It’s Official: The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships are Truly 'Garbage'

[rangerrebew]

US Navy’s first 4 littoral combat ships to leave the fleet in 9 months
 
David Larter
,Defense News•July 1, 2020

WASHINGTON — The Navy’s first four littoral combat ships will be headed into mothballs next March, according to a June 20 message from the chief of naval operations.

The littoral combat ships Freedom, Independence, Fort Worth and Coronado will all be inactivated on March 31, 2021, with Coronado being commissioned just six years ago.

The Navy decided to cut the ships to save money on modernization efforts as it faces a mountain of shipbuilding bills and upgrade costs.

https://news.yahoo.com/us-navy-first-4-littoral-211130563.html

[rangerrebew]

It’s Official: The U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships are Truly 'Garbage'
 
Caleb Larson
,The National Interest•July 2, 2020
 

The first four of the Navy’s notoriously expensive Littoral Combat Ships have under a year of service life left in their hulls. The announcement by Vice Admiral J. W. Kilby, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations listed March, 31, 2021 as the ship’s projected inactive date.

The four LCS ships listed, the USS Freedom, USS Independence, USS Fort Worth, and the USS Coronado are really new—the oldest of the four, USS Freedom, was launched in 2006, and the youngest, the Coronado was launched just nine years ago.

The LCS ships are made up of two classes, the Freedom-class and Independence-class. Both classes were intended to operate in littoral environments near shore and were designed to be highly flexible with easily swappable modules for different mission objectives. Rather than returning to the United States to be refitted for a new mission, the ships’ mission modules—mine sweeping, convoy escort, fire support—could be swapped out while at sea, at least that was the idea. But not all of the ship’s mission modules are finished.

https://news.yahoo.com/official-u-navy-littoral-combat-144100888.html

[rangerrebew]

They could put them with the Ford and have a junk pile battle group.

[skeeter]

They rust in salt water?

[EdinVA]

So do we get a refund?

[SZonian]

These same 4 ships were discussed in this article you posted from the same source where it was admitted they were test vessels, and that it was too damned costly to bring them up to current configuration.  Much like what happens with aircraft.

http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,407231.0.html

So one day, we'll ignore the mundane, similar topic.  The next we're running down rabbit holes denigrating the very things we chose to ignore just the day before.

Boy, the media really has the nose rings in many people.

[catfish1957]

Well Littoral is just one letter shy from..........   Nevermind.   

[PeteS in CA]

IMO, these were intended to be moneypits of limited value - of little use for power projection far from US coastal waters.

[PeteS in CA]

US Navy scuppers flawed Littoral Combat Ship fleet

https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/us-navy-scuppers-littoral-combat-ship-program/

The US Navy is at the start of a process to dump the Littoral Combat Ship fleet and replace it with heavily armed frigates based on the highly successful FREMM system developed by France and Italy.

This is good news for US deterrence capabilities in Asia, since the LCS lacked combat capability and could perform no useful role in defending US allies in the region.

Even before a decision was reached to scrap the LCS, its deficiencies were on parade for all to see.

Billed as an “urban street fighter” naval ship, it was anything but that. Lightly armed with an unproven and problematic 57mm Swedish gun manufactured by Bofors, the only other foreign deployment was in Mexico’s Navy.

There the gun proved incapable of firing for more than seven seconds and required 10 or more minutes to cool down before it could fire again.

A 57 mm main gun, a handful of missiles, and a helopad on a ship that could not survive where it was supposedly going to operate? I'll stick by my opinion that this was a political concept (Clinton era!) intended to be a moneypit to diminish the USN's power projection capability.

[Smokin Joe]

US Navy scuppers flawed Littoral Combat Ship fleet

https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/us-navy-scuppers-littoral-combat-ship-program/

A 57 mm main gun, a handful of missiles, and a helopad on a ship that could not survive where it was supposedly going to operate? I'll stick by my opinion that this was a political concept (Clinton era!) intended to be a moneypit to diminish the USN's power projection capability.

Yep. A return to the PT boat concept with an offshore 'mothership' would have made as much or more sense in littoral environments. Perhaps if the Wasp Class LHD or something similar were redesigned to 'mother' a squadron of fast, well armed attack vessels, that function could be met in a littoral environment.

(Might they have meant "scuttles"?)

Seems I heard the scuppers are where your friends pick you up after a wicked Liberty...