Littoral Combat Ships' Survivability Questioned Again

Less than a month after U.S. Navy leaders announced modified versions of both variants of the Littoral Combat Ship would be the Navy’s pick for its for a more lethal and survivable small surface combatant, one of the chief LCS critics said the upgrades would do little to improve the survivability of the class.

Chief Pentagon weapon tester Michael Gilmore still remains fundamentally dissatisfied with the survivability of the Navy’s littoral combatant ship (LCS) and its upgraded follow-on, the small surface combatant (SSC).

“Notwithstanding reductions to its susceptibility” compared with the design of the first 32 ships, he told Bloomberg on Jan. 8.
“The minor modifications to the LCS will not yield a ship that is significantly more survivable.”

It remains to be seen, however, how the Navy can improve the other legs of the “survivability triangle” of a hull displacing 3,000 tons and is less than 425 feet in length.

Small ships have been historically unsurvivable. Modern small warships are not in any way the equivalent of the World War II predecessors. Every warship is a compromise in armament, endurance, speed and survivability. This is especially true of the LCS, as its modular operational profile demands absolute adherence to weight limitations.

Small warships are historically unsurvivable in combat. They have a shorter floodable length, reduced reserve buoyancy and more likely to be affected by fire and smoke damage than larger combatants. In both World Wars, losses in ships below 3000 tons in displacement far exceeded those of larger vessels.

In World War II, for example, the U.S. lost a total of 71 destroyers and 11 destroyer escorts — all under 3400 tons displacement and less than 400 feet in length.

By comparison, only 23 larger ships were lost. Part of that figure is undoubtedly due to their operational employment, but in simple terms of engineering and physics, larger ships are inherently more survivable than their smaller counterparts.

link. and again.