Lower LCS Costs Could Lead To Split Purchase

With Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) construction costs under greater control, the Navy is again thinking about splitting the fleet purchase between the contractor teams.

“The Navy wants to split its buy of Littoral Combat Ships between a steel monohull developed by Lockheed Martin and the Marinette shipyard, and an aluminum trimaran developed by the Austal shipbuilding company of Australia,” said Lexington Institute defense analyst Loren Thompson.

The Navy had considered splitting up the business for some of the first ships before, but higher costs forced it to reconsider those plans.

“This acquisition strategy returns the Navy to where it was two years ago, before the high cost on initial ships in the class led it to doubt the affordability of buying both versions of the vessel,” Thompson said.

Under the initial acquisition plan, the Navy bundled together the two LCSs funded in Fiscal 2009—LCSs 3 and 4—with the three LCSs to be requested for Fiscal 2010 into a single, five-ship solicitation, a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report noted

I am responding to this thread because the Navy 'LCS' as I know it and have heard thruout my life, was the 'Landing Craft Support' ships of WWII, of which my elderly Dad was a crew member of -- LCS 121 --

There is Dad waving at us from the deck!!! (j/k ... /laughs)

Dad hasn't been well lately, and us siblings fear that we are about to lose yet another of the 'Greatest Generation' who fought in the Pacific, as well as elsewhere, in WWII.

Folks such as my Mom and Dad went thru the great depression and WWII on different continents ... Mom as a little girl in Nazi occupied Paris, and Dad as a young NY'er who joined the Navy in 1944 because "it was a hell of a lot better than sleeping in a damn muddy hole" ... as the meme goes :)

Not to hijack your thread here Ernst, but please prayers for Mr_Moonlight's Dad .... Thanks :)

NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive LCS(L)(3)-121 / LSSL-121

Thanks June K ... here is more about LCS-121 circa 1944-45:

LCS(L)(3)-121 / LSSL-121 A BRIEF HISTORY OF LCS (L) 121 by Marvin J. Bertoch, Executive Officer

Since its commissioning on 1 December 1944 at Neponset Mass., the LCS (L) (3) 121 has traveled approximately 20,000 miles, served on radar picket patrol and suicide boat defense, escorted convoys, provided fire coverage for scouts and raiders assaulting enemy beaches, and protective smoke coverage for cruisers and battleships. It has been bombed, strafed, and dived at by kamikaze planes. It has participated in convoys attacked by enemy submarines, and it has suffered a few personnel casualties as well as minor damage to the ship itself.

After its commissioning, the 121 underwent shakedown at Solomons, Md. and proceeded to San Diego via Norfolk, Key West and the Panama Canal Zone, arriving at the west coast port of San Diego on 28 January 1945.

At San Diego the ship engaged in two weeks intensive maneuvers off the coast of Southern California and embarked for Pearl Harbor on the third of March.

At Pearl Harbor maneuvers were resumed and included, for the first time, the work of providing fire coverage for a combat group known as Scouts and Raiders, men who swim ashore before the invasion and make essential preparations for the invasion itself.

Leaving Pearl Harbor on 13 April, the ship proceeded to Okinawa, stopping briefly enroute at Eniwetok and Saipan. At Saipan the 121 was made part of an escort of a convoy of men and materials. One day out of Okinawa the convoy was attacked unsuccessfully by enemy submarines.

The ship remained in the Okinawa area from 10 May to 10 July. During that period her chief assignment was radar picket duty. At Hagushi Harbor, the umbilical chord furnishing the life’s blood to the Army, Navy and Marines, in the form of provisions, supplies, ammunition, battle equipment and men, attached itself to the body of the campaign for Okinawa. That harbor and others in the vicinity had to be protected. It was the job of the ships on radar picket duty to shield this vital area by warning our air command and the harbor commands of approaching enemy planes, and by engaging the planes in combat before they could reach the island.

The 121 spent 30 days on radar picket patrol and went to general quarters to meet the enemy air attacks 56 times during that period. She suffered a near miss causing personnel casualties and minor damage to the ship. The bomb exploded off her starboard quarter spraying the after deck with shrapnel. Strafing by a diving kamikaze plane also inflicted minor damage. She shot down two planes, one of them headed for her, the other headed for a nearby destroyer.

While in the Okinawa area the 121 stood by to provide fire coverage for Scouts and Raiders when they were put ashore on Kume Shima, a few days prior to the invasion of that island. She assisted in escorting a group of LSTs into Hagushi harbor. While located in Hagushi harbor, between picket patrol assignments, she took on food, fuel and supplies by day and engaged in “Flycatcher” and “Skunk” patrol by night. This was a patrol in an assigned area near the harbor combining air defense duty and searching for enemy suicide boats which attempted to sneak into the anchorage and plunge their TNT-laden bows into the hulls of our big ships.

When not busy with one of the above assignments she used her fog generator to provide smoke coverage, during air attacks, for a cruiser or battleship.

During this period of intensive activity, training drills in firefighting and fire and salvage and other routine shipboard drills were carried out when circumstances permitted.

On 10 July, after the successful conclusion of the Okinawa campaign, the ship proceeded to Leyte in the Philippine Islands to undergo essential repairs and to provide the crew with its first chance for recreation ashore since leaving Pearl Harbor.

On 11 September the 121 arrived in Tokyo Bay to participate in the Occupation of Japan.

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My Dad was Radioman First Class, so it is unlikely he was up on deck during those photos , but what the heck - figured I'd mention it anyways -- "There is my Dad waving to us!!!" (/grin) -- however, just the same as Radioman in the Shack, he was pretty much on top of everything that was going on upstairs for obvious reasons, that it had to be relayed to the fleet

-- MM

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