Defense Acquisitions: Overcoming Challenges Key to Capitalizing on Mine Countermeasures Capabilities
Abstract
The Navy has made progress developing individual mine countermeasures systems and the Littoral Combat Ship. The Navy has authorized production for 5 of the 19 systems it is developing, 3 of which it expects to be ready for fleet use by the end of 2007. Several of these new systems have shown promising performance in recent testing. However, significant challenges remain to fielding these new capabilities. " Operational testing for four systems in limited production all planned to deploy from the Littoral Combat Ship will not provide a complete understanding of how the systems will perform when they are operated from the ship. Ships other than the Littoral Combat Ship will be used in this testing and will serve as the basis for making full-rate production decisions on the individual systems. While other ships may be capable of serving as platforms for the mine countermeasures systems, the Littoral Combat Ship is their primary platform, and it will have different launch and recovery systems from the other ships. In addition, Navy plans call for testing of these systems in smooth, uncluttered sea environments, which represent favorable conditions for conducting mine countermeasures, while the Navy expects undersea operating environments to be more rocky and cluttered. " The first two Littoral Combat Ship sea frames have encountered design and production challenges, resulting in significant cost growth. The Navy expects the ships to exceed their initial budgets by over 100 percent and anticipates lead ship delivery will occur nearly 18 months later than initially planned. These issues may slow the Navy's planned transition from current mine countermeasures platforms to the Littoral Combat Ship. " The Navy has reduced its investments in intelligence preparation capabilities including the capability to locate and map minefield boundaries even though improvements in this area could reduce mine countermeasures mission timelines by 30 to 75 percent.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA474036
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office