Littoral Combat Ships To Move With Mk70 Vertical Launchers Attached To Their Decks

In the last important step to give the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) offensive capabilities, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced on Wednesday that “many” LCS ships will receive the modular Mk 70 Payload Delivery System, allowing the LCS to load the model. of the great fires which eluded them for so long.

The Mk 70 is a fixed launch system based on the Mk 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS) in use on American and foreign warships. It can accommodate a variety of missiles, including the versatile Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM).

The Mk 70 will give the LCS fleet “a significant firepower and technical advantage over our adversaries,” Del Toro said during the US Naval Institute’s 2024 Defense Forum in Washington, DC.

Once commissioned as an integral part of the Navy’s future fleet, the LCS program’s expensive integrated mission modules were never discontinued, as well as hull crack issues and class-wide navigation problems that plagued it. Independence and Freedom classes, respectively. Such ships also had limited operational functions.

Del Toro’s comments this week show that the Navy is building on what the Mk 70 can do to restore the LCS economy and ultimately prepare the ship for high-end combat, although questions remain about the LCS’ survivability if they are deployed “aggressively,” as Del Toro put it.

“LCS is back, Freedom class and Independence class, and we have every intention of deploying them aggressively everywhere around the world, and the Persian Gulf, obviously, with the ability to sweep mines and wherever it is needed, especially in the Pacific with this technology,” Del Toro said.

USNI News’ Sam Lagrone was the first to report Del Toro’s comments.

TWZ has reached out to the Navy for more information about the timing of the upgrade, and whether LCSs will be involved.

The Mk 70 has already been released on another LCS, with images from USS Nantucket’s (LCS-27) to be launched in November 2024 with the launch in place.

Such a capability would allow the LCS to fire small volumes of several types of missiles, and would be especially important in the Pacific war with China, where advanced warships equipped with the Mk 41 would be most needed. These ships would protect against air and missile threats, and help to charge a stand-off against a large number of naval and coastal targets.

Del Toro’s announcement follows the Navy’s successful launch of the SM-6 missile from a Mk 70 launcher mounted on a ship. Independence class LCS USS Savannah (LCS-28) in October 2023 in the East Pacific Ocean. The SM-6’s strike of the target “demonstrated the modularity and lethality of Littoral Combat Ships and the ability to effectively integrate the weapons system of the vessels into a high-level target,” the Navy said at the time.

Savannah used the Mk 70 Mod 1 Expeditionary Launcher form for testing, TWZ previously mentioned. In addition to the SM-6, the system can fire ground-attack, anti-ship modified and other Tomahawk variants. The Mk 70 launcher is related to the US Army’s ground-based Typhon system, which fires SM-6s and Tomahawks as well.

The Navy also tested the SM-6 from the Mk 70-series launcher in a large unshielded ship. Rangerand has previously shown such versions in a trailer-mounted installation during an exercise in Denmark. Lockheed Martin announced in May 2024 that it had successfully test-fired the Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor from a container equipped with such equipment and used it to bring down a cruise missile.

TWZ previously stated what the Mk 70 would offer after the Navy announced it Savannah’s successful fire-testing:

“The Mk 70 family provides an easy way to increase firepower on a variety of ships with the right design space. These include small surface combatants with helipads like the Independence class LCSs, different amphibious warfareand the truth auxiliary boats, incl commercial products. The launcher offers great flexibility with its ability to fire SM-6s and Tomahawks, and its Mk 41 VLS heritage means that other ammunition options could be incorporated in the future.

The multi-purpose SM-6 can be used against a variety of air and surface targets, with some existing differences although it is capable of carrying out some new hypersonic threats, as well as traditional bombs that are launched in flight stages, TWZ previously mentioned. An enlarged version of the SM-6 is being developed which is expected to provide greater range and hypersonic peak speed.

Installing the Mk 70 launcher with Tomahawk missiles would greatly increase the LCS’s capabilities, allowing the class to strike land and sea targets within a radius of up to 1,000 miles in all directions, which would help target targets in heavily defended Chinese areas. Tomahawks can also hover over a target and have their target change mid-flight.

The Savannah test-fire wasn’t the first time we’d seen such a setup within the LCS. TWZ previously mentioned in a photo taken during the 2022 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) event in Hawaii showed USS Tulsa (LCS-16) is similarly equipped, although the Navy has not announced anything about the loading or not Tulsa shot any holes using the system during the exercise.

Del Toro did not say what sensors would accompany the Mk 70 launch on the LCS. But for the SM-6 and Tomahawk, remote sensor and targeting data from external platforms — including those in the air, at sea, on the ground, and in space — that are connected to the ship may be a viable option considering the limited LCS. sensor suite. This idea of ​​distributing weapons to other ships and locations and delivering fire control and targeting has always been of great interest to the Navy.

But binding on other sensors is also possible. For example, naval observers picked up what appeared to be a trailer-mounted AN/TPQ-53 radar on. Savannah’s the plane’s design when it left San Diego for a test-fire last year.

The radar is mainly designed to detect and track incoming rockets and artillery rounds, and also to identify their starting points so that friendly forces can launch counter-battery strikes, TWZ reported, and also demonstrated the ability to detect and track drones.

TWZ has shown what other features such a radar, also known as Counterfire Target Acquisition Radar, would help, including the ability to improve the Mk 70-boats’ ability to detect and engage targets independently, regardless of the ship’s internal construction. It provides an example of how systems can be bolted to the ship’s deck to help extend its sensing capabilities for a specific mission set.

Del Toro also noted on Wednesday that “most” LCS are now equipped with the Naval Strike Missile (NSM), an anti-ship cruise missile that is very capable, but nowhere near as flexible as the SM-6 or as long-range as it is. Tomahawk. The Navy continues plans to install NSM on all of its LCS ships by Fiscal Year 2032, Internal Defense previously mentioned. Go here to read more about NSM within the LCS.

But while the Mk 70 launcher and NSM give the LCS one ship more firepower, there are tradeoffs, such as TWZ he has said:

“Regarding Navy LCSs, it is important to note that using the rear deck as a place to mount the Mk 70-series launchers and other associated equipment eliminates their ability to launch and recover helicopters. The work has always encouraged the ability of ships to carry MH-60R Sea Hawk helicoptersas well as MQ-8C Fire Scout drone helicoptersas a key to helping ships find and engage targets in extended areas, defend against near-miss threats such as small ships, and simply provide enhanced situational awareness. “

Such a trade-off would be significant for the LCS as its flight design and navigation capabilities are valued and greatly increase the ship’s flexibility and operational independence. Given the capability of only four pumps on the Mk70, at least three systems can be carried, a huge deal. It is possible that Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (RIM-162s) could be packed inside each cell as on the Navy Mark 41 systems.

This gives the LCS 16 holes per launch, but which would be used for self-defense and for medium-range air defense, that is if the sensors of the LCS can support their work. The data-link equipped RIM-162 Block II could be the key to making that happen. That would give the LCS a major boost in air defense capabilities and survivability in high-threat environments.

The Navy currently operates 25 LCS, aand commissioned seven ships from 2021, including some with less than five years of service, a move the Navy created as a way to save money for investing in more promising systems.

Will the Mk 70 help redeem the acquisition boondoggle colloquially referred to by some as the “Little Crappy Ship,” although there are questions about how quickly the system can be deployed and the LCS’s survivability in a full-scale war?

Only time will tell.

Contact the author: geoff@twz.com