Duty aboard Littoral combat ship called 'grueling but manageable'.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.

ABOARD THE USS FREEDOM, SAILING IN THE PACIFIC -- The Navy will soon decide which version of the Littoral Combat Ship it will buy. Selecting the ship model, however, is only the beginning of what could be a long, arduous adjustment for sailors who will be serving aboard these new vessels.

Since it was conceived more than a decade ago, the LCS has survived a convoluted acquisition process and now appears to be on track to join the fleet. But these challenges pale in comparison to what it will take for sailors to make the transition from 200-crew frigates to an LCS that will be run by a crew of just 40.

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"People ask me, 'Is 40 the right number?'" says Cmdr. Kris Doyle, commanding officer of the USS Freedom's Blue Crew. The Freedom is one of two competing designs. Following its maiden deployment earlier this year to South America and the Eastern Pacific, it has been at sea now for several months testing "operational concepts" for how the vessel could be used in the future.

Whether a crew of 40 can do the work of 200 so far is hard to say, Doyle says in an interview during a recent exercise off the Hawaiian island of Oahu. "My job here with the ship is to push everything to its limit, whether it's the teams, my sailors, the processes, to see what works and what doesn't."

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The lean crew demands that sailors perform multiple jobs. Everybody on board pitches in, whether it's washing dining trays or any number of security-related duties. The payoff is that there are more opportunities for upward mobility than is usually the norm.

Designed to sail in close-to-shore waters, the 3,000-ton LCS is technologically unlike anything sailors have experienced before. But it remains to be seen whether advanced technology can make up for actual hands on deck.

"When we started this, we knew we had to learn more than one job. We knew we would have to be multi-talented. But I don't think any of us had any idea how much we were going to have to know and learn and stretch ourselves to be able to get this ship to operate," says Doyle, who has been with the LCS program since 2005. She served as the crew's executive officer through Freedom's build and commissioning process and became commanding officer in March 2009.

The Freedom, made by Lockheed Martin Corp., is a steel monohull. Its competitor is an aluminum catamaran made by General Dynamics Corp. The Navy already has agreed to buy two of each, but the rising cost of the...