LCS Council

Today's issue of Inside the Navy quotes the Littoral Combat Ship Council chairman as saying that the program should be "at the leading edge of weapons and sensor technology development" and the go-to ship class for industry to bring their good ideas for at-sea testing:

Vice Adm. Richard Hunt, director of Navy staff, said during a Feb. 21 media teleconference that his line about staying at the leading edge of technology was included in a Jan. 31 memo to the chief of naval operations and was meant to serve as a reminder that LCS should be a part of any discussion about future capabilities.

"There's a variety of capabilities out there that I think are suitable to bring to this class of ship," Hunt said, mentioning directed energy weapons such as laser guns, the railgun and a high-powered microwave as items that could be incorporated into LCS mission packages in the next 10 to 15 years. "And the modularity and the margin that we have in the ship right now I think fits very, very nicely to doing that sometime down the road."

Hunt said he was not seeking LCS-specific research and development funding, but rather he said he wanted the ship class to be a test bed for good ideas from the R&D community.

"This is the perfect platform for you to bring your ideas, and because of the modularity, as soon as we get numbers out there I think you will find that we can put new systems on, we can test them, see what works, what doesn't, what modifications may have to be done," he said. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers tend to take on this role now because there are more of them than any other class of surface combatants, but Hunt argued that LCS would have the benefits of a modular and reconfigurable design on top of simply being present in high numbers.

View the full story, which includes quotes from LCS Program Executive Officer Rear Adm. James Murdoch and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, .

Also, check out this related document:

LCS Council Memo To CNO

The Jan. 31, 2013, memo outlines the Littoral Combat Ship Council's recent oversight actions.

View InsideDefense.com's full coverage of naval ship issues.