Logistical Analysis of the Littoral Combat Ship

The purpose of the Littoral Combat Ship is to provide the Navy with an affordable, small, multi-mission ship capable of independent, interdependent and integrated operations inside the littorals. The Littoral Combat Ship will be designed to replace high-value Naval assets when conducting high-end missions such as littoral Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Mine Warfare (MIW) and Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW) as well as perform low-end missions such as Humanitarian Assistance (HA), Non-combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) and Maritime Intercept Operations (MIO). In order to accomplish these missions and successfully counter the enemy’s littoral denial strategy, the Navy has stated the Littoral Combat Ship must incorporate endurance, speed, payload capacity, sea-keeping, shallow-draft and mission reconfigurability into a small ship design. However, constraints in current ship design technology make this desired combination of design characteristics in small ships difficult to realize at any cost. This thesis (1) analyzes the relationship between speed, endurance, and payload to determine the expected displacement of the Littoral Combat Ship, (2) determines the impact of speed, displacement and significant wave height on Littoral Combat Ship fuel consumption and endurance, and (3) analyzes the implication of findings on Littoral Combat Ship logistics.