By Tony Capaccio

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship struggled in drills at sea to fend off a swarm of small attacking vessels just like the Iranian boats it might encounter within the Persian Gulf, in line with the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester.

The fast-attack boats have been in the end defeated by the USS Coronado throughout three mock engagements in August and September to check its weapons and concentrating on gear. But in two workout routines an attacker got here too shut, penetrating the vessel’s “keep-out” zone, Pentagon testing director Michael Gilmore mentioned in his annual report on main weapons submitted to congressional protection committees.

While Gilmore didn’t point out Iran as a risk, its Islamic Revolutionary Guards function small boats with crews skilled for swarming assaults within the contested waters of the Persian Gulf. The Coronado’s “inability to defeat this relative modest threat beyond ‘keep-out’ range routinely under test conditions raises questions about its ability to deal with more challenging threats,” Gilmore added.

Lockheed, Austal

The report provides to questions concerning the vulnerability and reliability of the ships, designed in two variations by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd. and meant to function in shallow coastal waters. Defense Secretary Ash Carter final month directed the Navy to truncate to 40 ships what was to be a 52-ship mixture of unique LCS vessels and upgraded fashions that might be higher armed. Twenty-six vessels at the moment are underneath contract in a $23 billion program.

In the train, the crew of the Coronado “expended a large quantity” of 57mm and 30mm ammunition “while contending with repeated network communications faults that disrupted” info flowing to gun methods and weapon elevation flaws that occurred greater than a dozen occasions, disrupting firings, he mentioned. The Coronado, the preliminary Littoral Combat Ship, was constructed by General Dynamics Corp. earlier than Austal grew to become lead contractor for that model of the vessel.

Gilmore additionally cited reliability points with each variations of the ships, from troubles with turbines and air-conditioning models to “cybersecurity deficiencies that significantly degrade operational effectiveness.”

That’s a very significant issue for the Littoral Combat Ship as a result of its capacity to outlive in fight is dependent upon speaking with better-armed vessels and help on shore by a maritime battle community linked by computer systems and sensors.

The calmly manned vessel additionally depends on ship-to-shore and satellite tv for pc communications to assist crews monitor the ship’s situation, carry out repairs and order medical provides. At least 245 capabilities historically carried out aboard a Navy ship might be performed onshore.

The Freedom-class model constructed by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed isn’t “operationally suitable because many of its critical systems supporting ship operations, core mission functions and mission package operations are unreliable,” Gilmore wrote.

Before the Lockheed-built USS Fort Worth departed in November 2014 for a 16-month deployment to Asia, testing failures of subsystems “fundamental to ship operations,” corresponding to mobility and maneuvering, “caused the ship to return to port for repairs or reduced readiness at sea for 42 and 36 days respectively,” Gilmore wote.

Although knowledge collected to this point on the Independence-class model constructed by Henderson, Australia-based Austal is incomplete, lots of its methods “have significant reliability problems,” Gilmore wrote.

In checks at sea, the Coronado’s crew “had difficulty keeping the ship operational as it suffered repeated failures of the ship’s diesel generators, water jets and air conditioning unit,” he mentioned.

©2016 Bloomberg News