Lessons for the Navy’s New Frigate from the Littoral Combat Ship - War on the Rocks

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Lessons for the Navy's New Frigate From the Littoral Combat Ship - War on the Rocks:

Since their inception over a decade ago, the U.S. Navy's littoral combat ships have been plagued by cost overruns, frequent breakdowns, and an ever-changing mission set. As the former navigator of the USS Coronado, the second littoral combat ship of the Independence-class, I experienced firsthand how these ill-conceived vessels impacted sailors. Recently, the U.S. Navy selected a variant of the Italian-made European multi-purpose frigate to revitalize its stock of surface combatants, which, given the ship's design is already in use by NATO navies, is a promising sign. However, as its newest class of warships begins construction and as the Navy continues to formulate its training and crewing structures, it should take stock in the lessons learned from its ongoing struggle with the littoral combat ship.

During my nearly three-year tenure in the program, I heard a range of derisive substitutes for the littoral combat ship acronym, LCS. "Let's Change Something" and "Little Circus Show" were common and among the more polite. Indeed, the program has largely been dismissed by insiders, and even by its own sailors, as a $30 billion failure. As the navigator of the USS Coronado from 2018 to 2020, I spent much of my time struggling with the ship's many shortcomings. On one occasion our vessel's propulsion lost all power in the middle of San Diego Bay and we were saved from grounding in the city's downtown only by an emergency anchorage. The Coronado, along with the other first three littoral combat ships, have proven so disastrous that the Navy announced their early decommissioning next year.

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