LPD 17 Leads to Dramatic Changes In Design, Systems Integration

San Antonio Will Replace Four Classes of Amphibious Ships, Bolster Marines’ Transport

By MARGARET ROTH
Special Correspondent

After delays of about two years and significant cost overruns, the Navy considers the new LPD 17 amphibious transport dock ship to be on schedule now, with the first of 12 ships set for delivery early in the next fiscal year, according to Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) in Washington, D.C.

The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, the first new warship of this century, marks both a dramatically new approach to ship design and a new degree of support for the shipbuilding industry. Both new approaches added time and cost to the LPD 17 program schedule, but will result in future cost savings for the Navy and the shipbuilders.

The Navy developed a three-dimensional computer-assisted modeling process for ship design that “provides tremendous utility in accomplishing design development for future upgrades,” said Navy Capt. Sean Stackley, program manager.

And, in a move to support business at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and General Dynamics, the Navy authorized the two defense giants to swap work at their shipyards.

The shipyard swap “has stabilized the workload at both shipyards, allowing each shipyard’s management to focus on a single Navy product line” — the DDG 51-class destroyer at General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine, and the LPD 17 class at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ Ingalls (Miss.) and Avondale (La.) operations.

The 12-ship LPD 17 program, with an average cost per ship of about $1.2 billion, is fully funded this fiscal year at $15.6 billion, according to NAVSEA. So far, about $3.2 billion has been spent on the first five ships: the San Antonio, to be followed by the New Orleans, Mesa Verde, Green Bay, and New York.

The program also is a test bed for a new approach to systems integration that allowed it to take place from the earliest stages of ship design, even as a computer network was being designed that would allow systems to be tested from various locations simultaneously, rather than requiring one system manufacturer to travel to another manufacturer’s site.

The LPD 17 San Antonio, christened July 19 in New Orleans, is due to be delivered around November and commissioned early next year. The Marine Corps expects its first deployment aboard the ship to take place in 2006.

“It helps us close the gap” in lift requirements, said Maj. Gerry J. Griffin, action officer for the LPD 17 in the Expeditionary Policies Branch, “and gives us another platform that we can operate our new and upcoming aircraft, the MV-22 Osprey, from.” In addition, “it gives us a better environment for the Marine to live on.”

“It would have been nice if it cost half as much,” said Col. James R. Trahan, head of the Expeditionary Policies Branch under the deputy commandant for plans, policies, and operations at Marine Corps headquarters. But at this point, he said, “we’re satisfied with the product.”

The new ship, which will replace the 30-year-old LPD 4 and three other classes of amphibious ship — the LSD 36, LST 1179, and LKA 113 — provides the Navy and Marine Corps with:

· Capacity to transport about 700 Marines, with a surge capacity of 800, plus a variety of amphibious landing vehicles, including the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle and landing craft, air cushion (LCAC), for greater flexibility to respond to a variety of missions.

· A flight deck with enough space for two MV-22 Ospreys, two CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, or four CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters at a time — plus room for two LCACs or one utility landing craft in the well deck and 14 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles.

· Advanced defensive weapon systems: two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, fore and aft; two Bushmaster II 30mm close-in guns, fore and aft; and an Advanced Enclosed Mast/Sensor System that allows for a reduced radar signature for the ship.

· State-of-the-art command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance with capacity to expand the ship’s computer network and with plug-in hardware for ease of replacement. The shipboard wide-area network will connect more than 750 points throughout the ship, providing e-mail and Internet access. Each sailor and Marine aboard will be given a personal e-mail account.

With no plans for a flight or block upgrade to the LPD 17, the shipboard network is designed with approximately 50 percent reserve capacity to allow for expansion later, according to NAVSEA.

Similarly, the fiber-optic cable plant, which carries air-blown fiber to key electronics spaces on the ship, also has significant reserve capacity in the conduit through which the air-blown fiber passes. “Both of these design features will allow future upgrades to be installed with far less cable pulling than a traditional installation,” Stackley said. “The systems engineering effort for LPD 17 … has been extremely successful in land-based testing.”

· Quality-of-life features such as sit-up berths with individual ventilation fans, more storage for personal items, and a medical and dental clinic with two operating rooms and telemedicine hookups. The ship will also have electronic classrooms and a fitness center.

· Efficiencies such as a single galley to serve both messrooms and wardrooms.

“The main thing … is the totality of the integration effort. That’s a real time, energy, and money saver,” said Mike Fuqua, business development manager for Raytheon’s warfare and ship systems integration division in San Diego.

The result is “a system of systems, rather than a series of systems,” he said. Raytheon has been involved in integrating the ship’s many and diverse systems — from the radar to the entertainment system to the shipboard wide-area network — since the design process began, and started developing what is called the Alliance Test Network “before there was even a requirement,” Fuqua said.

It remains to be seen how quickly additional San Antonio-class ships will be built. A contract for the LPD 22, the sixth ship, is to be awarded this year, and the Pentagon leadership has said it will buy the ships through fiscal 2010. (The 12th LPD would be delivered in 2014.)

But Congress went against the Bush administration’s wishes when it included money for the program in the fiscal 2004 budget rather than allowing a gap in production.

In the meantime, the Marine Corps is looking ahead to the LHA(R) replacement amphibious assault ship to provide even greater flexibility in force projection than the LPD 17 provides. The LPD 17 “modernizes [and] consolidates part of the lift solution,” Trahan said.

“As the sea-base concept evolves,” he said, “the networks it has, the survivability it has, will be crucial.”