New kind of warship makes port call in Charleston

The Freedom, the first of a new breed of ship designed to engage pirates and other combatants in shallow coastal waters, opens to the public today at the State Ports Authority's Passenger Terminal.

"It's more than an evolutionary step," the vessel's commanding officer, Cmdr. Michael Doran, said of the ship's design. "It's more of a revolutionary step."

The vessel, a littoral combat ship, serves as a platform for launching and recovering manned and unmanned vehicles. Its modular design allows it to be reconfigured for antisubmarine, anti-mine and anti-surface warfare missions as needed, adapting as the tactical situation demands.

It's designed to deal with what Doran calls "asymmetrical threats," smaller and more agile craft that can poke holes in large ships' defenses.

"They are not traditionally armored or armed," Doran said of the changing nature of enemy threats, "but they use other elements, such as speed, to their advantage."

This ranges from Somali pirates, who have been boarding commercial vessels, to Iranian speedboat drivers, who swarmed Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz in January 2008.

"With this ship, we've kind of turned the tables," Doran said. "We have as much or more speed, but we are also much more seaworthy and much more heavily armed than they are."

To boost speed, designer Lockheed Martin used the same Rolls Royce engines found on the wings of Boeing jets. The ship has a semi-planing monohull, taking its cue from speedboat design so it can ride high in the water. The ship uses water propulsion jets that can displace the equivalent of an Olympic swimming pool's contents every three seconds.

The ship also cuts back on personnel requirements, requiring a core crew of only about 40 to operate it. The Freedom always is manned by one of two crews, blue and gold, similar to the rotational crews assigned to the Trident submarines once home-ported at the former Charleston Naval Base.

Thomas Brown, a retired Navy captain, met Doran as the Freedom docked in Charleston.

"They've done a lot to automate this ship, and they've done a lot to make it efficient," Brown said. The ship's engine system and electrical grid, for instance, can be controlled from a pair of touchscreens in a control room.

Retired Vice Adm. Albert Baciocco, who went aboard with Doran to tour the Freedom, had a hand in the ship's design.

"Smaller ships are being driven by cost," Baciocco said. Other design tweaks are intended to improve fuel efficiency.

Although Lockheed Martin refused to comment on the ship's final cost, reported estimates put it at more than $600 million.

"I purposely have never asked that question because, in my mind, that doesn't matter," Doran said of the ship's cost. "The first one you build is always going to cost a little bit more. You want to bring the cost down? Buy more of them. That's just simple economics."