Littoral Combat Ship and Frigate: Congress Faced with Critical Acquisition Decisions
Released: 2016-12-01T00:00:00

Letter

The Course of the LCS Program Has Changed Significantly over Time

When first conceived, the LCS program represented an innovative approach for conducting naval operations, matched with a unique acquisition strategy that included two nontraditional shipbuilders and two different ships based on commercial designs—Lockheed Martin’s Freedom variant and Austal USA’s Independence variant, respectively. The Navy planned to experiment with these ships to determine its preferred design variant. However, in relatively short order, this experimentation strategy was abandoned in favor of a more traditional acquisition of over 50 ships. More recently, the Secretary of Defense has questioned the appropriate capability and quantity of the LCS. The purpose of the program has evolved from concept experimentation, to LCS, and more recently, to an LCS that will be upgraded to a frigate. The strategy for contracting and competing for ship construction has also changed. This evolution is captured in figure 1.

While one could argue that a new concept should be expected to evolve over time, the LCS evolution has been complicated by the fact that major commitments have been made to build large numbers of ships before proving their capabilities. Whereas acquisition best practices embrace a “fly before you buy” approach, the Navy has subscribed to a buy before you fly approach for LCS. Consequently, the business imperatives of budgeting, contracting, and ship construction have outweighed the need to demonstrate knowledge, such as technology maturation, design, and testing, resulting in a program that has delivered 8 ships and has 14 more in some stage of the construction process (includes LCS 21, with a planned December 2016 construction start) despite an unclear understanding of the capability the ships will ultimately be able to provide and with notable performance issues discovered among the few ships that have already been delivered.

LCS Business Case Has Eroded as Cost, Schedule, and Performance Expectations Have Not Been Met

The Navy’s vision for the LCS has evolved significantly over time, with questions remaining today about the program’s underlying business case. In its simplest form, a business case requires a balance between the concept selected to satisfy warfighter needs and the resources— technologies, design knowledge, funding, and time—needed to transform the concept into a product, in this case a ship. In a number of reports and assessments since 2005, we have raised concerns about the Navy’s business case for LCS, noting risks related to cost, schedule, and technical problems, as well as the overall capability of the ships. Business case aside, the LCS program deviated from initial expectations, while continuing to commit to ship and mission package purchases.

The LCS acquisition was challenging from the outset. The Navy hoped to deliver large numbers of ships to the fleet quickly at a low cost. In an effort to achieve its goals, the Navy deviated from sound business practices by concurrently designing and constructing the two lead ship variants while still determining the ship’s requirements. The Navy believed it could manage this approach because it considered LCS to be an adaptation of existing commercial ship designs. However, transforming a commercial ship into a capable, survivable warship was an inherently complex undertaking. Elements of the business case further eroded— including initial cost and schedule expectations. Table 1 compares the Navy’s initial expectations of the LCS business case with the present version of the program.

Our recent work has shown that the LCS business case continues to weaken. LCS ships under construction have exceeded contract cost targets, with the government responsible for paying for a portion of the cost growth. This growth has prompted the Navy to request $246 million in additional funding for fiscal years 2015-2017 largely to address cost overruns on 12 LCS seaframes. Similarly, deliveries of almost all LCS under contract (LCS 5-26) have been delayed by several months, and, in some cases, closer to a year or longer. Navy officials recently reported that, despite having had 5 years of LCS construction to help stabilize ship delivery expectations, the program would not deliver four LCS in fiscal year 2016 as planned. Whereas the program expected to deliver all 55 ships in the class by fiscal year 2018, today that expectation has been reduced to 17 ships.

LCS mission packages, in particular, lag behind expectations. The Navy has fallen short of demonstrating that the LCS with its mission packages can meet the minimum level of capability defined at the beginning of the program. As figure 2 shows, 24 LCS seaframes will be delivered by the time all three mission packages achieve a minimum capability.

Since 2007, delivery of the total initial mission package operational capability has been delayed by about 9 years (from 2011 to 2020) and the Navy has lowered the level of performance needed to achieve the initial capability for two packages—surface warfare and mine countermeasures. In addition to mission package failures, the Navy has not met several seaframe objectives, including speed and range. For example, Navy testers estimate that the range of one LCS variant is about half of the minimum level identified at the beginning of the program. As the Navy continues to concurrently deliver seaframes and develop mission packages, it has become clear that the seaframes and mission package technologies were not mature and remain largely unproven. In response, the Navy recently designated the first four LCS as test ships to support an aggressive testing schedule between fiscal years 2017 and 2022. Additional deficiencies discovered during these tests could further delay capability and require expensive changes to the seaframes and mission packages that have already been delivered.

