USS Fort Worth Completes PMAV

The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) successfully completed a scheduled preventive maintenance availability (PMAV) at Changi Naval Base Jan. 11.

Compared to other Navy platforms, the littoral combat ship has a relatively small crew. Routine maintenance outside the scope of ship’s force ability is conducted during a PMAV, where labor and technical support is supplemented by civilian contractors who perform much of the preventive maintenance work in port.

The maintenance period included more than 500 preventative maintenance checks including 30 in combat systems, 497 in engineering, and 16 in operations.

“It’s really a joint effort between contractors and Fort Worth’s crew to come together and get the maintenance done,” said Lt. Brian Newcomb, LCS Crew 101 chief engineer. “Without contractor support it would take an entire department about three weeks to complete the maintenance checks that we completed together in roughly seven days.”

In addition to preventative maintenance, Fort Worth also has a window of opportunity to receive corrective maintenance, according to Lt. Brian Osborne, LCS Crew 101 main propulsion assistant.

“During this availability contractors removed, refurbished, and replaced the fly wheel for a ship service diesel generator (SSDG),” said Osborne. “The SSDGs produce the ships electricity, and it’s very important to maintain them so that Fort Worth can continue to successfully contribute to maritime security operations.”

Fort Worth is the first LCS to deploy under the “3-2-1” manning concept, which allows LCS to sustain a longer rotational presence without fatiguing the crew during the extended deployment. The concept allows LCS to deploy more than twice as long as typical U.S. Navy ship deployments. It is named 3-2-1 because three rotational crews support two LCS ships, one of which is deployed. Future LCS deployments to the region will employ this concept, allowing for enhanced U.S. Navy presence throughout the Indo-Asia-Pacific.

Fort Worth is the second LCS to deploy to U.S. 7th Fleet as part of an initiative to simultaneously deploy up to four LCS to the Indo-Asia-Pacific region in just a few years. The third and fourth LCSs are planned to arrive in 2016, when the region will see two of these ships deployed at the same time.