U.S. Navy emails and other documents suggest that officials muzzled bad test results for the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) variant, the USS Freedom, at a crucial time in the program’s development, when the service was considering which seaframe to pick for the $30 billion-plus fleet.
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“I am disturbed by the Navy’s selective disclosure about what is going on in this program,” U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said after Aviation Week shared text of the emails with her staff. “If these had been good results, they would’ve hurried to the Hill to ring out the good news. Congress has the responsibility and obligation to be as knowledgeable as possible about the ships we purchase for our military forces. Most importantly, we must know whether these multibillion dollar programs will meet the operational needs and safety requirements for our troops.”
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The documents show Navy officials planning to excise information that reflected badly on the ship, chastising subordinates for using certain negative language and cautioning them against using particular phrases that put the ship in a bad light.
For example, a fall 2010 report on the ship’s calm-water trials stated the “ship is inherently directionally unstable.” The report raised concerns that efforts to fix the instability could hamper overall maneuverability. In a Dec. 15, 2010 email about those calm-water trials Cmdr. James Garner, the Freedom’s commanding officer, told Cmdr. Matt Weber, the ship’s executive officer: “Good brief. Thanks for putting this together. I had a healthy conversation with Dan Brintzinghoffer today and he asked that we not use terms directional instability or the like in any briefings or discussions. The bottom line is concern with respect to the down select, but the definition of the term is also in question. I removed that in the brief but kept the bullets that discuss what we observed.”
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In the wake of recent Aviation Week reports about current corrosion, system failures and design or fabrication issues aboard Freedom, Navy and Lockheed officials have touted the rigorous rounds of testing and operations the ship has undergone thus far.
But the email on Dec. 15, 2010, from Garner to Weber — shortly after Navy officials proposed the dual-buy plan — suggested the smooth-water testing was not as successful as had apparently been believed or reported to higher-ups. After the smooth-water trials, the ship’s rough-water trials were suspended in February 2011 because of hull and deckhouse cracking and rough seas. It has yet to pass those tests.
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Defense analysts familiar with the LCS program say that although the ships were built with research and development (R&D) funding, they were not – until spring of this year – referred to as R&D ships.
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But the cost to the Navy, Rep. Speier says, has been one of credibility, given the timing of the emails apparently meant to bury negative reports about LCS-1. “These emails seem to indicate test results were manipulated to hide the true level of risk in the LCS program,” she says. “This raises disturbing questions about the integrity of the information Congress received, and whether we are being given the information we need to be good custodians of taxpayer dollars. Congress must stop relying upon the Navy and Navsea to reassure us that these problems are being adequately addressed and should instead get an independent assessment of this program and its management.”
Others have questioned the timing of the Navy proposal. “Did the timing of the Navy’s proposal provide Congress with enough time to adequately assess the relative merits of the downselect strategy and the dual-award strategy?” the Congressional Research Service (CRS) asks.
CRS notes that contractors submitted their bids by mid-September of that year and also asks if the Navy could have notified Congress of the proposed dual-award strategy sooner than November 2010, giving Congress more time to seek information on and evaluate the proposal.
