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The U.S. Navy decommissioned the littoral combat ship (LCS) USS Sioux City (LCS 11) on Monday after less than five years in service. The Freedom-variant LCS was built by Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin, and commissioned November 17, 2018, at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

PARIS --- After spending billions of dollars, the US Navy has finally abandoned the Littoral Combat Ship concept, saying it will turn the first four LCSs into training ships and that all future vessels will be equipped for a single combat mission. Although deliberately worded to minimize its import, the US Navy statement below is a clear acknowledgement that the LCS concept has been an abysmal failure. But, even as it looks to mitigate the disastrous effects of having ordered a dozen LCS at once, before checking whether they performed as claimed (they have not), the Navy makes no mention...

From its inception, the Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, has been one of the Navy’s most controversial procurement programs. Questions have been continuously raised about its costs, survivability, lethality, and range limitations.

In an unusually scathing memo to Secretary of the Navy Ray Maybus, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has demanded severe changes to the troubled Littoral Combat Ship program. It includes instructions to cut the number of Littoral Combat Ships to be built, and as well as focusing on building one variant, from one shipyard and general contractor. arter has specifically directed Maybus to cut the number of hulls for the LCS program from 52 to 40, and to select a single LCS design-shipbuilder team, instead of the current plan for two completely separate designs and shipbuilders, according to the letter...

Giffords on Hand as Navy Christens Namesake Vessel. The USS Gabrielle Giffords, christened in June 2015, a 419-foot ship built in Alabama, is the Navy’s 10th littoral combat ship, designed to operate in shallow waters near the coast. “The Democrat left Congress and later founded an organization that supports gun control,” according to the Navy Times. The ship was named after her because of “characteristics she exemplified after the attack,” according to unnamed officials, per the Navy Times.In an affront to every American who cherishes the Second Amendment, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been used to name a new...

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on Thursday said the Navy would rename the modified Littoral Combat Ships it plans to build in coming years as “frigates,” given their enhanced capabilities.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense has instructed the Navy to reduce its planned buy of the new Littoral Combat Ship from 52 to 32 ships, substantially limiting the size and scope of the emerging multi-mission, shallow-water ship program, according to reports. Defense News cites a Jan. 6 memo from Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox account announcing the decision pointing to budget guidance from the White House on some large acquisition decisions. Pentagon and Navy officials would not comment on the memo or the acquisition decision regarding LCS fleet size, citing budget deliberations as pre-decisional. “We continue to...

The Navy, is, hands down, the service in the best shape for 2014. Every act of belligerent idiocy from Beijing – and there’ve been a lot of them lately – makes the Navy budget an easier sell. In stark contrast to the Army, the Navy has the central role in the new Pacific-focused strategy, a high-tech threat justifying high-cost programs, a highly visible role in peacetime engagement around the world, and, perhaps most crucial, a clear set of missions. Submarines are the spearhead of the Navy’s Pacific vision, but that’s not surprising given that the Chief of Naval Operations is...

The Navy’s New Class of Warships: Big Bucks, Little Bang The Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is not only staggeringly overpriced and chronically unreliable but — even if it were to work perfectly — cannot match the combat power of similar sized foreign warships costing only a fraction as much. Let’s take a deep dive and try to figure out why. The story so far: – Congress has funded the LCS program since February 2002. Its publically stated purpose was to create a new generation of surface combatants able to operate in dangerous shallow water and near-shore environments. –...

LCS "Ugly Duckling" Turning Into A Swan 17:17 GMT, October 26, 2011 Until recently, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) has struggled to overcome the impression that it was the U.S. Navy's "ugly duckling." There were questions regarding the mission for the LCS -- operations in littoral waters, the possibility of building warships in commercial shipyards according to commercial standards, and the plausibility of equipping the LCS with plug-and-play mission modules. There were complaints about the designs of both variants. There was the crisis of rising prices as the cost for each ship rose when the builders were required to meet...

Cost, quality problems dog Navy's LCS warship The littoral combat ship Freedom (LCS-1) has been undergoing maintenance and upgrades at BAE Ship Repair San Diego. — Earnie Grafton A decade-old, multibillion-dollar attempt by the Navy to develop a radically different family of warships is reeling from cost overruns, structural problems and doubts about the design, staffing, role and survivability of the speedy new vessels. This month, a bipartisan group of seven U.S. senators demanded that the Pentagon explain why Freedom, the first of the new littoral combat ships, suffered a small but worrisome crack in its hull and had to...

