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 … Continue reading
Tag Archives: littoral combat ships
The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have charged three current or ex-Austal USA executives with accounting fraud in the construction of Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). A grand jury issued indictments against Craig Perciavalle, who … Continue reading
USNI News reports that the nine Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) currently in Navy service – the youngest of which commissioned in 2020 – have been marked for disposal as part of the Department of Defense’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget … Continue reading
In its recent budget proposal, the Navy announced its intention to retire the first four Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) — the USS Freedom, USS Independence, USS Fort Worth, and USS Coronado — which range in age from twelve to only … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
The LCS saga continues. The USS Freedom suffered another serious failure. There are currently three Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in service — USS Freedom, USS Fort Worth, and the USS Milwaukee. In the past twelve months, all three of the … Continue reading
Back in the early 200s, the US Navy began a program to build a new class of Littoral Combat Ships, LCS, which were intended to be fast, agile and, at least by US Navy standards, relatively inexpensive, which could operate … Continue reading
In March of this year, we posted about the repeated blackouts suffered on the USS Freedom as it made its way to a deployment in Singapore. Recently the ship was delayed due to failures in its water jet controls. In October it … Continue reading
The USS Freedom, the first of the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), is on her way to Singapore. The press has reported that the ship is intended to show the US’s commitment to counter China in the region. Before … Continue reading
It is never a good sign for a new class of Navy ships when an article about them appears on the front page of the New York Times. The article, Navy Plowing Ahead on New Coastal Ship, Despite Woes by Elisabeth Bumiller, focuses on … Continue reading
David Hayes passed along a video of the USS Pegasus, a hydrofoil patrol boat that was billed as the “vanguard of the new navy,” thirty five years ago. While the Pegasus was not the first of many hydrofoils as was intended in 1975, the development … Continue reading