USS Gabrielle Giffords in the South China Sea in 2020. (US Navy photo.)
WASHINGTON — The Littoral Combat Ship Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) will be the first in the class to receive a series of upgrades this year focused on improving the ship class’ lethality and survivability, according to the Navy officer overseeing the program.
US Navy Capt. JJ Murawski told attendees last week at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium that the upgrade package, formally called LCS Lethality and Survivability, will initially only be installed onboard Independence-class variants.
The L&S upgrade “really highlights the effort to go from the [contractor-furnished materials] to [government-furnished materials], get away from some of the non-program of record systems that are on those ship classes, make them more reliable, have a more robust sustainment framework so that we can go and keep those ships in operating the next 10 [to] 20 years,” Murawski said.
Murawski said that the second phase of the program will consider installing the package on Freedom-class variants but that funding has not yet been programmed into the future years.
The upgrades include integrating the Naval Strike Missile onto the ship, installing a version of the service’s electronic warfare program dubbed SEWIP Lite and a decoy-launching system called Nulka. The upgrade also includes a new common combat management system.
The Navy’s fiscal 2025 budget justification documents state the service will upgrade ships in the order they are scheduled for regular maintenance, meaning that Manchester (LCS-14) and Charleston (LCS-18) should also receive the upgrades in FY25.
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor working with the Navy to install the capabilities onboard the Littoral Combat Ships. While not formally listed as part of the L&S program in the service’s budget documents, some LCS have recently been spotted with the company’s Mk 70 Payload Delivery Systems, a vertical launching system that allows the ship to expands the portfolio of missiles the ship can employ.
