Evaluation of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) for Open-Ocean Antisubmarine Warfare - History of ASW, Threats, North Korea, China, Russia, Noise Control, Range and Endurance, Data Link, Improvements

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. This report evaluates the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and its potential to fulfill the open-ocean anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission. It is unknown whether the LCS platform can support open-ocean ASW. This report examines which LCS variant, Freedom or Independence, is more suitable for open-ocean ASW. Initial analysis defines the open-ocean ASW problem space in terms of a threat analysis, mission analysis, current Concept of Operations (CONOPS), and current LCS capabilities. An Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) uses derived functional and operational requirements within a Pugh matrix to decide which variant best performs ASW, and what modifications can improve future designs of the LCS. The analysis shows the Freedom class has marginal advantages in performing open-ocean ASW mission tasks, and establishes three areas for improvement: self-noise emissions, weight, and communication. Potential solutions are explored to address these shortfalls and to analyze their impact on LCS's ability to meet core requirements of the open-ocean ASW mission. This paper concludes that the LCS is capable of fulfilling the open-ocean ASW mission if improvements are made to the design and CONOPS.

CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION * A. BACKGROUND * B. PROBLEM STATEMENT * C. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE * D. SYSTEMS ENGINEERING PROCESS * CHAPTER II - PROBLEM SPACE EXPLORATION * A. HISTORY OF ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE * B. THREAT ANALYSIS * 1. North Korea * 2. People's Republic of China * 3. Russia * C. MISSION ANALYSIS * 1. Open Ocean vs. Littoral ASW * 2. Open-Ocean ASW Mission * 3. CONOPS of the Current LCS * D. CURRENT SYSTEMS IN LCS ASW MISSION PACKAGE * E. ACOUSTIC MODEL * CHAPTER III - CURRENT CAPABILITY GAPS * A. OWNSHIP NOISE CONTROL CAPABILITY * B. RANGE AND ENDURANCE CAPABILITY * C. DATA LINK CAPABILITY * CHAPTER IV - POTENTIAL LCS IMPROVEMENTS * A. ACOUSTIC CONTROL IMPROVEMENTS * B. POTENTIAL CONOPS IMPROVEMENTS * C. RANGE AND ENDURANCE IMPROVEMENTS * D. DATALINK CAPABILITY IMPROVEMENT * CHAPTER V - ALTERNATIVES ANALYSIS * A. COST COMPARISON BETWEEN LCS AND OTHER PLATFORMS * B. LCS ENDURANCE COST TRADEOFF * C. DATALINK IMPROVEMENT COST * D. LCS VARIANT SELECTION * E. IMPROVED LCS COMPARISON * CHAPTER VI - CONCLUSIONS * A. FINDINGS * 1. Operational Improvements * 2. System Improvements * B. RESPONSE TO RESEARCH QUESTIONS * C. AREAS OF FUTURE STUDY