State of LCS (Part 2 of 2)

WASHINGTON NAVY YARD – With both variants of the Littoral Combat Ship in serial production at two yards, and those ships kicking off an overseas presence, the Navy is turning its focus to increasing the lethality and survivability of each hull. In the near term, the Naval Strike Missile is going to be quickly installed on all LCSs that will give each ship a greater offense regardless of which of the three combat mission packages – surface warfare, mine countermeasures and anti-submarine warfare – with which it deploys. In the early 2020s, the Navy will focus on that two-phase upgrade plan by adding electronic warfare capabilities, anti-missile decoys, and perhaps laser guns or other advanced systems. The Austal USA-built USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) underwent a backfit process before deploying with the NSM; and left its San Diego homeport to deploy with greater ability to target enemy ships. Backfitting every current LCS with the launcher will take a few years. Starting with LCS-27, and follow ships, the hulls will be built from the start with the space, weight and power reserved for the NSM. “The fact of the matter is, LCS is going to have an offensive punch at range. And that starts with Gabrielle Giffords,” said Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Richard Brown, “and that will be true in the years to come, which then complicates any enemy’s targeting because … every adversary has to worry about where all the ships are because of the reach of the weapons systems we’re putting on them.” By FY 2022, the first LCS will begin going through an upgrade process that will address longstanding calls to up-gun and up-armor. Beyond the phase 1 upgrades, early phase 2 talks are looking at “everything from radar (upgrades) to directed energy to the Evolved SeaSparrow Missile or (Standard Missile)-2 via (vertical launching system),” he said. Overall, the upgrades are moving the single-mission LCS – where nearly all capability resided in the warfare package – into more of a multi-warfare ship. (Source: USNI News 09/06/19) Gulf Coast Note: The Independence variant of LCS is built at Austal's Mobile, Ala., shipyard. https://news.usni.org/2019/09/06/the-state-of-lcs-navy-moving-to-add-firepower-capability-to-both-classes