FSF-1 Sea Fighter: From X-Craft to Serving Ship?

FSF-1 Sea Fighter(click to view full) The 262 foot long, 950 ton displacement FSF-1 Sea Fighter experimental ship was once called the X-Craft. It’s a high speed, shallow draft catamaran that was built to demonstrate and validate many of the Navy’s operational concepts for littoral warfare, and many of its experiments fed into the Littoral Combat Ship program. Sea Fighter can launch and recover surface and sub-surface vehicles up to the size of an 11 meter Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB)from its rear ramp, can carry specialized equipment in its mission module bay, and can support up to 2 MH-60 helicopters on its deck. The ship currently has 4 stations for .50 caliber machine guns, some of which could be converted to Mk38 remotely-operated 25mm cannon. Missiles other than crew-operated Stingers would likely create a deck hazard, but more advanced weaponry such as the SBOC chaff dispensers, Phalanx 20mm CIWS, or the 35mm Millennium Gun tested on the similar Sea Slice vessel in 2002 would be possible with additional work. The vessel is already paid for, and has been available for service since 2005. An armed Sea Fighter could function in a variety of limited roles, depending on the equipment set […]