Littoral Combat Ship Buy Could Affect Industrial Base.

• Author: Lee, Connie

* Industry and lawmakers are concerned that plans for the Navy's littoral combat ship may not be able to sustain the shipbuilding industrial base, leaving vendors at a potential disadvantage for future frigate production.

Rear Adm. John Neagley program executive officer for LCS, said at a 2017 House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee hearing that purchasing three ships per year would be the optimal sustaining rate for industry.

"Certainly from a cost efficiency standpoint, leveraging the investments we've already made in those shipyards to produce ships efficiently, three ships a year is the correct number," he said.

However, the service's budget request released this February showed an intention to purchase only one vessel in fiscal year 2019. This would leave one of the two LCS vendors--Austal USA and a Lockheed Martin-Fincantieri Marinette Marine team--without a ship to build, and cool production lines ahead of the upcoming frigate competition. The future fighting frigate is intended to eventually replace the LCS as the primary small surface combatant under production, and is expected to have the ability to counter submarines, airplanes and other surface ships.

Austal USA said in a statement that funding the procurement of one LCS in fiscal year 2019 is "not sufficient to support the shipbuilding industrial base." The company is delivering, on average, four ships a year to the Navy, which includes two littoral combat ships and two expeditionary fast transport vessels.

"Any reduction in volume would negatively impact the shipbuilding industrial base, including our suppliers (local and national), as well as the ability to efficiently transition to frigate," the statement said.

Terry O'Brien, company vice president, highlighted Austal's ongoing littoral combat ship production line as one of the advantages of its future frigate submission, which is a derivative of the current Independence-class LCS.

"The hot production line, that's one of our biggest advantages, we would think," he said. "More change equals more cost, so we're in a position to have less change as we go forward with that."

As of press time, Lockheed Martin had not responded to a request for comment.

Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said companies fear they might need to lay off employees who work on the initial phases of ship construction, such as the hull, because they will have run out of work around...