As the cost and schedule side of the business case for LCS has grown, performance and capabilities have declined. Changes in the LCS concept of operations are largely the consequence of less than expected lethality and survivability, which remain mostly unproven 7 years after delivery of the lead ships. LCS was designed with reduced requirements as compared to other surface combatants, and over time the Navy has lowered several survivability and lethality requirements further and removed some design features—making the ships less survivable in their expected threat environments and less lethal than initially planned. This has forced the Navy to redefine how it plans to operate the ships. Our previous work highlighted the changes in the LCS’s expected capability, as shown in table 2.

Further capability changes may be necessary as the Navy continues to test the seaframes and mission packages, as well as gain greater operational experience. For example, the Navy has not yet demonstrated that LCS will achieve its survivability requirements and does not plan to complete survivability assessments until 2018—after more than 24 ships are either in the fleet or under construction. The Navy has identified unknowns related to the Independence variant’s aluminum hull, and conducted underwater explosion testing in 2016 but the Navy has yet to compile and report the results. Both variants also sustained some damage in trials in rough sea conditions, but the Navy has not completed its analytical report of these events. Results from air defense and cybersecurity testing also indicate capability concerns.

Business Case for Frigate Program Remains Uncertain

The Navy elected to pursue a frigate concept based on a minor modified LCS. The frigate, as planned, will provide multi-mission capability that is an improvement over LCS and offers modest improvements to some other capabilities, such as the air search radar. Still, many questions remain to be settled about the frigate’s design, cost, schedule, and capabilities—all while the Navy continues to purchase additional LCS. Despite the uncertainties, the Navy’s acquisition strategy involves effectively demonstrating a commitment to buy all of the planned frigates—12 in total—before establishing realistic cost, schedule, and technical parameters—because the Navy will ask Congress to authorize the contracting approach for the 12 frigates (what the Navy calls a block buy contract) in 2017. Further, the frigate will inherit many of the shortcomings or uncertainties of the LCS, and does not address all the priorities that the Navy had identified for its future frigate.

Frigate Cost Uncertainty and a Compressed Schedule Contribute to Gaps in Program Knowledge

The costs for the frigate are still uncertain. Navy officials have stated that the frigate is expected to cost no more than 20 percent—approximately $100 million—more per ship than the average LCS seaframes. However, the Navy will not establish its cost estimate until May 2017— presumably after the Navy requests authorization from Congress in its fiscal year 2018 budget request for the block buy contracting approach for 12 frigates—raising the likelihood that the budget request will not reflect the most current costs for the program moving forward.

In addition to the continued cost uncertainty, the schedule and approach for the frigate acquisition have undergone substantial changes in the last year, as shown in table 3.

According to frigate program officials, under the current acquisition approach the Navy will award contracts in fiscal year 2017 to each of the current LCS contractors to construct one LCS with a block buy option for 12 additional LCS—not frigates. Then, the Navy plans to obtain proposals from both LCS contractors in late 2017 that would upgrade the block buy option of LCS to frigates using frigate-specific design changes and modifications. The Navy will evaluate the frigate upgrade packages and then exercise the option—now for frigates—on the contract that provides the best value based on tradeoffs between price and technical factors. This downselect will occur in summer 2018. Figure 3 illustrates how the Navy plans to modify the fiscal year 2017 LCS contract to convert the ships in the block buy options to frigates.

The Navy’s current plan, which moves the frigate award forward from fiscal year 2019 to fiscal year 2018, is an acceleration that continues a pattern of committing to buy ships in advance of adequate knowledge. Specifically, the Navy has planned for its downselect award of the frigate to occur before detail design of the ship begins. As we previously reported, awarding a contract before detail design is completed—though common in Navy ship acquisitions—has resulted in increased ship prices. Further, in the absence of a year of frigate detail design, the Navy plans to rely on a contractor-driven design process that is less prescriptive. This approach is similar to that espoused by the original LCS program, whereby the shipyards were given performance specifications and requirements, selecting the design and systems that they determined were best suited to fit their designs in a producible manner. Program officials told us that this new approach should yield efficiencies; however, history from LCS raises concern that this approach for the frigate similarly could lead to the ships having non-standard equipment, with less commonality with the other design and the rest of the Navy.

