I went aboard the US Navy's fastest ship, which is also the largest jet ski in the world … that has a naval gun! If you could see what I saw on the other side of this window, you would probably come to the same conclusion as I did: This is the most overpowered ship in the US Navy. I explored every inch of USS Marinette that I was allowed to see, from the engineering area which I thought was the coolest, to the bridge which was completely unique, and then there was the red light district!
But why this ship is forbidden from hunting submarines and there is no way to change it, why the doctor on USS Marinette is the same person who does the mooring lines when the ship is at port, how this class of ships can launch Tomahawk missiles even though it has no launcher built-in, and why among all Freedom class littoral combat ships, USS Marinette is the only Freedom Done Wright, is Not What You Think! On the other side of this window, there is something that used to fly. This giant Rolls Royce MT30 gas turbine is the naval variant of the jet engines installed on the Boeing 777.
With over 50 million flying hours, you’d think this jet engine has proven its reliability. But on the ship, the engine is housed inside a box – a steel explosion-proof box. So if the engine blows up for any reason, the damage would be completely contained inside this box.
The ship has not one, but two of these engines, each generating a whopping 48,000 horsepower! Even more interestingly, in contrast to almost all other types of ships, these engines don’t drive propellers. They instead power water jets.
USS Marinett’s has four water jets, which combined, can pump 25,000 gallons of water per second. Let me put it in terms we’d all understand. Filling up an Olympic size swimming pool using the faucet in my house would take 305 days.
These four water jets can do the job in 25 … seconds! But aside from quickly filling up swimming pools, why use water jets instead of propellers? Two of the water jets on USS Marinette can also act as rudders, since they can be steered independently.
This makes the ship highly maneuverable, just like a jet ski. Traditionally, ships have a helm for steering, but not this one. The spacious and modern bridge on the Marinette houses 4 controls that are used to adjust the power and direction of the water jets.
This thrust vectoring capability allows the ship to perform tight pivoting and purely lateral motion – something that ships with rudders and propellers simply cannot do. In addition to maneuverability, the sheer power of the water jets can accelerate the ship quickly, and also bring it to a quick stop. To do so, a cover pivots over the nozzles, which forces the water jet to go backwards.
This is called a “crash stop” which can stop a fast moving ship in a little more than the length of its hull. Finally, having no propellers allows this class of ships to operate in waters as shallow as 15 feet, which was a requirement, since these ships were designed for littoral waters. This is “Freedom Done Wright”.
That’s the motto of USS Marinette, the 13th ship in the Freedom class of littoral combat ships also known as LCS. It’s the only ship that bears the name of the city that it was built, christened and commissioned in, Marinette, Wisconsin. This meant the ship had to travel through the St.
Lawrence seaway to get to its homeport of Mayport Florida. Freedom class is not the only type of ship powered by gas turbines. Arleigh Burke destroyers are powered by General Electric LM2500 gas turbines.
Of course the Rolls Royce MT30 is a much more powerful engine, which is why Zumwalt destroyers and even Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are equipped with the same two jet engines that power USS Marinette. This is pretty insane, considering that Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers have a displacement that is 19 times the 3,500-ton Freedom-class littoral combat ships. USS Marinette is totally souped up!
Which makes you wonder, why did the US Navy put so much power inside such a light hull? The answer was the need for speed! Freedom-class ships are the fastest in the US Navy fleet, moving at speeds in excess of 40 knots.
This high-speed requirement was a key factor behind the decision to armor and arm these ships lightly, balancing lethality and survivability with speed. These ships can in fact move so fast that they have some heavy-duty wipers to clear the bridge windows from all the water splash. The top speed of the ship is of course classified, but we can speculate a bit by looking at the world's fastest passenger ferry in service, HCS Francisco.
This ferry has two water jets powered by the less capable LM2500 gas turbines, the same ones used in Arleigh Burke destroyers. The top speed of HCS Francisco is 58 knots. USS Marinette is a relatively small ship, small enough that they had to run an exhaust pipe through the wardroom, where the officers eat.
When you put two massive jet engines inside such a small hull, you get a lot of vibration, and the faster the ship moves, the more it vibrates. This made the Freedom class ships as noisy as aircraft carriers, according to Admiral Gilday, former Chief of Naval Operations. This explains why I saw so many springs and shock absorbers in different parts of the ship.
They were there to reduce vibration and noise. But what’s the big deal with some vibration? You can just put tennis balls on the chair legs so the vibration wouldn’t scratch the floor in the wardroom, or put carabiners to tie down the chairs to the floor for extra protection during rapid acceleration and high sea states.
The thing is, the biggest problem caused by vibrations had nothing to do with the ship itself, but what was below it. The Freedom class littoral combat ships were envisioned as modular, configurable ships with 3 types of missions – surface warfare, mine countermeasures, and anti-submarine warfare. This is why there are two large reconfigurable spaces aft of the ship, called Recon 1 and Recon 2, so whatever warfare package was needed could be swapped in and out using a hatch in the ceiling that opens to the flight deck.
The recon areas can also be used as a gym or storage space. Those of you who have been following the LCS drama would know that the US Navy eventually gave up on the modular concept and decided to assign a fixed mission to each ship. That was followed by a decision in 2022, to cancel the anti-submarine mission package from the Freedom-class ships altogether.
Now that was in large part due to the vibrations. Sonars can detect small vibrations underwater, and use this capability to hunt submarines. But in the case of the Freedom class, the vibrations generated by the ship’s jet engines would deafen the sonar, making it impossible to detect small vibrations from submarines lurking nearby.
