Thursday, November 7, 2019

LCS OTH Missile Procurement

An LCS recently sailed with the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM)(see, "Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile") and launcher aboard (see, "LCS Giffords Naval Strike Missile").  While that, alone, will not turn the LCS from a useless debacle to a mighty warship, it is, nevertheless, a step in a more useful direction.  The plan appears to be to mount 8x NSM on each LCS.  There are 32 LCS built or shortly due to enter the fleet.  Thus, the minimum total missile inventory would be 8x32 = 256.  Presumably, the Navy would want several reloads available in inventory for each ship, in the event of war, thus bringing the total inventory requirement to around 1800 NSM or so.

LCS Giffords and Naval Strike Missile


Of course, the Navy considers several of the LCS to be non-deployable, training vessels so that might affect the missile inventory requirements somewhat, depending on whether the Navy considers these vessels non-combat capable in the event of war.  Setting that aspect aside …

From the Navy’s 2020 Budget Highlights we see a procurement plan for NSM of 101 missiles from 2020-24 inclusive.(1)  That’s an average acquisition of 20 missiles per year.  That’s significantly short of the 256/1800 requirement!  Of course, there’s no reason to believe that the acquisition will stop after 2024 but even continuing at the average of 20 missiles per year – or even the max budgeted rate of 26 missiles per year – it would require 65+ years to reach the required inventory level.

On a related note, the FY19 weapons budget document lists the cost of 8 NSM as $18,156,000 for an average of $2.3M per missile.(2)  Not cheap!

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*Update* - 

Here's projected quantities, costs, and unit costs from the FY20 weapons budget document: (3)

2020  18  $38,137,000    $2.1M
2021  15  $32,975,000    $2.2M
2022  16  $33,585,000    $2.1M
2023  26  $49,371,000    $1.9M
2024  26  $50,451,000    $1.9M

Still not cheap!
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As with most of the LCS program, one is left wondering what's going on?  Is the Navy serious about arming the LCS for war or just making a token buy of missiles so that a handful of deployed ships can have photo ops that the Navy can use to deflect criticism of the LCS program?

Another possibility is that twenty or so missiles is the limit of the manufacturer's production capacity.  If so, this would be very disturbing when one considers the numbers of missiles we would need to quickly acquire in a war.

I'm at a loss to explain what's going on here.

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(1)“Highlights of the Department of the Navy FY 2020 Budget”, Office of Budget – Mar 2019, Fig. 4-4, p. 4-8

(2)Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Budget Estimates, Navy Justification Book Volume 1 of 1 Weapons Procurement, Navy, Volume 1 - xxii

(3)Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Budget Estimates, Navy Justification Book Volume 1 of 1 Weapons Procurement, Navy, Volume 1 - xvii

52 comments:

  1. In other words, it's all for show.

    USN is buying enough missile for 2 LCSs a year....so LCSs never going to deploy with them, LCSs isnt going to deploy that often or USN never had real intention of fielding LCS with this missile. Sad....

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  2. It's possible that the NSM buy will be increased once FFG(X) hits the water, what with USN announcements that NSM would also arm FFG(X). It doesn't make much sense to buy missiles before the ships are in service, since missiles do have expiration dates.

    Alternately, the USN may potentially select the JSM variant of NSM and double down on that, because JSM can be internally carried by F-35s, and fired from both VLS, SSN torpedo tubes, and canisters, as opposed to NSM which is limited to canister launcher only.

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  3. Props for seeing the real price of the missile. Some have indicated it costs less and I see no evidence of this. My guess is they are estimating quantities as they build up the production ramp and figure out where to get the money from. They are going full bore on LRASM/JASSM and are likely going to add it to the B-52 and P-8. If you look from the intro in the 2019 budget you will see they went from 64 missiles over the 5 year last year to the 101 this year. Also, 33 LCS are funded. I had actually thought it was 35 but it seems the tithe to Congress was just the 1 hull.

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  4. The quoted price for NSM frim Wikipedia's site us 900,000 so its a little surprising if the 2.3 million price quoted here I assume that the others that have ordered it would balk at the 2.3 price is start up figures and NSM/JSM project is going to massive in number as its going on ffgx also plus yhe possible Marine and Army this could actually end up as a replacement for Harpoon which if memories serve me is around 3500 in inventory right now as for LCS it needs Decommissioned and scrapped

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    1. Costs can be tricky things.
      900,000 might buy you a missile,
      2.3mn might buy you a missile, launcher, integration, training, manuals, spares and ongoing support.

