The Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, was originally touted as the naval war of the future—a sleek, modular warship designed to carry out everything from minesweeping to anti-submarine warfare at a fraction of the cost of what traditional ships would have required. Two decades on, though, the LCS program is a cautionary tale: visionary on paper, expensive in reality, and leaving the Navy with an inconclusive legacy.
The Navy initiated the LCS program in the early 2000s, as it was confronting a dwindling fleet and the impending retirement of dozens of Cold War-era ships. The idea was simple: create a small, multi-mission combatant that would be built fast and cheap, taking on low-end missions so bigger ships could concentrate on high-end wars. Defense officials were shooting for a target price of about $400 million per ship—about a third of what an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer costs.
What distinguished the LCS was its modularity. The vessels were also constructed for minimal crews—fewer than half of what a standard frigate demands—depending on automation and unmanned vehicles. As then-deputy defense secretary Bob Work pointed out, the strategy was innovative and untested, a radical break from traditional naval architecture.
But the desire to push forward outpaced available resources. The Navy steamed ahead with the LCS to production before there was a complete plan, bypassing many of the customary testing and evaluation phases. The first LCS went into service in 2008, years sooner than the typical Pentagon acquisition schedule. Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute says the Navy’s urgency to innovate left few with the stomach to say “no” to added requirements as the program grew more complex.
Issues soon arose. The mission packages, long espoused as the LCS’s signature strength, were complicated to implement and frequently behind schedule. The anti-submarine package encountered sonar deployment problems, minesweeping systems fell behind schedule, and hull designs experienced transmission problems and cracking under high speeds—a critical issue for vessels designed to be fast-moving. Efforts to cycle specialized crews between ships also didn’t pan out, detracting from operational effectiveness.
Costs soared far beyond initial projections. While the Navy had hoped to keep each ship under $250 million, the reality exceeded $500 million per vessel, not including pricey mission packages. Congress, initially supportive, approved block-buy contracts for both the Freedom and Independence-class designs, only to see technical and maintenance challenges mount. By 2016, persistent engine problems triggered a full review, but the program’s reputation was already damaged.
During that time, the strategic landscape was shifting. The LCS was designed for near-shore “brown water” operations, but China’s expanding anti-access, area denial capabilities made those missions more and more perilous. Several LCSs were retired after fewer than five years—far less than their planned 25-year life.
Experts calculated that the premature retirement accounted for about $7 billion in lost service time, not counting billions more in operating expenses that the Navy saved by retiring the ships.
For others, the choice to cut losses was painful but necessary. Former naval officer Bryan McGrath said maintaining the ships in commission would have been more expensive and less effective, especially in a possible high-end war. The American Enterprise Institute’s Mackenzie Eaglen noted the high yearly operating expenses—about $70 million per vessel—as another basis for why early retirement was financially astute.
However, the program was not a complete failure. The minesweeping package did finally achieve operational status, and in doing so performed a world-first by employing unmanned vehicles to sweep out minefields.
In the end, the LCS saga is a lesson that navy innovation is an exercise in balance, between striving for what is best and staying grounded in reality. Without hard testing, precise requirements, and an open mind to change in the face of changing threats, even the best ideas can become costly lessons. As one congressional staffer explained it, the Navy might have caught on to the LCS’s faults too late, but learning from them will be essential for what comes next for the fleet.