{"id":29114,"date":"2021-04-12T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/04\/12\/high-operating-costs-cloud-the-future-of-littoral-combat-ships-budget-data-reveals\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:24:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:24:47","slug":"high-operating-costs-cloud-the-future-of-littoral-combat-ships-budget-data-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2021\/04\/12\/high-operating-costs-cloud-the-future-of-littoral-combat-ships-budget-data-reveals\/","title":{"rendered":"High operating costs cloud the future of littoral combat ships, budget data reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was updated April 16, 2021, at 2:20 p.m. EST with the U.S. Navy\u2019s cost estimate to operate a littoral combat ship annually.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 As the U.S. Navy\u2019s littoral combat ship program<\/a> battles reliability problems, it is also wrestling another and potentially just as fearsome bear: operating costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service\u2019s top officer said the original concept for a minimal crewing model <\/a>\u2014 where as few as 32 sailors and eight officers manned the ship, and much of the maintenance burden fell to contractors \u2014 has driven up costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer? Put sailors back in charge of more maintenance, which means the Navy might need to add even more sailors to the crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the additional manning might serve as yet another driver of higher operating costs, but the current numbers indicate that expenses can\u2019t get much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, a littoral combat ship costs about $70 million annually to operate, according to a calculation of budget data obtained by Defense News. The Navy disputed this number, saying it is closer to $50 million. In comparison, the cost of operating an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer \u2014 a much more mature and established design program \u2014 runs around $81 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Navy can\u2019t reign in those LCS costs, it would mean the Navy\u2019s lightly armed, 3,400-ton small surface combatant designed for maximum operational availability will cost nearly as much to operate as its heavily armed, 9,400-ton large surface combatant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday acknowledged the high cost of operating the ships, but said an internal push to drive more of the maintenance of the ships to sailors on the deckplates, and thus away from contractors, should help push down the cost of running the LCS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo if you snap the chalk line today, the costs are pretty high, especially compared to a [guided-missile destroyer] DDG\u201d Gilday said. \u201cBut what we\u2019re trying to do is move from a contractor-centric maintenance model to a sailor-centric maintenance model, or a Navy-centric maintenance model.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The littoral combat ship Sioux City has been sidelined for several months after an issue with the engine cooling system was discovered in January, officials confirmed this week. (Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gilday said U.S. Fleet Forces Command, which is in charge of the Navy\u2019s system that prepares ships ready for deployment, is trying to bring more naval maintenance in-house. But moving to that kind of a model may require more sailors, he admitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its introduction to the fleet, the littoral combat ship has gone from 40 assigned sailors and officers to 50; then in 2016, that grew to 70 sailors when the surface fleet decided to permanently assign each LCS with a single mission \u2014 either surface, mine or antisubmarine warfare. Now, to support more crew-centered maintenance, that number may have to grow again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll be a significant cost savings if we get to that point,\u201d Gilday said. \u201cOf course, we have to take a look at: If we do that, do we have adequate numbers of people onboard the ship to be able to do that fully? If it needed to be a phased plan, how long it would take?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think [that] over time, if we get that piece right, if we get the supply parts piece right \u2014 having the right parts on the ship at the right time \u2014 I think we can probably get to a place where you see more efficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, it\u2019s the Navy\u2019s job to makes sure the United States gets its money\u2019s worth out of the LCS, Gilday said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do have a responsibility to try and make use of those ships and be the most efficient they can be,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to be learning for a little while as we shift to this new maintenance model and as we get more water under the keel of those hulls.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to do with LCS?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service is also battling reliability issues, most notably with the combining gear on its Freedom-class littoral combat ship. The combining gear fuses and transmits power from four separate engines to the ship\u2019s waterjet propulsion system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issues with the combining gear have led to a string of propulsion issues, putting the whole Freedom-class fleet under limitations<\/a> on how it uses its propulsion plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December, Defense News reported that the Navy was investigating a potential class-wide design flaw. In January, the Navy announced it was halting deliveries of the Freedom class until redesigned combining gear is installed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead contractor Lockheed Martin and combining gear manufacturer RENK have identified a fix for the combining gear. According to Gilday, the Navy will begin testing it this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilday added that the LCS program is on track to deliver the long-delayed anti-submarine warfare and mine warfare mission packages in 2022 \u2014 essentially the sensors and weapons that help the ships carry out their original mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The yearslong delays with the mission packages have contributed to an increasingly tense relationship between Congress and the Navy over fielding new technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur job as a Navy is deliver a lethal combatant and \u2026 my goal is 0.5 [operational availability],\u201d Gilday said, referring to having the ship available for tasking 50 percent of the time. \u201cBut in order to get that 0.5 [availability], there\u2019s a few things that we need to fix in order to get to that objective. The first is we need to get after reliability and sustainability issues. \u2026 The second piece is lethality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some analysts and observers have raised the possibility of cutting losses on the littoral combat ship, to one degree or another, putting money into other projects that, first, might have more value in a high-end war with advanced competitors like China or Russia and, second, aren\u2019t beset by manning, maintenance and reliability problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, has called for the Navy to lean heavily into forward-basing the ships in the Asia-Pacific region; specific locations include Sasebo, Japan; Bahrain; and Mayport, Florida. That would allow the Navy to centralize its maintenance infrastructure in a limited number of ports; save the ships from the wear and tear of cross-ocean transits; and reduce the number needed to operate by having them forward-deployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the rest of the ships, Clark said, it may be time to think about retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d probably want to decommission or retire a good chunk of the early ones because if you are going to move towards a kind of centralized-hub model, you probably don\u2019t need as many,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you put a half-dozen in Bahrain, and then four or five in Sasebo, and a half-dozen in Mayport \u2014 and still have two or three in dry dock \u2014 that\u2019s only about half the fleet up today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what you would do with the other half. There [are] missions they could do, but they\u2019re just too expensive to use on those missions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Operating costs for the LCS are eating into Navy’s accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":41178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["your-military","news","left-column","home"],"primary_category":"your-military"},"7":{"categories":["your-navy","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters","left-column","home"],"primary_category":"your-navy"}}},"categories":[44,8,160,16,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3361],"class_list":["post-29114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-congress","category-daily-news-roundup","category-naval","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"TQTG725EEZDOHNB2MRV5WRHFFM","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2021\/04\/12\/high-operating-costs-cloud-the-future-of-littoral-combat-ships-budget-data-reveals\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\nHigh operating costs cloud the future of littoral combat ships, budget data reveals - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Operating costs for the LCS are eating into Navy's accounts.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"High operating costs cloud the future of littoral combat ships, budget data reveals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Operating costs for the LCS are eating into Navy's accounts.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2021\/04\/12\/high-operating-costs-cloud-the-future-of-littoral-combat-ships-budget-data-reveals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Defense News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-12T13:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T22:24:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David B. 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