Saudi Arabia Is Buying The Littoral Combat Ship The U.S. Navy Desperately Needs
Tyler Rogoway
Filed to: Littoral Combat Ship10/21/15 3:00pm
Saudi Arabia Is Buying The Littoral Combat Ship The U.S. Navy Desperately Needs
It was announced yesterday that Saudi Arabia wants to purchase four extremely up-gunned Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The deal will be worth $11.25 billion including weapons and support. This will also be the first export sale for the troubled LCS program, and these Saudi ships will be far more capable than any version of the LCS the Navy plans on procuring. This fact may present an incredible opportunity for the Navy to get the version of the Littoral Combat Ship they really need, and possibly at an awesome price.
Make sure to read this post for background:
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Saudi Arabia’s highly upgraded variants of the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship will be formally called Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC), with the frigate class designation applied to them. Instead of chasing the mission-module dream like the U.S. Navy has, Saudi Arabia’s LCS will have their capabilities installed permanently, and these capabilities will include area air defense.
Saudi Arabia Is Buying The Littoral Combat Ship The U.S. Navy Desperately Needs
This is a Lockheed rendering of different evolved LCS concepts that were pitched during the Pentagon’s shuffling of the program. The Saudi MMSC is most closely based on the center concept although it is far from an exact match:.
Area air defense capability was controversially omitted from the Pentagon’s “up-gunned” version of the LCS, dubbed the Small Surface Combatant, that will be produced for the Navy for the last 20 ships in the total planned 52 ship LCS fleet. This means the Small Surface Combatant, although better armored and equipped than its LCS progenitor, will still not be able to operate independently in higher threat environments and will be unable to execute missions like shipping convoy escort when there is any sort of aerial threat present. Nor will they be able to pick up the slack from from the Navy’s overtaxed cruiser and destroyer fleets for missions that necessitate even rudimentary anti-air capability.
The Saudi’s Multi-Mission Surface Combatant’s area air defense capability will be provided by a 16 cell Mark 41 vertical launch system (VLS) capable of packing a whopping 64 super-agile RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM). The ESSM can be used against an array of threats, including high-speed cruise missiles and aircraft out to a range of about 30 miles. Even an anti-surface capability exists for the ESSM Block II, which allows it to fly out and strike ships over-the-horizon.
Saudi Arabia Is Buying The Littoral Combat Ship The U.S. Navy Desperately Needs
Surveillance, cuing and guidance will be provided by the capable Airbus/Cassidian TRS-4D Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system along with a Link 16 data link system. The TRS-4D can perform multiple tasks at once, and it is not just limited to aerial warfare. It can be used for surface surveillance and targeting as well as mapping and other functions.
In addition the the ESSM and the TRS-4D, these Saudi LCS derived frigates will also have an independent SeaRAM close-in weapon system loaded with RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles.
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This potent outfit will give the Saudi Arabian Navy a highly capable area air defense capability and their MMSC’s an extremely robust self defense capability. This capability can be used to deny enemies aerial access to roughly 3,000 square miles around the ship. It will also allow these ships to fight alone in much more hostile waters than American LCSs could, and would be ideally suited for shipping and convoy protection duties, as well as acting as a picket ship for smaller corvettes operating in a complex littoral environment.
These ships will also feature an upgraded main gun, tossing away the current LCS’s puny 57mm deck gun for the much more powerful and hugely versatile OTO Melara 76mm gun system. This advanced 76mm gun can be used for anti-air applications as well as anti-surface and ship-to-shore ones. There is a wide array of ammunition available, including shells with variable fusing, guided shells, and even the miniaturized “Volcano” guided rocket round.
The Volcano GPS guided precision munition can travel twice as far as other 76mm rounds, hitting targets with pin-point accuracy up to about 25 miles away. This is an incredibly valuable tool for supporting special forces missions while standing off safely up to two dozen miles from the shoreline. The DART round is another option for this gun and is guided by the gun system via beam riding. It can be used against aircraft and fast attack boats with devastating results, especially when fired in rapid succession.
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