      Delete
    2. It may, however, this statement appears in the FY2020 budget justification book:

      "Missile Launch System components include: a Launch Mechanism, Operator Interface, and Fire Control System which are procured with Other Procurement, Navy Funds."

      Note the 'Other Procurement, Navy Funds' verbiage. This seems to indicate that training and other items are being paid in some category of 'other' funds. You can check it out in the Reference (3) budget document.

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    3. I've also updated the post with the FY2020 costs and projected costs through 2024. Check it out.

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    4. At that rate they could equip ten to twelve LCSs on this contract. Given that we don't even get one deployment a year out of the class it seems reasonable.

      The price seems to include the launcher and fire control, so there's work to do on the ship as well. It's also a pretty low rate buy, which probably affects the builder's bottom line.

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    5. "Given that we don't even get one deployment a year out of the class it seems reasonable."

      It is not even a little bit reasonable. We are, supposedly, preparing for war. Not that most people think the LCS will be worth anything in a war but the idea of war, for a ship, is to go out, shoot your weapons, RELOAD, and do it again. That means that you need at least several reloads per ship, as I stated in the post. That would, at least, buy you enough time to begin to produce more missiles to sustain the war effort.

      If we're just going to buy one load for a handful of the ships then they have no place in war and we've built an entire class of useless ships (which most of think is the case!). If the Navy is ready to admit they built a class of useless ships then they should tie them to a dock and save the operating costs and move on to a real warship design.

      I absolutely don't mean to jump on you but your one sentence kind of sums up the problem the Navy has - they aren't preparing for war. They don't seem to believe war is even possible. Everything they do is geared at peacetime operations and peacetime bureaucratic maneuvering.

      Do you see that that kind of thinking is why the Navy can't seem to do anything right? Their one job - to prepare for war - isn't even on their top ten to-do list.

      A handful of missiles isn't even remotely reasonable.

      Again, sorry I jumped on this. It just illustrates my problem and frustration with the Navy's attitude.

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  5. With NCM procurement an official thing now, how long till we see the weapon system being attached to auxiliary ships, or has that part of "distributed lethality" been dropped?

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    1. That's an interesting question. I've seen nothing one way or the other on the idiotic distributed lethality concept. I suspect that the Navy would like to proceed but that budget constraints will prevent loading missiles on cargo ships, amphibs, and the rest, at least for the foreseeable future - which, I guess, makes distributed lethality a dead issue?

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  6. The contract price probably includes training and tech support. Some members of the crew of the Giffords flew to Norway to train with the manufacturer.

    It's also a new weapon for the US Navy. A small rollout may be one way to keep from going all in on a turkey or to let them switch to LRASM if that works out better.

    The other factor is that I bet these are foreign built weapons. Ultimately Naval Strike Missile will be made in the USA - the Navy will happily sign a high volume contract once Raytheon or whoever is up and running.

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    1. One answer to your question is LRASM is a very heavy weapon at around 3000 pounds without launcher LCS is already weight challenged Raytheon has been partnered wth Klonsberg for around 2 years now and is producing the NSM in Kentucky I believe

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    2. "The contract price probably includes training and tech support. "

      It may, however, this statement appears in the FY2020 budget justification book:

      "Missile Launch System components include: a Launch Mechanism, Operator Interface, and Fire Control System which are procured with Other Procurement, Navy Funds."

      Note the 'Other Procurement, Navy Funds' verbiage. This suggests that training, if it is a separate item, is paid in some category of 'other' funds.

      Delete
    3. I just updated the post with the FY2020 costs and projected costs through 2024. Check it out.

      Delete
  7. The LCS with the NSM and other mods reminds me of what some friends of mine did with their sons toys one year. They took all the broken toys, added glitter to them, and then hung them on the Xmas tree. He liked the broken glitter toys better than the new working toys he got for Xmas. Apparently adding a little glitter (NSM or underwater drones) is better than a new functional toy (ship) for small children (admirals).

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  8. "Is the Navy serious about arming the LCS for war or just making a token buy of missiles so that a handful of deployed ships can have photo ops that the Navy can use to deflect criticism of the LCS program?"

    I think we all know that the answer to that is the second of the two choices. I shudder to think of what steps the Navy is going to take to deflect criticism of what so far appears to be another major--if not greater--disaster program, the Ford carriers.

