscal year move-around funding challenges, Fanta says everybody’s on board with it, including engineers that have already been studying which missiles could operate from an LCS. The idea of adding an OTH missile to an LCS platform came from an up-armored LCS-based frigate study. (Source: USNI News 01/07/16) Gulf Coast Shipbuilding Note: The Mobile, Ala.-based Austal USA shipyard builds even-number hull LCS of the Independence Class. The OTH missile and LCS would be much more connected than a previous one-time demonstration of firing a Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile from the Austal-built USS Coronado (LCS-4). USS Independence (LCS 2) is currently conducting its mine-countermeasure warfare package in the Gulf of Mexico, and using Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., as its temporary home port.