Frigate Does Not Address All Navy Priorities and Will Likely Carry Forward Some of the Limitations of the LCS Designs

As LCS costs grew and capabilities diluted, the Secretary of Defense directed the Navy to explore alternatives to the LCS to address key deficiencies. In response, the Navy created the Small Surface Combatant Task Force and directed it to consider new and existing frigate design options, including different types of modified LCS designs. The task force concluded that the Navy’s desired capability requirements could not be met without major modifications to an LCS design or utilizing other non- LCS designs. When presented with this conclusion, senior Navy leadership directed the task force to explore what capabilities might be more feasible on a minor modified LCS. This led the task force to develop options with diminished capabilities, such as reduced speed or range, resulting in some capabilities becoming equal to or below expected capabilities of the current LCS. Ultimately, the department chose a frigate concept based on a minor modified LCS in lieu of more capable small surface combatant options because of LCS’s relatively lower cost and quicker ability to field, as well as the ability to upgrade remaining LCS.

Table 4 presents an analysis from our past work, which found that the Navy’s proposed frigate will offer some improvements over LCS. For example, the Navy plans to equip the frigates with the mission systems from both the surface and anti-submarine mission packages simultaneously instead of just one at a time like LCS. However, the Navy’s planned frigate upgrades will not result in significant improvements in survivability areas related to vulnerability—the ability to withstand initial damage effects from threat weapons—or recoverability— the ability of the crew to take emergency action to contain and control damage.

Further, the Navy sacrificed capabilities that were prioritized by fleet operators. For example, fleet operators consistently prioritized a range of 4,000 nautical miles, but the selected frigate concept is as much as 30 percent short of achieving such a range.

The Director, Operational Test and Evaluation has noted that the Navy’s proposed frigate design is not substantially different from LCS and does not add much more redundancy or greater separation of critical equipment or additional compartmentation, making the frigate likely to be less survivable than the Navy’s previous frigate class. Further, the Navy plans to make some similar capability improvements to existing and future LCS, narrowing the difference between LCS and the frigate. We found that the proposed frigate does not add any new offensive anti-submarine or surface warfare capabilities that are not already part of one of the LCS mission packages, so while the frigate will be able to carry what equates to two mission packages at once, the capabilities in each mission area will be the same as LCS. While specific details are classified, there are only a few areas where there are differences in frigate warfighting capability compared to the LCS.

Since it will be based on the LCS designs, the frigate will likely carry forward some of the limitations of the LCS designs. For example, LCS was designed to carry a minimally-sized crew of approximately 50. The Navy has found in various studies that the crew is undersized and made some modest increases in crew size. A frigate design based on LCS may not be able to support a significant increase in crew size due to limited space for berthing and other facilities. Additionally, barring Navy-directed changes to key mechanical systems, the frigate will carry some of the more failure-prone LCS equipment, such as some propulsion equipment, and will likely carry some of the non-fleet-standard, LCS-unique equipment that has challenged the Navy’s support and logistics chain. Uncertainties or needs that remain with the surface and anti-submarine warfare mission packages, such as demonstrating operational performance of the surface-to-surface missile and the anti-submarine warfare package, also pose risk for the frigate.

Limited Opportunities Remain to Shape LCS and Frigate Programs

The Navy’s plans for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 involve significant decisions for the LCS and the frigate programs, including potential future commitments of approximately $14 billion for seaframes and mission packages. First, the Navy plans to buy the last two LCS in fiscal year 2017, even though DOD and the Navy recognize that the LCS does not meet needs. Second, the Navy is planning to seek congressional authorization for a block buy of all planned frigates and funding for the lead frigate as soon as next year—2017—despite significant unknowns about the cost, schedule, and capability of the vessel. The Navy’s acquisition approach for the frigate raises concerns about overcommitting to the future acquisition of ships for which significant cost, schedule, and technical uncertainty remains. Similar to what we previously have advised about LCS block buy contracting, a frigate block buy approach could reduce funding flexibility. For example, the LCS contracts provide that a failure to fully fund the purchase of a ship in a given year would make the contract subject to renegotiation. Following this reasoning, such a failure to fund a ship in a given year could result in the government paying more for remaining ships under the contract, which provides a notable disincentive to take any action that might delay procurement, even when a program is underperforming.

The Navy requested funding for two LCS in its fiscal year 2017 budget request. We previously suggested that Congress consider not funding any requested LCS in fiscal year 2017 because of unresolved concerns with lethality and survivability of the LCS design, the Navy’s ability to make needed improvements, and the lagging construction schedule of the shipyards. As figure 4 depicts, even if no ships were funded in fiscal year 2017, delays that have occurred for previously funded ships have resulted in a construction workload that extends into fiscal year 2020.