    Personally, I think the best use of the LCSs would be to give them to the Coast Guard as cutters. Coast Guard needs new cutters, the 40 knot speed is probably an advantage to them, the light armament is not as big a deal, and for the most part they don't out far enough that it would be too big a deal to tow them home of they break down. Maybe swap them for the Legend/Bertholf/NSC class, put a sonar and some ASW weapons on them, and we might end up with something useful.

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  9. I've got 2 observations about this.

    Firstly, perhaps the US navy only plans to add the NSM's when ships are either doing maintenance, or they will be deployed. We know that only a few will be deployed. Indy class is in the Pacific, while Freedom Class is doing Coast Guard duty. So if only 5 LCS go overseas, they'll only load them onto those vessels.

    And the cost- nearly $2 bn per missile? Sure, it's advanced, but the warhead is small compared to most other ASM's.

    Andrew

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    1. $2 million a missle. (expensive way to kill patrol boats pirates LOL)

      The rest of you post I think is right. They will add them as hoc to any Indy's going Pacific AO's.

      It is definitely as hoc solely to deflect criticism of the LCM for having little armaments. Its placement is horrible , 8 fueled/bombs right in front of the Bridge , with no apparent way to fight a deck fire in that area. The block launchers themselves add to the RAdar signature and there looks to be no way for the crew to reload them if they had reloads to begin with.

      Still a hunk of garbage , now more vulnerable with a few tons of rockets piled on the foredeck.

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    2. "So if only 5 LCS go overseas, they'll only load them onto those vessels."

      Then we haven't built a WARship and we aren't preparing for war, are we?

      We have 30+ LCS which the Navy counts as part of the BATTLE fleet. If 30+ ships of the battle fleet can't really fight in a war then we have a severe deficiency.

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    3. "The block launchers themselves add to the RAdar signature"

      An excellent observation. The rectangular cannisters and right angled support lattice are exactly the kind of structures that enhance radar returns.

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    4. "8 fueled/bombs right in front of the Bridge , with no apparent way to fight a deck fire in that area."

      That's not a problem for the LCS since it was never designed for damage control. As hard as it is to believe, the Navy's design philosophy was to abandon the ship at the first significant hit.

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    5. We got the LCS (Littoral Cruise Ship, Little Crappy Ship) but what we need is a Literal Combat Ship.

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    6. Got to agree placement seems odd. The harpoon was bolted on in the back were it looked to pretty far from critical systems.

      I never thought the NSM was going to be cheap. However I do like it for the compact size and potential bolt on factor and or used from lots of platforms. But like every other munition the amount purchased is beyond low. If the navy wants to deter anyone they need stockpiles of missiles and sundry other stuff. A few dozen missiles on the LCS does distributed lethality make, 2000 or 4000+ with launches or sub demonstrations says we will set shop at edge the of island chains and just keep shooting day after day.... NSM and comparatively cheap tomahawks. Also would would 4 look better on an OP cutter you know ships the look like they are planed to spend a lot time in the pacific. quick math says if we had not a single LCS we could have buy well over 7000 NSM missiles. I would rather have latter and ditch the former.

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    7. Addendum. Does anyone make and use large amounts of training ammo? How often do sailors on a Burke for example get to prep every weapon maneuver at speed and fire off complete defensive and offense salvos and try to correctly identify some set of target drones and decoys while somebody randomly gets set of a fire drill or system failure. One would think blank missiles might be a little less expensive. But at the purchase level, for the NSM nobody is ever going to shoot one in training as far as I can tell.

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    8. "Got to agree placement seems odd."

      One of the problems with modern stealth ships is that the superstructures have spread out to the deck edges. This eliminates a LOT of horizontal deck space which greatly limits how much, and where, deck equipment, sensors, and weapons can go. Take a close look at the LCS' available deck space. Where else could you put those missiles? There aren't many options other encroaching on the flight deck.

      For comparison, look at the deck space on any WWII surface warship. They had immense amounts of deck space and, therefore, carried immense numbers of weapons.

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    9. "There aren't many options other encroaching on the flight deck."

      Outfitted as a surface combatant why does it need a flight deck or space for helicopters?

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    10. The basis of the Navy's distributed lethality concept is that the ship uses its own helo/uav for targeting. Without that, the 100 mile missile is useless and pointless.