Saudis ask U.S. for price quotes for warships Saturday April 09, 2011 By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON, April 8 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has asked the United States for prices for surface warships with integrated air and missile defenses, helicopters, patrol craft and shore infrastructure, the U.S. Navy said on Friday. The Navy is preparing a rough cost estimate that would be delivered possibly as soon as May, Navy spokeswoman Captain Cate Mueller told Reuters. Saudi Arabia is the biggest U.S. arms buyer and is expected to remain so despite political upheaval in the Middle East. The request for medium surface...

Lawmaker concerned that Navy fleet isn’t ready for combat By John T. Bennett - 03/09/11 07:37 PM ET A longtime supporter of the Navy’s new fleet of shallow-water ships is beginning to question whether the vessels are truly fit for combat. The Navy plans to buy 55 Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) vessels, but unless the service can show it can survive in hostilities, “I’m not sure we can justify that,” Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said Wednesday during a House Appropriations Defense subcommittee hearing. Moran’s sudden concern about the program — he has long been a proponent — was triggered by...

The Wrong Ship at the Wrong Time Issue: Proceedings Magazine - January 2011 Vol. 137/1/1,295 By Commander John Patch, U.S. Navy (Retired) It is clear that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program cannot live up to expectations. Yet the surface Navy still badly needs low-end ships for littoral and maritime-security missions. Since the concept phase of the LCS program, supporters and detractors alike have argued for or against the ship class. Recently, however, the debate has shifted away from pundits to official U.S. government assessors, with arguably damning conclusions about the ships. Navy leaders espousing the virtues of LCS-1 and...

Rolls-Royce to Power Ten Littoral Combat Ships for the U.S Navy (Source: Rolls-Royce plc; issued January 16, 2011) Rolls-Royce, the global power systems company, will supply gas turbines and waterjets for ten of the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) – the Group’s largest ever marine naval surface ship contract. Designed to operate in combat zones close to the shore (littoral waters), each LCS will be equipped with two Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines powering four large waterjets, enabling the vessels to reach speeds in excess of 40 knots. At 36 megawatts, the MT30 is the world’s most powerful marine gas...

Navy Close to Choosing Griffin Missile for LCS By John Reed Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 6:34 pm Posted in Naval The U.S. Navy is moving towards selecting Raytheon’s Griffin missile as the replacement for the cancelled Non-Line of Sight missile on its Littoral Combat Ships, according to the director of the service’s surface warfare division. After evaluating its options for replacing one of the key parts of the LCS’ surface warfare mission systems for six months, the surface warfare division settled on the Griffin due to the fact that it can hit targets at acceptable ranges for less money than...

Low-Cost Warship Rescues Navy From Shrinking Fleet Jan. 3 2011 - 9:47 am Posted by Loren Thompson The last ten years have been relatively kind to the U.S. Navy. The buying power of its budget has increased along with that of the other services, but few of its sailors have been subjected to the stresses experienced by soldiers and marines fighting ashore. Its civilian and uniformed leaders have exercised disproportionate influence in joint deliberations while Air Force leaders were being purged and replaced. Its modernization initiatives have largely escaped the controversy surrounding programs like the Army’s canceled Future Combat System...

Navy aims to please all by splitting ship work Politico © December 30, 2010 By Philip Ewing The U.S. Navy on Wednesday announced what its top officials hope will be a Solomonic answer to a thorny problem: How do you execute a major, multi-billion dollar weapons program in today’s climate of deadlock, while at the same time pleasing as many interests as possible in the defense industry and on the Hill? The Navy has tried to do it by halving work on a series of new warships, called littoral combat ships, between two competing vendors, preempting what officials feared might...

U.S. Navy Awards Over $900 Million as a First Step Toward Acquisition of 20 Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) December 29, 2010 tamir_eshel Lockheed Martin received funding for one additional Freedom class LCS and advanced payment for long lead materials for 10 vessels. Photo: US Navy The U.S. Navy has awarded two fixed-price incentive contracts worth over US$460 million each to Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal USA, for the design and construction of a total of 20 littoral combat ships split equally between the two companies in the next five years. The new contracts give each shipbuilding team one ship to...

Navy Getting its LCSs for Xmas? By John Reed Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 Top U.S. Navy officials today made their case before the Senate Armed Services Committee today for buying both classes of Littoral Combat Ship as the deadline for Congress to grant the service permission to buy the ships fast approaches. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, repeatedly stressed that the dual by of 20 LCSs from both Lockheed Martin and Austal USA would save the service $2.9 billion over the next five years and allow the purchase of 10 ships from each...