In all, 8 ships have been delivered (LCS 1-8) and 14 are in various phases of construction (LCS 9-22), with 3 more (LCS 23, 24, and 26) set to begin construction later in fiscal year 2017. Although the Navy has argued that pausing LCS production would result in loss of production work and start-up delays to the frigate program, the schedule suggests that the shipyards in Marinette, Wisconsin, and Mobile, Alabama, will have sufficient workload remaining from prior LCS contract awards that offsets the need to award additional LCS in fiscal year 2017. The Navy’s concern also does not account for any other work that the shipyards may have from other Navy or commercial contracts and the possibility of continued delays in the delivery of LCS.

On the heels of the decision to fund fiscal year 2017 LCS will be the decision on whether to authorize the frigate contracting approach and fund the lead frigate. As I noted above, the current acquisition plans for the frigate have been accelerated during the past year. If these plans hold, Congress will be asked in a few months to consider authorizing a block buy of 12 frigates and funding the lead frigate when the fiscal year 2018 budget is proposed—before detail design has begun and the scope and cost of the design changes needed to turn an LCS into a frigate are well understood. The frigate acquisition strategy also reflects a proclivity by the Navy to use contracting approaches such as block buys and multiyear procurement for acquisition programs, which may have the cumulative effect of inuring the programs against changes—such as in quantities bought.

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

If you or your staff has any questions about this statement, please contact Paul L. Francis at (202) 512-4841 or francisp@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. GAO staff who made key contributions to this testimony are Michele Mackin (Director), Diana Moldafsky (Assistant Director), Pete Anderson, Jacob Leon Beier, Laurier Fish, Kristine Hassinger, C. James Madar, Sean Merrill, LeAnna Parkey, and Robin Wilson.

Related GAO Products

Littoral Combat Ship: Need to Address Fundamental Weaknesses in LCS and Frigate Acquisition Strategies. GAO-16-356. Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2016.

Littoral Combat Ship: Knowledge of Survivability and Lethality Capabilities Needed Prior to Making Major Funding Decisions. GAO-16-201. Washington, D.C.: December 18, 2015.

Littoral Combat Ship: Additional Testing and Improved Weight Management Needed Prior to Further Investments. GAO-14-827. Washington, D.C.: September 25, 2014.

Littoral Combat Ship: Navy Complied with Regulations in Accepting Two Lead Ships, but Quality Problems Persisted after Delivery. GAO-14-749. Washington, D.C.: July 30, 2014.

Littoral Combat Ship: Deployment of USS Freedom Revealed Risks in Implementing Operational Concepts and Uncertain Costs. GAO-14-447. Washington, D.C.: July 8, 2014.

Navy Shipbuilding: Opportunities Exist to Improve Practices Affecting Quality. GAO-14-122. Washington, D.C.: November 19, 2013.

Navy Shipbuilding: Significant Investments in the Littoral Combat Ship Continue Amid Substantial Unknowns about Capabilities, Use, and Cost. GAO-13-738T. Washington, D.C.: July 25, 2013.

Navy Shipbuilding: Significant Investments in the Littoral Combat Ship Continue Amid Substantial Unknowns about Capabilities, Use, and Cost. GAO-13-530. Washington, D.C.: July 22, 2013.

Defense Acquisitions: Realizing Savings under Different Littoral Combat Ship Acquisition Strategies Depends on Successful Management of Risks. GAO-11-277T. Washington, D.C.: December 14, 2010.

National Defense: Navy’s Proposed Dual Award Acquisition Strategy for the Littoral Combat Ship Program. GAO-11-249R. Washington, D.C.: December 8, 2010.

Defense Acquisitions: Navy’s Ability to Overcome Challenges Facing the Littoral Combat Ship Will Determine Eventual Capabilities. GAO-10-523. Washington, D.C.: August 31, 2010.

Littoral Combat Ship: Actions Needed to Improve Operating Cost Estimates and Mitigate Risks in Implementing New Concepts. GAO-10-257. Washington, D.C.: February 2, 2010.

Best Practices: High Levels of Knowledge at Key Points Differentiate Commercial Shipbuilding from Navy Shipbuilding. GAO-09-322. Washington, D.C.: May 13, 2009.

Defense Acquisitions: Overcoming Challenges Key to Capitalizing on Mine Countermeasures Capabilities. GAO-08-13. Washington, D.C.: October 12, 2007.

Defense Acquisitions: Plans Need to Allow Enough Time to Demonstrate Capability of First Littoral Combat Ships. GAO-05-255. Washington, D.C.: March 1, 2005.

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