The Navy Would Love to 'Sink' The Littoral Combat Ship. Here's Why.

Task and Purpose

Technology, Asia

All the reasons.

Given the embarrassing cost overruns and frequent mechanical failures that have plagued the program, the exquisitely-detailed report suggests that the Navy has run out of patience for the disappointment mill that is the Littoral Combat Ship, once the backbone of the future fleet that could have 355 ships.

After 16 years and billions of dollars, the Navy may have finally acknowledged that its Littoral Combat Ship program looks like a miserable failure.

The service “may not” deploy any of the dozen small surface combatants this year despite officials’ previous plans to deploy several to join the 7th and 5th Fleets in Singapore and Bahrain respectively, the U.S. Naval Institute first reported on April 11.

(This article by Jared Keller originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. This article first appeared in 2018.)

Given the embarrassing cost overruns and frequent mechanical failures that have plagued the program, the exquisitely-detailed report suggests that the Navy has run out of patience for the disappointment mill that is the Littoral Combat Ship, once the backbone of the future fleet that could have 355 ships.

Here’s the money graf from USNI News explaining the strange lack of upcoming deployments: