Did the U.S. Navy Just Admit The Littoral Combat Ship Is a Failure?
Sarah Sicard [2]
After years of cost overruns [3], underwhelming demonstrations [4], and debilitating mechanical failures [5], the Navy appears to be looking to supplement the troubled littoral combat ship program with a new ship to serve the same purpose, but better.
The Navy posted formal requirements [6] for a new frigate design on July 11 under the auspices of the Guided Missile Frigate Replacement Program or FFG(X). While the request doesn’t explicitly identify the FFG(X) as a successor to the LCS, meant to replace the its Cold-War era cruisers as small surface combatants, USNI News [7] passive aggressively described the FFG(X) project as a ship “much like the Littoral Combat Ship that currently fills the small surface combatant role.”
Source URL (retrieved on July 13, 2017):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/did-the-us-navy-just-admit-the-littoral-combat-ship-failure-21513
