My opinion is that the problems associated with the LCS program have been caused primarily by the mix of requirements and prospective missions imposed on the program, which led to design decisions and compromises that have effectively crippled the platform. Ultimately, the problem goes back to the Navy's interpretation of the results of the LCS program's reference mission, Operation Praying Mantis in 1988.
The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the threat posed by the Soviet submarine fleets on the high seas, so the remaining threats were minor powers and Soviet allies like Libya, Syria, and Iran, which had local air, naval, and missile capabilities. In the 1980s, the Navy launched the SC-21 study series to define replacements for two of the three generations of warships then in service (1960s and 1970s steam ships and 1970s and 1980s gas turbine ships). The new-design Concept 3 ships were ship into 3A air warfare combatants with 4 x 64 VLS cells, the 3B surface warfare combatant with 2 x 64 VLS cells and 2 x 5 inch guns, and the 3C and 3D, which were a range of smaller ships that would follow the Spruance and Perry classes in their ASW roles. The collapse of the Soviet bomber and submarine threats reduced the necessity for the 3A and 3C variants respectively, so the Navy focused on the 3B1 and refined it for littoral and land attack missions, ultimately resulting in the DD-21 design and the Zumwalt class ships.
The LCS concept first developed as an adversarial response to the size of the DD-21 littoral combatant but grew into a full-scale program under Donald Rumsfeld's Office of Force Transformation. The potential mission sets involved in littoral warfare included anti-aircraft, anti-missile, ballistic missile defense, anti-submarine, mine warfare, surface warfare against medium combatants, surface warfare against small missile or patrol boats, surface warfare against fast boats, maritime interception, counter-piracy, special forces support, amphibious warfare, and land attack. The LCS program was designed to entirely discard response to the aerial threat beyond point defenses (a basic air search radar and RAM launcher), and focus on fighting fast boats, inshore mini submarines, and mines, utilizing the module system to camouflage acquisition costs and program delays by offloading complex combat systems from the individual hulls.
I'm going to break down the individual missions in terms of best technical option and least risk:
Since I am focusing strictly on alternatives to the LCS program here, I am going to discard ballistic missile defense and amphibious warfare as specific mission sets best left to other platforms. I think the mine warfare, maritime interception, and special warfare support are more or less platform-agnostic, so they could be met by any ship with the requisite combination of aviation and small boat capacity. In particular, I think the "minehunting module" could be deployed onboard something more like an offshore PSV than a warship. Counter-piracy is another capability that could be considered platform-agnostic, but I would look for something like an OPV with long cruising range and aviation capabilities as a minimum. In the case of the US, if the USCG is able to maintain PATFORSWA with more than a tenth of their entire FRC fleet, they should be able to send a large cutter or two to participate in CTF 150 and CTF 151 operations. However, that role would generally fall to any deployed US Navy combatants in the 5th Fleet AOR, because all that is really required is a helicopter and small boats. Finally, land attack is primarily a function of available weapons, so the only differences from a ship designed for other roles might be upgrading from a 57mm or 76mm gun to a 5 inch or going from a Tactical to Strike Mk 41 to launch Tomahawks. The missions we actually end up with are area air defense against aircraft and missiles, littoral ASW, and a secondary anti-surface role. What we end up with is basically a Perry-class successor ship rather than a small, light combatant, because aircraft and helicopters are almost certainly better options against most surface targets than a ship.
Consistent with the roles and employment of the Perry-class frigate, its replacement will be able to undertake operations in areas threatened by enemy aircraft and anti-ship missiles and by enemy submarines. It will be capable of independent operations, necessarily with an endurance of roughly one month and potentially up to two months. Primary use cases would be as part of a CSG or ARG, escorting friendly merchant or sealift shipping, or conducting routine presence operations in all but the most hostile environments. Required equipment would include a minimum of:
Finally, I am going to look at where this frigate could fit in the US Navy's post Cold War fleet structure. The Navy finished the Cold War with 46 Knox class frigates commissioned between 1969 and 1974 and 51 Perry class frigates commissioned between 1977 and 1989. The Knox class lacked air defense capabilities, ran on problematic 1,200 psi steam plants, and had basically improvised aviation facilities for a single helicopter. Although they were only about twenty years old when they were decommissioned in the early 1990s, they had little utility in a non-ASW world beyond use as simple OPVs. The Perry class, on the other hand, had a smaller crew, gas turbine propulsion, two helicopters, and area air defense capabilities. The 21 short-hull FFGs carried Kaman Seasprites, while the 30 long-hull FFGs carried Seahawks. The short-hull ships were decommissioned between the late 1990s and early 2000s, apparently because of the Seasprites, while the long-hull ships had their area air defense capability removed around 2005 and were mostly decommissioned between 2010 and 2015.