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    11. I'm not sure I see much value in the DL as implemented. But anyway the NSM is still less expensive than say the SIM-6 so it would have value in being on most navy ships where they once Harpoons. But purchase volume is kinda pointless. If DL works you need to have the ready stocks to really have on the whole fleet not just some ships you can't deploy.

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  10. In May 2018, USNI reported that the Navy awarded Raytheon a $14.8 million contract for the first round of Naval Strike Missiles. According to USNI, "The value could grow to $847.6 million if all contract options are exercised."

    In that article, there was a description of the work that reads, "Work will be performed in Kongsberg, Norway (75 percent); Tucson, Arizona (15 percent); Schrobenhausen, Germany (4 percent); Raufoss, Norway (3 percent); McKinney, Texas (2 percent); and Louisville, Kentucky (1 percent), and is expected to be completed by May 2020."

    Given that three-quarters of the work is done by Kongsberg in Norway, that might explain why the annual production rates are so low. The NSM isn't in large scale production. And, Kongsberg already delivered the Norwegian Navy their missiles (about 50) and are building a second batch of about 3 dozen more missiles for Poland.

    Given that Boeing (Harpoon) and Lockheed (LRASM) pulled their missiles out of the competition, Raytheon and Kongsberg were the Navy's only choice. Besides, LSRAM is heavier so fewer rounds could be carried.

    However the Navy plans decides to deploy the NSM, whether it outfits only part of the LCS fleet or rotates missiles between ships, the Navy needs to find a way to double or triple production rates.

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    1. 50 missiles? So Norway is not really planning to fight a war right just scare fishing boats or something?

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    2. Is anybody in Europe ready for a real war?

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    3. Maybe Poland and possibly Sweden actually toss in France. I guess you need to add the UK technically a nuclear power but given the screw up that is Brexit I am not sure I think they could run a war.

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    4. "Maybe Poland and possibly Sweden actually toss in France. I guess you need to add the UK …"

      These are the people who ran out of munitions in a week, or whatever, in Libya a while back. Not exactly ready for war!

      Let's be honest, no country in the West is ready for war. China and Russia seem to be far more prepared than we are - not necessarily more capable, but more prepared.

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    5. Completely off topic,yes, but the thought of who is ready or not for war! West has a bunch of high tech stuff but generally can we last long? Libya and the strikes in Syria showed still how limited EU countries like UK and FR are generally...Entire domains have been abandoned or very rusty at best (MCM and ASW come to mind..) China and Russia have some advantages for sure BUT they also might have some problems facing West, it's really two different concepts of war. West vs East, maybe China trying to have a compromise between the two different ways of waging war....interesting thought....are we closer to 1913 or 1938? Depends to of the country: France in 1913 was highly motivated and ready to at it, 1938/1939 they were defeated really before even before a shot was fired....

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    6. I'm not so sure on Russia or China. They get the benefit of more opaque system. Russia looked good doing some fairly well scripted plays in Ukraine (and less well in Georgia), but everyone seems to forget how useless and costly its CV deployment was for example.

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    7. Chinese missile stocks aren't as impressive as some might think.
      They have a lot of short and medium range cruise missiles, but most are specifically targeted at Taiwan on pre-arranged targets.
      They would use up the majority of their stockpile pretty quickly in a fight with Taiwan. They have the capacity to produce a lot of replacements fairly quickly though.

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  11. So what are the advantages to this missle vs an antiship Tomahawk variant...???? Seems the Tomahawk does everything better (range, payload capacity etc), except for the evasion of defenses...

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    1. Again as in the LRASM weight is a big factor when it it comes to LCS range has been discussed its still limited to sensors so a 100 mile range is quite adequate especially around the Pacific islands it still doesn't tske away from the fact that LCS is a complete and utter failure right along woth F35 and the Zummies

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    2. @Jjabatie: it's more accurate to compare NSM to Harpoon. But as D M Lewis said, weight is the main thing: You can fit NSM into a smaller space footprint and weight allowance vs Tomahawk, which requires VLS because the Armored Box Launchers don't exist anymore.

      Apart from the LO shaping assisting in evading point defenses, NSM also has an advantage over Tomahawk in terminal phase, since it has multiple seeker types vs TASM's radar seeker.

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    3. BAE will build you an adaptable deck launcher if you want one. Fires anything a Mk-41 VLS can fire. It is a fixed launcher unlike the Mk-143 box launchers.

      https://www.baesystems.com/en-us/product/adaptable-deck-launcher

      https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-adaptable-deck-launchers-could-turn-almost-any-ship-missile-firing-warship-74171

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  12. Sad to see a whole class of ships, with two variants...and the first remote vestige of "teeth" the ships get are bolt-on boxes that are clearly afterthought...

