The U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ship: A Beautiful Disaster?
.
By James Holmes
February 18, 2020
There’s no escaping the fact that, in many ways, the LCS program is an example of how not to conceive of, experiment with, and field naval combatants. But take it from the ghost of Wayne Hughes: with a little ingenuity we may yet wrest a measure of success from catastrophe.
Key point: How much and what the LCS can contribute depends on whether a likely field of combat lies in the Persian Gulf, the Black Sea, or the South China Sea.
Is it time to admit the U.S. Navy’s littoral combat ships are a failure? Yes. And no—maybe. In 2004 President George W. Bush pronounced the overthrow of Saddam Hussein a “catastrophic success,†implying the invasion was an operational triumph in the early going but gave off grave if not debilitating strategic and political fallout later on. It’s the other way around with the littoral combat ship (LCS), a program that has fulfilled little if any of its early promise yet could provide value in the future if put to creative tactical use. The reverse pattern from Iraqi Freedom could hold for the LCS: catastrophe comes first, ultimate success later. Time will tell.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/02/18/the_us_navys_littoral_combat_ship_a_beautiful_disaster_115049.html
