Navy LCS Gets “Soft-Kill” Countermeasure to Destroy Enemy Torpedoes

By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is now armed with an emerging ship defense soft-kill countermeasure able to identify, track and destroy incoming enemy torpedo fire, Navy officials said.

The service plans to outfit its entire LCS fleet with the AN/SLQ-61 Lightweight Tow Torpedo Defense Mission Module (TDMM) as a way to fortify the ship’s ability to succeed in both shallow water and open or “blue” water warfare, Navy officials told Warrior Maven.

The new TDMM recently completed two days of at-sea testing in order to prepare for operational service on LCS ships.

“This test was highly successful, and this critical torpedo defense for the LCS is ready for integration,” Capt. Theodore Zobel, LCS Mission Modules program manager, said in a written statement.

A technology uses an underwater acoustic projector, attached to a cable dropped from the ship’s stern to identify acoustic homing and wire-guided enemy torpedoes, service officials described.

The digitally-controlled system, traveling underwater beneath the ship, sends out an acoustic ping. In a manner quite similar to radar above the ground, the return signal, or ping, is then analyzed to determine the distance, shape and speed of an approaching enemy threat.