The U.S. Navy's first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) remains on track for delivery this summer, service and shipbuilder officials said, belying a blogger's claim that the ship will be a year late.
"We're on track for trials beginning in May. We're on track for a summer 2008 delivery," said Diana Massing, a spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin.
"LCS 1 starts builder's trials next month and is scheduled to deliver in August 2008," declared Lt. Cmdr. John Schofield, a Navy spokesman.
The statements contradict a claim by Internet blogger Tim Colton that the Freedom (LCS 1) "will now probably not be delivered before the spring of 2009, if then and if ever."
Colton referred to "a mass gathering of incompetent people" this week at Marinette, Wis., where the ship is under construction by Marinette Marine.
The ship, Colton said, suffers from "endless test failures, mostly involving this simple ship's ludicrously complicated engineering plant."
The Freedom has a new power plant layout featuring two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines and two Fairbanks Morse Colt-Pielstick diesels. This is the first MT30 gas turbine installation for the U.S. Navy, which has previously relied on General Electric LM2500 gas turbines to power its warships.
We had a good laugh at what Mr. Cavas has done here. Basically he has set the storyline as big bad Lockheed Martin vs little blogger Tim Colton. Chris gets extra credit for finding a way to create compelling friction in a navy story, that's not easy to do.
However what is interesting about what we are learning is that everyone might be right. If Tim says LCS-1 is having testing failures on the engineering plant, bank it. That doesn't mean Lockheed Martin won't find a way to get the ship to builders trials in May though. The question that needs to be asked is how much will it cost, and who will pay for it? I fear the answers are "a lot" and "the Navy."
The Navy has paid big dollars for speed in regards to the LCS program. The LCS was first announced on November 1, 2024 with the DD(X) and CG(X) as part of a family of three new classes of surface combatants for the 21st century. The LCS was launched on September 23rd, 2006. That is remarkable speed in a shipbuilding program to go from concept to water in less than 5 years. However, it is that incredible speed of concept to design to construction that has increased costs. The speed factor in construction makes it difficult to tell if the $460 million cap figure mandated by Congress still applies or not. If it does, the program costs for the first two ships aren't important. However, if the $460 million cap has to be increased, the cost of the LCS makes the ship too expensive to meet the goals it is intended to meet.
If LCS-1 is having problems, will Lockheed Martin rush to get the ship to builders trials in May? With this program, probably. The Navy has been paying for speed in construction of the LCS the whole time, does anyone think they will stop now?
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