The saga of the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) continues. The ships were intended to be small, versatile and relatively inexpensive. So far they have succeeded only in being small. The Navy intends to have around 30 of these ships built and so far has commissioned eleven. This year, the Navy plans on not deploying any of the LCS. Maintenance issues have many of LCS tied to the dock. The program itself is not new. The first LCS was commissioned a decade ago, but the problem-plagued ships have seen relatively little actual service. 

The LCS, which early on earned the nickname “Little Crappy Ships,” are actually two different ships types. The Freedom Class are monohulls while the Independence Class is a trimaran design. Why the Navy chose to develop tow very different designs in parallel is the subject of some discussion. The LCS were originally intended to be built for around $200 million a copy. Their cost has not risen to close to $600 million each. Both classes have been plagued with reliability and maintenance issues. It is also unclear whether the LCS would have much a chance to survive actual combat. The ships were designed to highly modular able to switch between various mission configurations, but this flexibility has proven to be largely illusory.

In September 2016, chronic mechanical failures resulted in the Navy ordering a halt to all LCS ship operations. The Navy restructured the program and initiated more crew training. 

The Navy had planned to deploy a Freedom Class LCS from Mayport, Fla., to Bahrain and to send two  Independence Class LCSs from San Diego to Singapore this year. It now appears that the earliest deployment will be in 2019.

Thanks to Phil Leon for contributing to this post.