Official: Minehunting System Shows No Improvement: Despite years of development, constant effort and numerous official pronouncements of progress, the minehunting system at the heart of a new family of US Navy mine countermeasures gear shows no signs of improvement and poses a significant risk to the planned deployment of the system aboard littoral combat ships (LCS), according to the Pentagon’s top test and evaluation officer.
“Recent developmental testing provides no statistical evidence that the system is demonstrating improved reliability, and instead indicates that reliability plateaued nearly a decade ago,” Michael Gilmore, director of the Office of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), wrote in an Aug. 3 memo to Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall.
A copy of the memo was obtained by Defense News.
“The reliability of existing systems is so poor that it poses a significant risk to both the upcoming operational test of the LCS Independence-variant equipped with the first increment of the Mine Countermeasures (MCM) mission package, and to the Navy’s plan to field and sustain a viable LCS-based minehunting and mine clearance capability prior to fiscal year 2020,” Gilmore wrote.