The procurement requirements for the frigate fleet are going to be:
Although this notional frigate would probably be an American design rather than an adaptation of a foreign design, I'll discuss how it would have compared to some of its contemporaries.
The collapse of the Soviet Union removed the threat posed by the Soviet submarine fleets on the high seas, so the remaining threats were minor powers and Soviet allies like Libya, Syria, and Iran, which had local air, naval, and missile capabilities. In the 1980s, the Navy launched the SC-21 study series to define replacements for two of the three generations of warships then in service (1960s and 1970s steam ships and 1970s and 1980s gas turbine ships). The new-design Concept 3 ships were ship into 3A air warfare combatants with 4 x 64 VLS cells, the 3B surface warfare combatant with 2 x 64 VLS cells and 2 x 5 inch guns, and the 3C and 3D, which were a range of smaller ships that would follow the Spruance and Perry classes in their ASW roles. The collapse of the Soviet bomber and submarine threats reduced the necessity for the 3A and 3C variants respectively, so the Navy focused on the 3B1 and refined it for littoral and land attack missions, ultimately resulting in the DD-21 design and the Zumwalt class ships.
The LCS concept first developed as an adversarial response to the size of the DD-21 littoral combatant but grew into a full-scale program under Donald Rumsfeld's Office of Force Transformation. The potential mission sets involved in littoral warfare included anti-aircraft, anti-missile, ballistic missile defense, anti-submarine, mine warfare, surface warfare against medium combatants, surface warfare against small missile or patrol boats, surface warfare against fast boats, maritime interception, counter-piracy, special forces support, amphibious warfare, and land attack. The LCS program was designed to entirely discard response to the aerial threat beyond point defenses (a basic air search radar and RAM launcher), and focus on fighting fast boats, inshore mini submarines, and mines, utilizing the module system to camouflage acquisition costs and program delays by offloading complex combat systems from the individual hulls.
I'm going to break down the individual missions in terms of best technical option and least risk:
- Anti-aircraft warfare: Land-based or carrier-based fighters with AWACS support are probably the most effective options for air defense over a wide area, but they are not as persistent as surface combatants. For combatants, engaging with large, long-range SAMs like the SM-2ER or the planned "forward pass" OTH missiles is the best option to engage manned aircraft before they can launch shorter ranged missiles.
- Anti-missile warfare: Inbound anti-ship missiles would be engaged by Aegis-equipped ships with layered missile defenses, including SM-2ER, SM2-MR, and Sea Sparrow missiles. These were not options available to the LCS, so the LCS would rely on air defense by nearby Aegis-equipped combatants.
- Ballistic missile defense: Requires persistent platforms with BMD-capable radars and missiles. A task specifically for high-end combatants.
- Anti-submarine warfare: In the littoral region, the primary threat is going to be SSKs and SSMs. The most effective ASW platforms are fixed-wing MPAs and ASW helicopters, but helicopters will need somewhere to land and refuel or their loiter/search time will be severely impacted by transit times. A ship designed for littoral ASW will focus on using active sonar due to ambient noise and bottom topography. Water depths may restrict the use of towed sonars, so hull-mounted sonars may be preferable.
- Mine warfare: The task of actual minesweeping has gone to helicopters, usually towing a variety of minesweeping sleds optimized against different types of mines. The MCMs in service were equipped primarily for the minehunting role, which involves searching for mines using active sonars and then neutralizing them with ROVs. The "minehunting module" designed for the LCS is not an actual module like a Danish Stanflex module but a package of equipment, sensors, and control systems that can fit into an LCS. With the requisite amount of space and the ability to deploy small boats, any ship could carry the minehunting module, so the LCS is not the only option for that.
- Surface warfare against medium combatants: Enemy combatants with air defense capabilities of their own are relatively rare but present the most serious surface threat. They would be able to engage aircraft trying to attack with anything other than anti-ship missiles, and most would be able to deal with small salvos of anti-ship missiles with their own defenses. Kills will generally require a large-scale, coordinated attack by either air or surface platforms launching anti-ship missiles in relatively large numbers.
- Surface warfare against missile boats: Missile boats like an Osa or Tarantul will lack the weapons to engage most aircraft but are able to target ships that come over the horizon. The best weapon against them will be aircraft with laser-guided bombs or missiles.
- Surface warfare against fast boats: Unless the enemy boats are carrying MANPADS, there would be almost no threat to helicopters other than gunfire and unguided rockets. The most capable weapon an US Navy warship can field against a swarm of attacking fast boats would probably be a Marine AH-1s and UH-1s loaded with Hellfires and APKWS rockets. Aircraft using cluster bombs would also be a viable option, as was demonstrated in 1988, but helicopters would probably be able to carry more stowed kills. The risk a surface combatant would put itself in trying to engage small boats with its own guns and short-range missiles should deter these kinds of engagements.
