Thx, but as a LCS has never been deployed in the Persian Gulf since the first ship was commissioned back in 2008 and you wonder why, may be in the future with Longbow fitted USN might feel confident enough that LCS will be more of an asset than a liability to operate in the Gulf, which you would have thought was its natuual habitat.
There was a deployment pause with that class as they reset and primed the pump for future deployments, sorted out the development mess, upgraded ships and got their training up to speed while maturing the mission modules to a particular level (and putting them through adequate testing). The ships have now deployed in support of two theaters. It won't be long before you see them in Bahrain and rotating through there on a more permanent or semi-permanent basis. There are plenty of ships the USN sails through there that do not carry longbow hellfire missiles. In fact not a single one, to the best of knowledge, does.
Hellfire is not a traditional anti-ship missiles, it's use is in the littorals and in support of the C-FAC mission and for it the US Navy has completely the requisite testing and is reasonably satisfied with how it performs. Would they need a 30 nautical mile system? I'm not sure that such a weapon will be cost effective against the threat type especially given they can possibly pull hellfire out of other DOD surplus stocks.
Will a 15 nm Spike be better? Possibly but that would entail a completely new mission module and no one probably wants to go down that road given that not all currently funded modules are operational and because there are other pressing upgrade requirements that make more sense. Also, the Navy will be keen to see what propulsion upgrades the JAGM takes over the course of its life so they may get an acceptable range increase in time as that weapon goes through its natural development cycle and fields future variants.
How many light ships or corvettes in the region or outside carry something like the Helfire mission module? As an additional layer, these ships come equipped with a rotary winged component that can launch missiles so when transitioning, you can get an additional layer of protection against the threat type by deploying it. That gives you more sensor and weapon range. The entire LCS fleet will eventually carry 8 NSM's each and this includes those that are equipped with the surface warfare module so NSM, Alamo, and the Longbow helfire is what they'll eventually carry which should suffice for what is to be the smaller of the two SSC fleet ships. At least for the short-medium term as they use up rounds that are available to them.
Non surface warfare module ships will likely get a HEL and will still retain the Alamo, and NSMs. I think that would be fine given that the Navy would be aware of their limitations (they aren't large 7000+ ton frigates or destroyers) and would use them accordingly. I don't think we need to sink $$ into adding yet another surface warfare module on this ship. If anything, future $$ should concentrate on the type of mods that have been proposed, and those that the USN seems to be interested in funding - fleet wide NSM adoption, SEWIP light, High Energy Laser, decoys, and possibly a radar upgrade or replacement down the road to enable it to eventually utilize CEC and accommodate ESSM in the future (though Lockheed is implementing the same capability using existing radars on the Saudi combatants).
Instead of going granular and trying to completely overhaul and replace systems that have been barely fielded, the Navy would be better served by adding new systems that will be critical to future needs and those that will allow these ships to integrate better within the broader SSC architecture (that will most likely have 20 or more FFG(X)) and the broader fleet mix. The Navy seems to be happy with having its FFG(X) and DDG-51 Flight III's that are equipped with zero helfires, Spike or anything equivilant. So I think an LCS with a couple of dozen hellfire missiles would suffice. Especially given that the system works as opposed to something that may be promising on paper but needs to be integrated and then fully tested.
SNA 2020: Lockheed Martin Pitching JAGM For U.S. Navy LCS
www.army.mil
www.navyrecognition.com
