US Navy Names Newest Littoral Combat Ship USS Fort Worth
Secretary of the US Navy Donald C. Winter announced March 6 that the newest Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) will be named USS Fort Worth.
The Littoral Combat Ship is a 21st century ship designed to allow access to shallow coastal waters for missions such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare. It will also be outfitted with reconfigurable payloads that can be changed out quickly to accommodate various missions. The USS Fort Worth will be designated LCS-3 and will be built by Lockheed Martin. It will be 378 feet in length, have a waterline beam of 57 feet, displace approximately 3,000 tons and will make speed in excess of 40 knots.
Based on previous LCS construction timelines, the USS Fort Worth is slated for completion around 2012, according to the Navy. Currently, the USS Freedom (LCS-1) is the only littoral combat ship in service. Another ship, LCS-2, is being built and will be named the USS Independence. The vessels in the Freedom class are named after American mid-sized cities, small towns and communities.
There are two different LCS hull forms -a semi-planing monohull and an aluminum trimaran – designed and built by two industry teams, respectively led by Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. Lockheed Martin’s advanced seaframe is based on technologies introduced by Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri. The ship has a steel hull with aluminum superstructure and will be powered by two gas turbines and two diesel engines driving four large, acoustically optimised waterjets. The vessel will have automated stern doors, stern ramp, side launch doors and overhead crane for the launch and recovery of manned and unmanned vessels.
Both the Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics seaframes will be outfitted with reconfigurable payloads, called mission packages, which can be changed out quickly. Mission packages are supported by special detachments that will deploy manned and unmanned vehicles and sensors.
The numbers of LCS ships has not been finalised but there has been speculation for up to 60 LCS ships, within a total US naval fleet of 375 ships.
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