The Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, was first marketed as the next generation naval war, the versatile, modular warship that could perform even the most complex tasks like minesweeping and anti-submarine warfare while costing only a small fraction of what the traditional ships would have required. However, the LCS program is now a story to warn about: ambitious in plans, pricey in actuality, and giving the Navy a somewhat ambiguous past.
In the early 2000s, the Navy had to deal with the shrinking of its fleet and the upcoming retirement of many ships that dated back to the Cold War era. Therefore, it launched the LCS program. The concept was very straightforward: develop a diminutive, versatile, and combat-effective vessel that could be constructed quickly and at a low cost to perform simple tasks, leaving the larger ships free to engage in more complex operations. The idea was that each ship would cost about $400 million, roughly one-third the cost of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
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.
The costs skyrocketed to an extent that was way beyond the original estimations. Even though the Navy was expecting the price for each ship not to exceed $250 million, the actual costs exceeded $500 million for each vessel, due to their mission packages being highly expensive. At the beginning, Congress was fully supportive of the Navy and approved the block-buy contracts for both the Freedom and Independence-class designs without much hesitation. On the other hand, with the passage of time, a considerable number of technical and maintenance issues have surfaced. In 2016, an extensive investigation was conducted because of the frequent engine faults, whereby the program’s reputation had already been 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.
The LCS saga should be learned that naval innovation is a balancing act between trying to be the best and still being rooted in reality. Very often, without thorough testing, exact requirements, and a responsive approach to change driven by changing threats, even the most brilliant ideas may turn into a money sink. As it was put by a staffer of the Congress, the Navy could be a bit late in discovering the shortcomings of LCS, but the process of learning from them will be very important for the future fleet.