On April 25, 2007, MMC experienced a fire on board Freedom during welding work that damaged the Freedom and delayed construction by about two weeks.
Graphic of General Dynamics LCS design concept for LCS-2, USS Independence. Presented by PEO Ships.
LCS-2 frontal view. Presented by gizmag.com
LCS-2, the USS Independence, is being built by General Dynamics's Bath Ironwoks in Mobile, Alabama. She has a completely different design. She uses an aluminum trimaran hull while the Freedom employs a steel semi-planing hull.
The plan has been that two of each design will be made, after which the Navy will decided how many of each to buy. We have seen a planning factor of 55 ships, but have also seen figures as high as 100.
The plan is for Freedom to be commissioned in Milwaukee and to then sail for San Diego. Milwaukee beat out Chicago for the honor of commissioning the Navy's first LCS. It is expected to enter operational trials later this year. A LCS Class Squadron (CLASSRON) has been formed in San Diego to prepare for operating the ship. It is expected the Freedom will have blue and gold crews of about 40 personnel, with an aviation detachment aboard of about 20 with a module changing crew of 15.
We want to show you a few other photos of the Marinette operation. Quite by chance, we ran across something that was even more new to us than the LCS.
This is a pretty good panoramic view of the MMC facilities. Both those large buildings belong to MMC. You can see LCS-1 to the right in the water. We'd like to draw your attention to some "grey things" in front of LCS-1. You can barely make them out here, so let's zoom in.
Our initial inclination was to categorize these vessels as either Landing Craft Mechanized (LCM) or Landing Craft Utility (LCU). But as we looked around in our research, they just didn't fit the LCM-LCU mold. We then discovered that MMC had been placed under contract to the Navy to build something called an "Improved Navy Lighterage System," INLS. Of course, "what's that?" The answer is fascinating.
Basically, a lighterage system is one that facilitates the transfer of cargo. It is worth noting that about 90 percent of our military cargo is transported by sealift assets. A challenge always faced is finding ports which can handle our sealift resources, many of which require deep water ports. New lighterage systems have been designed and are being built to enable transfer at more shallow depths, therefore offering more landing options. MMC has been involved in building INLS systems that operate like a floating dock.
The Naval Facilities Engineering Command has provided some good photography of what these systems look like. It has also provided some nice graphics to explain the concept. As an introductory thought, think transfer, think modular, think shallow waters.
This is a graphic of what is known as a "warping tug." That is what was shown in the photo above that we originally thought was a LCM or LCU. A warping tug is the modular section of the system that tows, anchors and can conduct salvage. It can travel at speeds of 7-10 knots. Here is a schematic.
This single graphic provides a good sense for the overall concept. You can see a large sealift vessel to the right discharging its rolling stock, in this case tanks, to the INLS system's floating barges, all connected, depending on the amount of stock to transfer, and driven by the warping tug. The tug simply backs the barges away, and moves them directly to the shoreline where the stock can be transferred easily to the shore.
Five companies bid, and MMC won as "the best vale to the government."
It turns out that while we were at Marinette, we photographed three pieces of the system in the water without knowing what we were seeing.
You can see the warping tug to the left, a barge in the middle, and an off-loading ramp to the right. Let's zoom in on all three pieces.
This is a nice side view of the warping tug. You can see the aft end of the barge off on the right.
This is the barge in the middle, warping tug to the left, offload-onload ramp to the right. The barge is simply a floating dock that can hold a lot of weight and take a bit of a beating.
This is a good view of the offload-onload section. The red arrow points to the ramp which can go up and down, in the down position resting on the shore or as close as they can get. Note how the section ramps downward, left to right.
We like this view of Warping Tug 05 because it shows the A-frame forward and the water line. We have seen one report that she can operate in water as shallow as 13 ft.
There is much more to learn about Marinette Marine. She is one of the largest shipyards on the Great Lakes. She employs about 800. The company was privately held until bought in 1999 by Manitowoc Corp., also of Wisconsin. Since WWII, the company has built recreational and fishing vessels, towboats, freight ships, passenger vessels, tank ships, patrol craft for foreign navies, berthing barges, oceanographic research vessels, tugs, industrial vessels, freighters, pilot boats, landing craft for the US Army and patrol craft for the US Navy, USN minesweepers, US Coast Guard seagoing and coastal buoy tenders and ice breakers, and barracks barges for the Navy.
Dick Lund is an amateur photographer who operates a wonderful site, "Dick's Great Lake Ships and More." He has many galleries, several of which show all kinds of shots of ships made at Marinette Marine. Furthermore, he has great shots showing the kind of shipping traffic that goes in and out of Marinette. Marinette, Wisconsin, is no nickel-dime port and shipbuilding operation, we can assure you of that. We commend Dick Lund's site to you. You'll spend lots of time there, to be sure.
