Not if they Cost a Billion Dollars a Pop.
You Could Reactive All Four Iowa Battleships for that Price Tag.
The Littoral Combat Ship is Under-gunned, Under Protected and Over Priced for what it is.
A Sad Excuse for a Destroyer because Actual Destroyers have grown too big for their own role.
fast and or invisible/submersible might have a role. missles will sweep the seas clean of all that floats..
“the Littoral Combat Ship. Originally conceived as a close quarters “street fighter” for shallow water warfare,,,”
Yeah,,, a surface ship with a 57mm gun, and a griffin high angle rocket launcher throwing 13 pound bombs 3 miles. Combat wise, it’s essentially a little less firepower than a Bradley followed by an M-113 with a big mortar.
That’s “street fighter” if I ever heard it. lol
If a littoral combat ship ran into a WWII Fletcher destroyer, or even a little DE, it would be slaughtered.
A littoral cannot even reliably defeat a main battle tank should the hapless littoral get a little too close to shore. And get this, a Fletcher even has a shallower draft, even though it is an actual warship.
The Littorals were also exempted from USN battle damage standards because they couldn’t hope to ever pass. These things are a joke.
It’s really embarrassing though, that we call it a littoral combat ship, when it is utterly helpless against any surface threat it could encounter from ANY foreign navy on earth.
This is a monument to defense contractors playing the congressional ATM, backed up by Navy Officers who only have the goal of being involved in a big program, and then getting a job with the contractors.
Its floating incompetence and corruption.
bump for later