- Maritime interception: Chasing down smugglers or pirates on the high seas requires something fast and maneuverable that can catch up with a fleeing boat and put sailors onboard for a VBSS. Even if an LCS can use its 40+ knot top speed to chase down a smuggling boat, it will still need to slow and put a small boat in the water to actually get people onboard. Helicopters may be another option for boarding, or can corral a boat until the surface ship with the RHIB can show up.
- Counter piracy: More generally, counter piracy and counter smuggling require good endurance and seakeeping to ensure consistent patrolling.
- Special forces support: A ship trying to support special forces insertion or extraction will need to be fast and stealthy, but a helicopter will probably be even faster and more stealthy. NSWC tried to use Cyclone class patrol boats derived from a British missile boat design, but found that even these 300 ton boats with 6 to 8 foot drafts were too deep for their uses. I suspect something like an LCAC would have been closer to what NSWC was looking for.
- Amphibious warfare: The idea that any warship would be a realistic platform to carry reasonable numbers of Marines and their equipment is absurd. The Marines wanted V-22s, LCACs, and EFVs so they wouldn't have to bring amphibious shipping into the littoral area, where it would be vulnerable to shore-based missiles. Going back into the littoral to fight it out with those missiles was not a risk the Marines wanted to take.
- Land attack: Aircraft and helicopters are probably the best option for close air support, but large surface combatants are able to provide persistent fire and large salvo sizes. The LCS had no land attack capability.
Since I am focusing strictly on alternatives to the LCS program here, I am going to discard ballistic missile defense and amphibious warfare as specific mission sets best left to other platforms. I think the mine warfare, maritime interception, and special warfare support are more or less platform-agnostic, so they could be met by any ship with the requisite combination of aviation and small boat capacity. In particular, I think the "minehunting module" could be deployed onboard something more like an offshore PSV than a warship. Counter-piracy is another capability that could be considered platform-agnostic, but I would look for something like an OPV with long cruising range and aviation capabilities as a minimum. In the case of the US, if the USCG is able to maintain PATFORSWA with more than a tenth of their entire FRC fleet, they should be able to send a large cutter or two to participate in CTF 150 and CTF 151 operations. However, that role would generally fall to any deployed US Navy combatants in the 5th Fleet AOR, because all that is really required is a helicopter and small boats. Finally, land attack is primarily a function of available weapons, so the only differences from a ship designed for other roles might be upgrading from a 57mm or 76mm gun to a 5 inch or going from a Tactical to Strike Mk 41 to launch Tomahawks. The missions we actually end up with are area air defense against aircraft and missiles, littoral ASW, and a secondary anti-surface role. What we end up with is basically a Perry-class successor ship rather than a small, light combatant, because aircraft and helicopters are almost certainly better options against most surface targets than a ship.
Consistent with the roles and employment of the Perry-class frigate, its replacement will be able to undertake operations in areas threatened by enemy aircraft and anti-ship missiles and by enemy submarines. It will be capable of independent operations, necessarily with an endurance of roughly one month and potentially up to two months. Primary use cases would be as part of a CSG or ARG, escorting friendly merchant or sealift shipping, or conducting routine presence operations in all but the most hostile environments. Required equipment would include a minimum of:
- 32 Tactical-length Mk 41 VLS cells (likely weapons load of 24 x SM-2MR, 4 x VL-ASROC, and 16 x ESSM)
- Twin quad-pack deck-mounted Harpoon launchers
- At least one CIWS or RAM launcher
- Twin SVTTs
- Hull-mounted sonar
- Towed sonar array
- Mechanical quieting on engines
- Space for at least one helicopter
Finally, I am going to look at where this frigate could fit in the US Navy's post Cold War fleet structure. The Navy finished the Cold War with 46 Knox class frigates commissioned between 1969 and 1974 and 51 Perry class frigates commissioned between 1977 and 1989. The Knox class lacked air defense capabilities, ran on problematic 1,200 psi steam plants, and had basically improvised aviation facilities for a single helicopter. Although they were only about twenty years old when they were decommissioned in the early 1990s, they had little utility in a non-ASW world beyond use as simple OPVs. The Perry class, on the other hand, had a smaller crew, gas turbine propulsion, two helicopters, and area air defense capabilities. The 21 short-hull FFGs carried Kaman Seasprites, while the 30 long-hull FFGs carried Seahawks. The short-hull ships were decommissioned between the late 1990s and early 2000s, apparently because of the Seasprites, while the long-hull ships had their area air defense capability removed around 2005 and were mostly decommissioned between 2010 and 2015.
