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of those ships doing an exercise in South so forth. We need our best and brightest

Asia, perhaps with the Indian Navy or looking at this because the technology

Bangladesh Navy. We would probably has a ways to go before we’re as good in have one of the ships here in Singapore the littoral environment as we are in the for maintenance. Additionally, with air and space and other places.” four ships rotationally deployed to this OPTECH East was presented by the region, I think the math works out that Naval Postgraduate School’s Littoral we’ll have a crew swap happening here Operation Center, along with the Of? ce in Singapore every month. Then per- of Naval Research Global and the Japa- haps there would be a third LCS in the nese Maritime Self-Defense Force and

South China Sea doing a routine patrol, the Swedish company Saab Electronic like the one Fort Worth just completed, Defense Systems. and perhaps a fourth LCS in Northeast “We’re learning as we get these new

Asia working with either the Japanese platforms out to sea. We’re learning

Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF), with USS Fort Worth. It has come a long or with the Republic of Korea (ROK),” way. Freedom was out here a couple

Williams says. “That’s just a few years years ago and it had issues as a brand from now.” new ship. We have learned a tremendous

Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, who com- amount and Fort Worth’s deployment is mands the U.S. Seventh Fleet, spoke at going much better than USS Freedom’s the Littoral OPTECH East 2015 con- a couple years ago, and so that does help ference in Tokyo in December 2015 us a lot in that regard. LCS is a good discussed the dif? culty for sensors, size for working with the other navies machinery, and platforms to operate in out here. For most of the countries out the littorals. “That’s especially true for here, it’s a comparable sized ship to their sensors when conducting mine counter- navy front line ships,” Aucoin says. “So (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Antonio Turretto Ramos) measures or antisubmarine warfare, and I’m very much looking forward to hav-

USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) arrives in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, for Cooperation to be able to detect things underwater for ing four of them in Singapore, and ad-

A? oat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Cambodia 2015. power transmission, for connectivity and ditional LCS ships in the future.” www.marinelink.com 27

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