Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer and other service brass were on Capitol Hill last month defending their plan to buy just one littoral combat ship in the coming fiscal year.
Unsurprisingly, the plan has rankled House members from states that build the small surface warship and has triggered warnings of layoffs from two of the Navy’s commercial shipyards.
A single LCS purchase would not provide enough work and cause the shipyards in Alabama and Wisconsin to “crumble on us” and become “effectively crippled,” Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., whose district includes the Austal USA facility in Mobile that builds the Independence LCS variant, told Navy officials.
But the controversy may be short-lived.
Analysts say Congress almost certainly will add one or two more of the ships into the Navy’s upcoming 2019 budget despite its request, much as it did last year.
“The 2019 LCS shortfall is likely to take care of itself from a congressional shipbuilding plus-up perspective,” said Jim McAleese, the founder of McAleese and Associates, a government contracts consulting and legal firm.
The LCS made its debut in 2008 as a kind of experiment in quickly building affordable craft to patrol coastal waters. The results were mixed, and the ships were dogged by mechanical problems, performance issues, and criticism from lawmakers.
The Navy is now focused on ending the program and buying a replacement guided-missile frigate in the next couple of years.
“As we examine the needs of the Navy, not just today but also in the future, to assure that we maintain our historical dominance on the seas, a mixed fleet of both LCSs and new frigates will be best suited for the service to defend against growing threats — especially from China,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
But the Navy is under pressure to keep the Mobile shipyard and a shipyard in Marinette, Wis., where Lockheed Martin builds its Freedom LCS variant, humming until the orders for the new ship design are put in.
The LCS will cost about $450 million to $650 million per ship, according to McAleese, meaning the price tag could top $1 billion if Congress adds two more ships.
Last year, the White House proposed a single LCS purchase but then quickly amended its request by adding another ship under similar pressure. Congress ended up giving the Navy three of the ships.
Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., who is chairman of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, is the top advocate in the chamber for a bigger Navy and supports the shipyards’ call for more than a single LCS purchase.
“I believe it is imperative that we support the minimum sustaining rate for the current Littoral Combat Ship production shipyards until we can transition to the frigate-class ships,” Wittman said.
Both the shipyards and the Navy have pointed to a total of three LCSs per year as the production rate needed to keep workers and facilities busy.
The service acknowledged to the Washington Examiner that the single-ship order for 2019 would mean that “both yards will be operating below the full capacity of their facilities.”
Combat on the seas is changing and becoming more complex, and the Navy is focused on getting the new frigate with “improved lethality and survivability” compared to the LCS, according to Lt. Lauren Chatmas, a Navy spokeswoman.
The Navy awarded five conceptual design contracts for the new frigate in February and plans to award a construction contract in fiscal 2020, according to Chatmas.
Still, Spencer defended the 2019 LCS purchase as a “good sustaining rate” for the yards during his March testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, which would have to fund any purchase.
But it would leave workers in Alabama and Wisconsin idle and create a financial lull that would be hard for the two small shipyards to absorb, said Thomas Callender, senior research fellow for defense programs at the Heritage Foundation.
“If we go to one ship, likely both of them would be reducing their workforce,” Callender said.
