LCS next steps in Naval Forces forum
According to the USN multipile contracts were awarded to see which design is best suited for this role. So in answer to your question..You may have to wait a few years before that decision is made.
In the near time the USN is establishing a training program for future LCS sailors.
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=25034
SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Commander, Naval Surface Forces, is overseeing the development of a revolutionary training process for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) called Train to Qualify (T2Q) that will enable LCS’s hybrid Sailors to be fully trained before reporting to the ship.
The new system of preparation and evaluation for LCS is necessary because of its unique crew size and billets aboard. Each LCS will have a core crew of about 40 Sailors for a ship about the size of a frigate. The core crew will be joined by a mission package crew and an aviation detachment, bringing the total crew size to approximately 75. To perform any one of several missions, an LCS seaframe can be configured with mine warfare, anti-surface or anti-submarine mission modules.
“With Train to Qualify, everyone has to report aboard the LCS ready to fulfill all the duties of their watches and their jobs, both individually and as an integral part of the crew,” said Dr. Carl Czech, head of the Human Performance Center Detachment at Commander, Naval Surface Forces.
The main change with this process is that each Sailor will be evaluated by strict reference to uniform measures, metrics and standards. They will be required to demonstrate parts of their job in ways that give their evaluators, their fellow crew members and commanding officers confidence that they will be able to step into their role aboard LCS with minimal on-the-job training.
“I believe this process is revolutionary because of its strict adherence to a performance basis evaluation process,” said Czech. “We’re going to require Sailors to actually demonstrate certain things. Not just demonstrate knowledge, not just demonstrate comprehension, but actually do the things they’re going to do aboard ship as carefully and safely as they can before they get there.”
“The training process is not harder on LCS, it’s just different,” said Cmdr. Bill Johnson, assistant chief of staff for Training and Readiness at Commander, Naval Surface Forces. “Because of the small crew size and the fact that the basic phase training will be done ashore in the LCS shore trainer, the LCS training process will work differently from the historical training we have adopted with Shiptrain. The goal is that the shore-based unit level training will support follow-on integrated and advanced training at sea and allow more ship operability with multiple crews.”
The way the LCS Sailor is chosen is also a new process. Instead of looking for a specific Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC), they are looking for a specific set of skills for each LCS billet. Every Sailor stationed aboard an LCS will be filling a specific numbered billet defined by tasks that often range far from their individual rating or NEC.
With this, the entire detailing process is being changed to incorporate time for all the training a Sailor must get before stepping aboard an LCS. With LCS, a billet will become available 18–24 months before a scheduled loss instead of the normal 9–12 months currently used.
“This is sometimes easy, sometimes hard depending on what the detailers are looking for,” said Cmdr. Curt Renshaw, LCS project officer for Commander, Naval Surface Forces and prospective commanding officer of PCU Independence (LCS 2) Blue. “You might find an IT (information systems technician) with lots of ET (electronics technician) skills, but some ratings are the other way around and are very specialized.”
Once a Sailor has been chosen to fill the LCS billet, their individual training track will then be made up for them and train them on the skills they are lacking. This will be completed by a combination of online, classroom and simulator training since they will be required to step aboard LCS ready to stand watch.
Every qualification will be performance-based, with set standards for timeliness, accuracy and quality applied to every critical task.
“The standard has to be very high for Sailors coming off of shore duty, so the ships have confidence that what they get is really a person that has received a qualification level of that fully supports taking the watch upon reporting aboard,” said Renshaw
