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	Director, Operational Test & Evaluation
FY97 Annual Report

LPD 17 CLASS AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORT DOCK SHIP

	Navy ACAT ID Program 12 ships Total program cost (TY$) $10700M Average unit cost (TY$) $745M Full-rate production 3QFY07 Prime Contractor Avondale Industries, New Orleans, LA

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION & CONTRIBUTION TO JOINT VISION 2010

The LPD 17 will be a modern, diesel-powered amphibious assault ship capable of transit through the Panama Canal. It will transport and deploy the combat and support elements of Marine Expeditionary Brigades as a key component of amphibious task forces. LPD 17 will be capable of transporting and debarking forces by surface assault craft, including assault amphibious vehicles (AAVs or AAAVs) and landing craft air cushion (LCAC) vehicles, as well as helicopters and the tilt-rotor V-22 OSPREY, contributing to dominant maneuver, precision engagement, and focused logistics. Side ports will enable the embarkation and debarkation of troops and rolling equipment, and a floodable well deck will permit operation of LCACs and AAV/AAAV craft. Storage and offload capabilities will be incorporated for all classes of supplies, including fuel, ammunition, and food for amphibious forces ashore. Ship spaces will be configured for amphibious craft logistic support and limited aviation maintenance and refuel/rearm servicing on the flight deck.

Self-defense capabilities of the LPD 17 will include a cooperative engagement capability with other task force vessels, plus own-ship self defense against sea-skimming antiship cruise missiles. Command, control, communications, computer and intelligence (C⁴I) systems will be interoperable with other service systems through a modern Ship-Wide Area Network (SWAN).

LPD 17 is being designed to replace several classes of aging amphibious ships, including the LKA, LPD 4, LSD 36, and LST 1179. With minor exceptions, the LPD 17 will be required to perform most of the functions of the four classes it will replace.

As the first major ship design program initiated under the revised DoD acquisition regulations, LPD 17 completed a Milestone II review in June 1996. DOT&E approved the TEMP in May 1996.

No OT&E was conducted during the past year. A TEMP update to describe next year's EOA activity is being developed.

The LPD 17 LFT&E program consists of a combination of surrogate tests, component and system tests, a Shock Trial, a Total Ship Survivability Trial, and analyses and modeling. Results of these tests and analyses are being reported periodically, at the end of the various stages of ship design and construction, in a series of Vulnerability Assessment Reports (VARs). The LPD 17 program office submitted its Milestone II VAR to DOT&E in April 1997.

At this stage of the LPD 17 contract design phase, no insurmountable obstacles are apparent in the technology of the ship. The challenge will come in total system integration to produce a ship that will maximize the combat effectiveness of the crew and embarked Marines.

In the first EOA, the LPD 17 design had been found to be potentially operationally effective and suitable. Risks were identified associated with integrating ship combat systems and command, control, and communications equipment. In the second EOA, the design remained potentially effective and suitable after an assessment of design features viewed as a risk in OT-IA.

The second EOA consisted of a more focused analysis of the results of developmental tests (DTs), a review of LPD 17 design drawings, program documentation and tradeoff studies, and a review of DT and OT reports regarding systems for installation in LPD 17. The consensus of the assessment team was that the LPD 17 will provide a significant increase in capability in amphibious mission performance, combat systems performance and C4I over the ships it is replacing in the Fleet. Areas of risk identified during the EOA will receive increased attention during the detail design phase.

COMOPTEVFOR assembled an impressive team of experienced Marine and Navy fleet operators to examine all LPD-17 mission areas and used early ship plans and CAD/CAM models to assess the feasibility of expected operations. This EOA provided an excellent evaluation of the expected capabilities of the LPD-17, identified about 70 potential problems to be addressed in the ship detail design phase and recommended several items for review by the users. The cost of this effort was minimal. The operational test agency and the program office will continue to work together to ensure that operational insights continuously guide the program. This is an excellent example of early involvement by operational testers (a theme of Secretary Perry's) and of "continuous insight" (a theme of Under Secretary Kaminski's). The aggressive scope of the EOA provided considerable benefit from exposing the ship detail design process to the experience and opinions of actual operational personnel who understood the requirements and constraints of amphibious warfare.

The LPD 17 LFT&E program is proceeding satisfactorily. The EX-USS RALEIGH (LPD 17) surrogate test demonstrated that the Navy's predictive methods were adequate for estimating the onset of plastic deformation of the hull girder under UNDEX loading. The AIREX surrogate tests produced results at only one angle of obliquity, requiring that data from tests with other warheads be used to develop a secondary spall model. The damage scenario-based engineering analyses performed as a part of the Milestone II VAR have proved very useful demonstrating the ability to withstand damage from the selected threat weapons and in uncovering vulnerability-related design weaknesses in a timely fashion.

Open involvement of the users, developers, and testers as early as possible in the design of a system can produce many improvements in the design with minimal cost and schedule impact.