By Tony Capaccio

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship could be ineffective at looking for mines as a result of an underwater drone made by Lockheed Martin Corp. that’s supposed to search out them usually fails to work, the Pentagon’s weapons-testing workplace discovered.

While mine-hunting is meant to be the first fight mission of the ship, the drones required to detect underwater explosive gadgets from a protected distance have failed 24 instances since September 2014, in line with Navy take a look at information offered to the Defense Department’s Office of Operational Test & Evaluation.

Most not too long ago, the drones failed 14 instances over 300 hours in a five-month spherical of preliminary trials at sea that ended Aug. 30, in line with the information. Crippled drones had been towed to port seven instances, and the extreme fight testing required for elevated purchases has been delayed. The Navy plans to spend $864 million shopping for 54 drones from Lockheed, the most important U.S. contractor.

Frank Kendall, the below secretary of protection for acquisition, has scheduled a Jan. 19 overview of the drone’s reliability woes, the most recent setback for the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of fight testing, ready a 41-page categorised evaluation dated Nov. 12 for the overview.

An impartial workforce named by the Navy is also reviewing the drone program as a result of the service realizes “reliability performance has not been acceptable,” Captain Thurraya Kent, a spokeswoman for the service, mentioned in an e-mail.

Lockheed’s Response

Lockheed spokesman Joe Dougherty mentioned in an e-mail that the drone “exceeded or met key performance parameters during a Navy- led development test conducted in early 2015.’’ He said the Remote Minehunting System is “the only system on track for delivery that can fill” an “imminent capability gap.”

Equipped with a cell sonar made by Raytheon Co., the drone is meant to supply the ship with a system that may spot underwater explosive gadgets with out crusing close to them, as present Avenger-class mine-hunting ships should do.

“We remain confident the RMS is the most mature system to identify and destroy mines,” Dougherty mentioned. A Lockheed brochure posted on-line and dated 2014 says the drone “meets or exceeds all key performance parameters and is available today.”

Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, mentioned in an e-mail Tuesday that the brand new report “only furthers my concerns about the testing and reliability performance of the Littoral Combat Ship’s troubled mine countermeasures capability. ”

The Arizona Republican mentioned choices over the subsequent few months will set the course for U.S. maritime anti-mine capabilities for many years so“there should be no rush to failure.”

Previous Questions

The drone failures add to earlier questions on how a lot worth the U.S. will get from what’s now presupposed to be a $23 billion program to construct 32 Littoral Combat Ships in two variations made by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed and Austal Ltd. primarily based in Henderson, Australia. Both variations rely on the drones to detect mines from a protected distance.

In 2014 then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel truncated the unique plan to purchase 52 Littoral Combat Ships, constructed to function in shallow coastal waters, citing reservations concerning the vessel’s effectiveness in fight and vulnerability to assault. Later, he permitted a Navy proposal to purchase 20 modified ships after 2019 with improved armor, sensors and weapons.

The Navy spent $109 million shopping for the primary eight drones, spare elements and logistics providers from Lockheed in 2005. The drone was supposed to finish fight testing and be declared prepared for fight by September of this yr. Lockheed stands to realize greater than $700 million in orders for the remaining 46 drones. That consists of as a lot as $400 million in February for the subsequent order of 18 that Kendall will overview.

Gilmore, the testing chief, discovered there’s “sufficient information available, based on testing to date, to conclude” the Littoral Combat Ship “would not be operationally effective” or maintainable if deployed in fight with the present mine- sweeping modules, Marine Corps Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, Gilmore’s spokesman, mentioned in an e-mail describing the research’s unclassified conclusions.

The system’s “reliability remains far below what is needed to support” the mine-hunting mission, Rankine-Galloway mentioned. It’s unclear whether or not the drone “will ever achieve its reliability goals” of working 75 hours between main failures, “but given the history of the program, it may require more design changes than the Navy has been considering,” Rankine- Galloway mentioned.

The Navy’s program thus far “has not substantially grown the reliability,” he mentioned. The conclusion was primarily based on information exhibiting not solely that essential mine-hunting techniques had been unreliable but in addition that the drone was weak to mines and possessed restricted communications functionality.

Airborne System

Further, the Littoral Combat Ship’s separate, airborne- primarily based AN/ASQ-235 mine neutralization system presently can’t disable “most of the mines contained in the Navy’s own real- world threat scenarios,” Rankine-Galloway mentioned. The system, which might be deployed on MH-60S helicopters, is meant to destroy the mines discovered by the drones.

Kent, the Navy spokeswoman, mentioned the mine-hunting system “has demonstrated the ability to meet operational requirements.” Still, “reliability performance has not been acceptable during the most recent” analysis.

Since September 2014, the drone has skilled 24 “operational mission failures” blamed on poor workmanship, design deficiencies, put on and tear or coaching procedures, Kendall was instructed Nov. 3 in a memo from David C. Brown, his deputy for improvement testing.

“Considering the focused effort put into improving” the drone’s reliability since 2010, the most recent poor efficiency “puts into question whether the current” design “will ever meet the Navy’s reliability requirement,” Brown wrote.

©2015 Bloomberg News

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