Tag Archives: USS Crommelin

Navy lets LCS sling a Harpoon, now with Fire Scout!

Posted on by Leave a comment

When envisioned back in the day, the Littoral Combat Ship idea, in its earliest “Streetfighter” concept, was a low-cost swarm of vessels capable of operating in shallow nearshore environments with a small crew and a small footprint. One of the big deals about these was the ability to “own” the area around them with anti-ship missiles. Park an LCS offshore, just over the horizon and away from the local warlord’s optically sighted anti-tank missiles, mortar and tube artillery on the beach, and it could run roughshod on the sea lanes. The thing is, LCS hasn’t had any anti-ship missiles so it couldn’t control anything beyond the under 9-mile reliable engagement distance of its 57mm popgun.

Well, with USS Coronado (LCS-4) at least the Navy has been working to fix that. She deployed last year with a single Harpoon and fired it (semi-successful) during RIMPAC 2016.

Now, it looks as if Coronado made good, hitting a surface target on 22 August with a little help from her embarked MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial system and MH-60S Seahawk helicopter. Also, in the below cleared image, she is carrying a four-pack of Harpoons, whereas last summer she only had one missile.

170822-N-GR361-082 PHILIPPINE SEA (Aug. 22, 2017) A harpoon missile launches from the missile deck of the littoral combat ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) off the coast of Guam. Coronado is on a rotational deployment in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations, patrolling the region’s littorals and working hull-to-hull with partner navies to provide the U.S. 7th Fleet with the flexible capabilities it needs now and in the future. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kaleb R. Staples/Released)

From the Navy’s presser:

“LCS will play an important role in protecting shipping and vital U.S. interests in the maritime crossroads,” said Rear Adm. Don Gabrielson, commander, Task Force 73. “Its ability to pair unmanned vehicles like Fire Scout with Harpoon missiles to strike from the littoral shadows matters – there are over 50,000 islands in the arc from the Philippines to India; those shallow crossroads are vital world interests. Harpoon and Fire Scout showcase one of the growing tool combinations in our modular LCS capability set and this complex shot demonstrates why LCS has Combat as its middle name.”

 

OHPs were tough nuts to crack

Posted on by Leave a comment

During RIMPAC 2016 the Navy and her allies conducted two SINKEXs, both on retired Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates. Stripping the ships of combustibles, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), transformers and large capacitors, trash, floatable materials, mercury or fluorocarbon-containing materials, readily detachable solid PCB items and useful items such as 20mm Phalanx CIWS mounts (though not the Mk 75 76mm guns which the Navy and Coast Guard are retiring) they were sent to the deep after a lot of munitions were poured on them.

The first, ex-USS Thach (FFG-43) withstood a tremendous amount of damage from Harpoon anti-ship missiles launched from Australian P-3 Orions and the cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) before taking torpedo hits from a submarine at periscope depth.

Then, in the below video, the decommissioned ex-USS Crommelin (FFG 37) just gets pounded mercilessly by live fire from ships and planes on 19 July, 60 miles north of Kauai, Hawaii.

It takes a lot to put her down.

It should be noted that two of their sisters, USS Samuel B. Roberts and USS Stark, both withstood terrific damage from a floating sea mine and surface to air missiles respectively in the Persian Gulf during the 1980s.

It’s really happening…

Posted on by 2 comments

When the LCS was first proposed under the Streetfighter concept back in the day, everyone looked at the idea and thought it had at least some merit, especially for sea control with a growing number of surface challenges from in the Persian Gulf and South China Sea. But sea control involves having something bigger than a 57mm popgun and some 25’s to punch a hole in something over-the-horizon.

Well it looked like in the latest RIMPAC exercise, an LCS has finally gotten a Harpoon in the air. Of course it looks like a limited installation (topside weight issues?) such as seen on the Hamilton-class Coast Guard cutters of the 1990s, but it is still a Harpoon.

160719-N-ZZ999-007 USS CORONADO (July 19, 2016) USS Coronado (LCS 4), an Independence-variant littoral combat ship, launches the first over-the-horizon missile engagement using a Harpoon Block 1C missile. Twenty-six nations, 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC from June 30 to Aug. 4, in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2016 is the 25th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michaela Garrison/Released)

160719-N-ZZ999-007 USS CORONADO (July 19, 2016) USS Coronado (LCS 4), an Independence-variant littoral combat ship, launches the first over-the-horizon missile engagement using a Harpoon Block 1C missile. Twenty-six nations, 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC from June 30 to Aug. 4, in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. The world’s largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world’s oceans. RIMPAC 2016 is the 25th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michaela Garrison/Released)

USS Coronado (LCS 4) launches harpoon missile during RIMPAC 2

However, all may not be Harpoon forever.

On Monday Lockheed Martin completed the third of three test shots to prove that their air-launched 500-nm range Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) can be fired from a surface ship on the move, launching from a Mk41 installed on the ex-USS Paul Foster off Point Magu.

In other news, it seems like the target for the SINKEX was the recently retired OHP frigate USS Thach which took a hell of a lot of abuse as did USS Crommelin (FFG 37), who was Coronado‘s (missed) target. Rather a poetic statement come to think of it.

Meanwhile, the latest Independence-class LCS, USS Jackson, was the subject of explosive shock testing so serious that the USGS thought it was a 3.7m earthquake.