Analysis: Navy mum on multiple LCS system issue

One of the drawbacks of the Navy’s push to continue to build both littoral combat ship types is that each features a unique combat system — the combination of sensors, weapons and software that is at the heart of any modern warship.

To speed development, each design team was allowed to develop its own system. Lockheed came up with COMBATSS-21, in some ways a lightweight derivative of the Aegis combat system built by the company and fielded on nearly 80 cruisers and destroyers.

General Dynamics’ Advanced Information Systems developed an entirely new system for its design, a system the company claims more closely embodies the open-architecture concept espoused by the Navy for virtually all its new computer systems.

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