Last week, Austal USA delivered the 19th and final Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to the United States Navy at a ceremony at the company’s shipyard in Mobile, Alabama. The future USS Pierre (LCS-38), named for the capital of South Dakota, was sponsored by Larissa Thune, daughter of Senator John Thune (R-SD).
It is just the second warship to be named for the upper Midwestern city, with the former being a PC-451-class submarine chaser that was built during the Second World War and which remained in service with the US Navy until 1958, when it was transferred to the Indonesian Navy.
Why Is Austal Stopping Production of the Independence-class?
Delivery of LCS-38 marked the end of the line for Austal, which has been building the small, fast-moving warships for the past 15 years. For the US Navy, it is a different story, as the service has struggled to find a role for ships in a changing geopolitical climate.
“The delivery of the final Independence-variant LCS marks the end of a chapter, but not the story,” said Capt. Matthew Lehmann, program manager of the LCS Program Office.
Lehmann also attempted to accentuate the positives while downplaying the struggles that the sea service has had with the LCS.
“The LCS program, for all its complexities, has pushed the boundaries of naval design and operational concepts. The LCS represents a bold vision for a more agile and adaptable Navy,” added Lehmann. “We are seeing the Fleet operating these ships with the advanced mission packages they were designed for, and they are continuing to evolve those operational concepts as more unmanned technologies come online.”
What Will the Purpose of the LCS Be?
There is much more to the story, including the fact that the US Navy seemed entirely uncertain how the warships could be employed. The fact that the LCS hasn’t been deployed to the Middle East to support the US Navy’s campaign deterring Iranian aggression and directly engaging the Tehran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen should be seen as a vote of little to no confidence in the program.
The effort to create a new class of small warships began in earnest when the US military was engaged in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) following the September 11, 2001, attacks. Such compact and agile warships were seen as ideal for combating missile-firing boats and even small submarines. It was envisioned that the stealthy surface combatants could be capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in littoral or near-shore waters.
What was unique about the LCS was that the Navy opted for two distinctive classes of vessels, each slightly smaller than the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. The first was the Freedom-class, which was designed by Lockheed Martin and built by Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin. The smaller of the two, it featured a steel-hulled 387-foot warship that utilized a semi-planing monohull.
The second variant was the Independence-class, which utilized a trimaran with a slender, stabilized monohull that could allow flight operations for its helicopters in up to sea state 5 (rough) conditions. The 421-foot all-aluminum warship was designed and built by Austral USA in Mobile, AL.
Yet, it was far from smooth sailing for the program.
“The program faced significant issues, including budget overruns, delays, and failures in developing modular mission sets. Maintenance costs soared as the Navy relied on contractors, diminishing ship readiness. The Independence-class, in particular, suffered from hull cracking under stress, limiting their operational speed,” Maya Carlin previously wrote for The National Interest.
The issues were so significant that the oldest warships of the class were retired years ahead of schedule due to reliability issues, while the crews who served on the warships took to calling them the “Crappy Little Ships!”
After Congress canceled funding for the original mission modules, the LCS program was all but dead in the water.
How Will the LCS Be Reformed as a Minesweeper?
The US Navy has demonstrated remarkable resilience and ingenuity. The Independence-class variants found a role after being fitted with a Mine Countermeasure Mission Package (MCM MP), a suite of unmanned maritime sensors that were developed to locate, identify, and destroy mines in littoral waters.
Some of the Independence-class variants will replace the service’s 14 Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships (MCS). However, it still seems like it was looking to find a solution for a program that may not have been needed in the first place.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a thirty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/US Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Shannon Renfroe.
