The sad saga of the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) is winding down. The small surface vessels, built in two classes, and designed for operations near shore, were intended to be inexpensive and flexible. Instead, they proved to be unreliable, relatively costly, and plagued by technical problems. Worse yet, the Pentagon concluded that the ships were not “survivable in a hostile combat environment” and that neither ship class could withstand the Navy’s full ship shock trials.
Recently, the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship, USS Sioux City, was decommissioned after less than five years in service. Such ships were meant to serve for 25 years.
The Navy announced its intent to decommission Sioux City and eight other Freedom-class LCS early in the spring of 2022, part of a move to divest the sea service of as many LCS as possible in order to free up funding for other priorities, a tacit acknowledgment that the LCS fleet has not done what it was originally envisioned to do.
Almost 200 years ago, 
When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, at least 100 Ukrainian Navy vessels, representing 75% of the Ukrainian naval fleet, were captured by Russian forces. In the Russian invasion of 2022, much of the remaining fleet was destroyed or scuttled to prevent capture.
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One hundred and eighty years ago last month, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 
Sailors have always watched the sky. This August, the sky is putting on quite a show.
Have cruise ships worn out their welcome? Increasingly, port cities around the world are banning or regulating cruise ship dockings and operations in their coastal waters. Amsterdam has become only the most recent to do so.
Near midnight on Tuesday, the car carrier 
In 1863, 