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    1. No No No No.

      They're modules. Modules that mimic a radar reflector on the foredeck under the bridge. What could possibly go wrong?

      The entire concept was based on modules and finally we got us some modules.

      Be thankful for small mercies......

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  13. Does anyone know if there are sea state limitations on firing the NSM off the LCS? Is CG relevant? Can the LCS only fire one or do they need to fire both sides? Expensive to hit a "fishing trawler" if we need to fire two.

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    1. Metacenter is always relevant.

      I say that as a veteran of semi-submersible drilling rigs in the North Sea where the trade-off was ballasting the mass 60' up in the air to avoid getting slapped by really big waves vs. getting pounded to crap down low where we were much more stable with dramatically reduced risk of capsize.

      All bad choices, but choices none the less.

      You would have to get the specific numbers to determine how much effect a substantial mass like the NSM launcher mounted that high is really going to effect seaworthiness in a severe sea state.

      It won't be good, the question as you raise is just how bad are we talking?

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    2. "Is CG relevant?"
      " a substantial mass like the NSM launcher"

      The NSM missile, itself, is listed on Wiki as weighing 900 lb. The LCS was designed to accommodate 200 ton module weights, if I recall correctly. Further, they were designed to handle the movement of 15,000 lb module containers. So, it would seem that 900 lb (one missile firing from one side) is not a problem.

      Interestingly, the first module swap test on a Freedom class showed that off-center movement of module cannisters caused out of spec lists, indicating a stability problem. Still, 900 lb versus 15,000 or more is not a problem.

      The entire stability issue likely contributed to the Navy's decision to abandon the module swap concept. It also leaves me wondering how sensitive the ship is to a helo landing or being moved off-centerline given the weight of a helo.

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  14. We could purchase 3 Russian Buyan class corvettes fully loaded with Kalibr or P-800 Oniks missiles for the cost of a LCS without missiles. ($70 million for the boat and $10 million for the missile load plus reloads)
    I have begun to wonder if we should become Russia's largest weapons buyer. A war with China will require attritable weapons systems and the capability versus cost is very high in many of the Russian weapons systems.

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    1. "I have begun to wonder if we should become Russia's largest weapons buyer."

      An interesting thought, indeed, and one that has more potential positive aspects than one might suspect at first thought.

      The problem I have with anything Russian is that they so routinely lie, exaggerate, and obfuscate that I can't be sure about any claimed costs or capabilities. Still, it might be an avenue worth pursuing!

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    2. I'd go a little bigger than the Buyan in order to make room for sonar and ASW weapons. That way, it could be ComNavOps's ASW corvette.

      Even the smaller Swedish Visby has hull-mounted, VDS, and towed array sonars, and was built with torpedoes and for but not with ASW rocket launchers. Of course, Visby is a lot more expensive than Buyan, although a lot of that may be Swedish versus Russian labor costs. But I don't think it's a bad model. It certainly packs a lot of punch for its size.

      I do think the Russians have a good idea--quantity has a quality of its own. We need some cheap, small, low-end stuff for the littorals--if we want to go there--maybe something in the 1,500-2,000 ton range. We don't need some 400 foot long, 3-4,000 ton monstrosity called an LCS armed with a popgun. I'd say swap then to the USCG for some Bertholf NSCs, and fit them with sonar and an ASW weapons suite.

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    3. "The problem I have with anything Boeing is that they so routinely lie, exaggerate, and obfuscate that I can't be sure about any claimed costs or capabilities."

      Didn't you mean Boeing not Russia ? ;-)

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    4. I picked the Buyan-M for comparison with the LCS just for the weapons load and the littoral operation environment. Not my ideal ship either, but I wanted to illustrate what the US Navy is up against. Small, cheap and with enough firepower to be effective pawns if you are willing to sacrifice them. That said, I think we need more ships for a war of attrition or at least a few ships and the industrial capacity to build more. You go to war with what you have, so I favor having the ships. At $100 million a pop you could have 225 corvettes for the cost of three Zumwalt destroyers that cannot use their guns. $100 million can buy a ship that is very good at one thing.

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  15. It could be that they are only planning on arming the ASuW ships at this stage.

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