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Secretary of the U.S. Navy, Carlos Del Toro announced the Navy\u2019s plans to upgrade weapons of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), which includes equipping them with MK-70 Payload Delivery System as he expressed confidence in the role of LCS in future combat operations. A Chinese military expert has expressed doubts about this development.<\/p>\n
This upgrade will be done on both classes of the LCS which means they will be able to launch bigger missiles such as the SM-6, Del Toro added.<\/p>\n
He also said that presently the LCS has Naval Strike Missile which is a long-range weapon however many will be fitted with the Mk 70 Payload Delivery System which has a vertical launch system.<\/p>\n
The Navy is planning to install the two systems on Freedom and Independence LCS under the Over-the-horizon weapons systems upgrade. This would enhance the ships\u2019 maritime strike capabilities.<\/p>\n
When compared to the NSM that can hit its targets over 100 miles away, the containerised 4-cell MK-41 vertical launch system can support SM-6 and the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile having an intermediate range.<\/p>\n
Del Toro added that the MK-70 Payload Delivery System will give the ships tremendous advantage over their adversaries.<\/p>\n
The first ship chosen for the upgrade is LCS-29 or USS Beloit, which is the new freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship. USS Nantucket or LCS 27 is another Freedom-class LCS which has an MK-70 PDS built by Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n
The decision to upgrade the LCS is part of the earlier efforts to up-gun the lightly armed hulls. Naval Strike Missiles on Independence-class deployed in the Indo-Pacific region drew ire from Chinese experts in the past.<\/p>\n
Del Toro said that the Navy plans to deploy these upgraded ships across the globe, especially in the Persian Gulf, the Pacific and wherever required.<\/p>\n
A Mk 70 PDS on a flight deck of the USS Savannah or LCS-28, of the Independence-class, fired an SM-6 missile in the Eastern Pacific in 2023, during a test overseen by the Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems.<\/p>\n
Lockheed Martin also brought forward concepts to integrate NSM and 3 Mk 70 PDS on the Freedom-class LCS at the 2024 Surface Navy Association.<\/p>\n
The Navy plans to build a fleet of 25 LCS, 15 from the Independence-class with mine countermeasures package that will replace the legacy Avenger-class MCM vessels based in Japan and Bahrain and 10 Freedom-class ships with naval strike missiles and hellfire AGM-114 L Longbow strike missiles and MK-70 launchers.<\/p>\n