With the anti-submarine package out of the picture, the US Navy had more LCS hulls than it needed. A decision was subsequently made to retire a number of Freedom class ships. That said, there were also other issues that may have contributed to the early retirement of those ships, some of which were only 2 years old!
The two jet engines are not the only propulsion source on this ship. There are also two Colt-Pielstick diesel engines onboard, each about the size of a school bus. They generate 19,000 horsepower, enough for the ship to reach a maximum speed of 12 knots.
To reach speeds in excess of 40 knots, the power from the gas turbines and the diesel engines need to be combined with the help of a gearbox. The problem was that the gearbox kept breaking down. Without the gearbox engaged, the ships’ top speed was limited to about 10 knots generated by the diesel engines, and in 2021, it turned out to be a class-wide defect among Freedom class ships.
The Navy and ship manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, split the $8 to 10 million dollar cost of fixing the combining gear 50-50. Since then, at least 7 Freedom-class ships have implemented the gearbox fix, which means they currently have no speed restrictions. That includes hull number 25, USS Marinette.
Marinette is equipped with the surface warfare package. In this capacity, the ship provides fleet protection from small boats and other asymmetrical threats. The 24 Hellfire precision-strike missiles on the ship are specifically used for surface warfare.
There is also this bad boy – the MK110 57mm naval gun. Now, this was my first time actually up close with this weapon system, and I got to say, this gun is much bigger than it seems in the video. I asked Adam, who was giving us a tour, if the gun could hit a target accurately on the other side, where those buildings were.
He kinda chuckled. I later found out the gun has a range of 10 miles. It’s also fully-automatic, and can fire 220 rounds per minute.
So the ship can easily conduct interdiction missions against pirates and other threats. In case you were wondering, this black cap prevents things like water from getting inside and damaging the gun. They would normally remove the cap before using the gun, but I was told if needed, they could fire right through it.
There is also a C-RAM on this ship, which is the primary air defense capability against incoming anti-ship missiles. In the stern of the ship is what I like to call the red light district, but its actual name is Water Board Mission Zone. This is where boats can be launched and recovered from the ship.
Typically the ship stores two 11m RHIBs in this area. When needed, the stern doors open to let out the RHIB with a law enforcement team on board. This is not to be confused with a well deck, where the stern of the ship dips into the water.
Instead, this cradle here can be lowered into and raised out of water, which is how the RHIBs can be launched and recovered from the ship. The third and final mission package for the Freedom class was mine countermeasures, which intended to keep the personnel out of minefields. To do this, the ship would launch an unmanned surface vessel or USV from the red light district.
The USV would then go to the area of interest to launch a sonar, which would in turn scan the field, detect and classify any mines in the area. The operators would access all the data in realtime from the safety of the ship. In addition, Freedom ships can house MH-60 Seahawk helicopters as well as fire scout drones.
Among other things, the hilos can launch mine countermeasure systems, and the fire scouts could be equipped with sensors to give the ship a better picture of the horizon, kind of like a remote sensor. Before I share my final thoughts with you on the future of the Freedom class, there is something I need to highlight about the crew of USS Marinette. There are 80 sailors aboard this ship, 13 of which are female, including the commanding officer.
What needs emphasizing is that a crew of 80 is considered small for a hull this size. For example, a destroyer or cruiser would require something like 8 people to run the bridge. But on this ship, you could have as few as 2 people handling the duties on the bridge, and that would be the Office Of the Deck and the Junior Officer Of the Deck.
Of course, having only 2 people means that they would be doing more stuff, like announcements, radar and navigation, which is not typically performed by the Junior Officer Of the Deck. I also had a chance to visit the small hospital on the ship and speak with one of the Corpsmen. He said that aside from his typical hospital duties, he also helps with line duties when the ship is at port.
Even smaller things like rinsing your own dishes after finishing your meal highlight how on this ship, everyone needs to do a little more and wear multiple hats. But let’s get real for a moment. LCS ships have a bad reputation.
There are even videos on this channel criticizing this class. What is easy to lose sight of is that anytime a brand new concept is designed and built, there will be major problems. For the Freedom class, the gearbox issues have been resolved.
The ships are now equipped with the surface warfare package. The maintenance costs are also coming under control as the ships’ crew have been taking over more and more of the maintenance tasks from the expensive contractors. But there is still one more sticking point, and that’s how these ships are lightly armored.
We went over the armaments and if you remember, these ships don’t have built-in VLC cells like destroyers and cruisers do. That said, the flight deck on the Freedom class is actually bigger than that of the Arleigh Burke destroyers and Ticonderoga cruisers, and here is why that’s important. This 40-foot long container is the Mark 70 payload delivery system, which houses four MK41 VLS cells.
It can launch long range anti-ship missiles, anti-air weapons such as SM-6 and even Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles. According to Lockheed Martin, up to 3 such containers can be placed on the flight deck of the Freedom class ships, in a process that takes about 7 hours to complete. In fact in October 2023, an SM-6 missile was successfully test launched from a container launcher off the flight deck of USS Savannah.
So maybe the Navy could use the Freedom LCS for low intensity situations, which could free up destroyers for high intensity missions. While 2 more Freedom class ships are still being built, it is unclear how many ships of this class are actually going to be retired. Back in 2022 it was suggested that the Navy would keep 6 Freedom class hulls for surface warfare and retire the rest.
Some in the US Congress suggest selling them to allied countries instead, while others say to accept these ships for what they are. And after visiting USS Marinette in person, talking to the crew, getting more perspective on what caused the issues and how they were addressed, I think I’m more inclined to join the last camp.