The procurement requirements for the frigate fleet are going to be:
- Maintain a fleet of at least 40 ships and preferably up to 60 ships.
- Retire the Seasprites by 2005.
- Retire the SM-1s by 2005.
- Decommission the long hull FFGs between 2010 and 2020.
Although this notional frigate would probably be an American design rather than an adaptation of a foreign design, I'll discuss how it would have compared to some of its contemporaries.
- The Type 23, Halifax class, and MEKO 200 represent NATO light frigates. They have one gun, one CIWS, one helicopter, and point defense protection from Sea Sparrows or an equivalent missile. These are lightly armed compared to the Perry class and any FFG successors, although they are probably quite similar to Cold War era plans to follow the Perry class with a lower-cost, lower-capability successor specifically to replace the Knox class.
- The French La Fayette class is remarkably similar in armament to the LCS, with a single gun, missile-based CIWS, and deck launchers for Exocets. I personally think that, if the LCS had abandoned the requirement for extremely high speed, the result would have been something like the La Fayette class and would today be considered fairly reasonable. The La Fayette's derivatives, the Saudi Al Riyadh class and the Singaporean Formidable class, both incorporate area air defense capability with Aster missiles, and the Formidable class also has space for up to 24 deck-mounted Harpoon launchers and reportedly for two Seahawk helicopters. The Formidable class is one of the smallest frigate designs that would meet the FFG requirements, and were laid down between 2004 and 2006.
- Five classes of NATO air defense frigates are equipped with similar combinations of the SMART-L air search radar and either EMPAR, APAR, or SAMPSON sea skimmer targeting radars: Sachsen, De Zeven Provincien, Iver Huitfeldt, Type 45, and Horizon class. These 20 total ships are between 5,000 and 7,000 tons, between 140 and 150 meters long, have between 32 and 48 VLS cells, and carry either one or two helicopters. They probably have a higher-end air defense installation than what the Perry successor would be looking at, but are otherwise very close.
- The Talwar class (Krivak IV) and derived Shivalik class are comparable Indian frigates while the Grigorovich class (Krivak V) are somewhat more similar to what the US Navy would have actually built with their VLS installations. The Krivaks are rather small, while the Shivalik class is 20 meters longer, with a total length of 144 meters, and can also carry two helicopters. The Chinese Type 054A frigate, is armed with HQ-16 SAMs likely derived from the Russian S-350 or Buk/Shtil system, provides somewhat similar capabilities.
- The Navantia Aegis frigates, the Spanish Alvaro de Bazan class, the Australian Hobart class, and the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen class, are similar in air defense capability to many other NATO air defense frigates, although the Nansen class only has 16 Mk 41 VLS cells. Like the other NATO air defense frigates, these ships are probably more optimized for air warfare than the Perry successor would be. The Aegis system in particular would probably be reserved for DDGs due to the significant costs imposed on the design.
- In the linear progression of Japanese destroyers, the 2000 IOC date required falls within the era of the Murasame class. These ships had a 16 cell Mk 41 VLS specifically for ASROC and a 16 cell Mk 41 VLS specifically for Sea Sparrow. After 2003, Takanami class destroyers with a single 32 cell Mk 41 VLS entered service. Japanese destroyers of the time used the Otobreda 127mm/54 Compact and had hangars for a single helicopter, although an expanded superstructure would be able to support two hangars.
- The South Korean Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin class is remarkably similar to the established FFG requirements, with a 5 inch gun, two helicopters, and room for a 32 cell Mk 41 VLS for Standards and Sea Sparrows alongside a 24 cell K-VLS for K-ASROC and Hyunmoo-III land-attack cruise missiles. This ship uses a SPS-49 with two illuminators, which would be a somewhat less expensive sensor installation than the NATO air defense frigates.
- The Danish Absalon class have been discussed quite frequently in comparison to the LCS due to their "modular" design. They carry a standard armament that includes a 5 inch gun, hull mounted sonar, two large helicopters, and CIWS, but can carry ESSMs and Harpoons with Stanflex modules. Additionally, Absalon class ships had substantial storage space, enough to carry a full infantry company with combat vehicles or several hundred mines. However, compared to most other combatants, their all-diesel propulsion means that they are relatively slow, with a top-speed of roughly 24 knots.
- Although the Legend-class National Security Cutters were only laid down in 2005 and commissioned in 2008, probably ten years late for the FFG successor, they are generally indicative of the size and mechanical equipment necessary for the FFG mission. The combination of MTU 20V diesels and a single LM2500 is shared with many other classes of ships, including the Franco-Italian FREMM and the derived Constellation class. In a world where the FFG successor comes before the National Security Cutter program, the cutters would likely be lightly armed and downgraded versions of the frigates, rather than seeing an upgraded version of the cutter compete in the frigate design contest.
