[allendale]

Sorry but virtually no surface ships will be immune to attack from stealthy drones or stealthy anti ship missiles. If your location is pinpointed, you can be destroyed and never see your attacker.

[dila813]

Should just scrap them and replace with the aussie catamarans, they can operate in shallow water and they are cheaper.

[ThunderSleeps]

Bring back the Fletcher class with updated engines and sensors. That is all they are allowed to touch for the first flight

[MasterGunner01]

From the beginning, the LCS (aka Little Crappy Ship) has been compromised by two different visions: 1) a platform that could do ASW, anti-air warfare, and mine hunting in shallow waters and 2) extreme high speed (45+ knots) at the expense of armament and crew.

Whoever did the design specifications at NavSea has remained a closely guarded secret, but the result was a “Swoose”. That is, a ship that's part swan and part goose that cannot do either job as well as the single purpose design. To fix this obvious shortcoming, NavSea specified the LCS accommodate various “plug and play” modules to configure it as a submarine hunter, mine hunter, or anti-air platform.

NavSea has said the LCS is a “sub-optimal” ship and its crew is expendable. NavSea has exempted the LCS design from its normal warship design certification procedures. The LCS does not have enough crew to do damage control or avoid work overload or preventative maintenance. Adding crew berthing modules does not alter the fact this highly automated ship was designed for a core crew of 45 and all crew support facilities were designed around that core number. Doubling crew size by adding berthing modules does not help that showers, heads, and messing facilities are designed for 45.

The LCS in either form — LCS-1 USS Freedom or LCS-2 USS Independence — are oversold in abilities and overpriced; they are underarmed, undermanned, and unsurvivable.

[M Kehoe]

No CIWS?

5.56mm

[The Working Man]

I am in favor of a the Littoral Combat Vessels. Just not these ones. They are infected with the Navy’s problem of a Vessel needs to do ‘Everything’.

Part of that in my opinion is that they are limited to the numbers of ships they are allowed to have in the operational inventory. Every time that number drops the more work and missions are put on the others.

Until that changes the Navy will have to do what it does; Make the vessels they have do everything possible to be done.

Once they are allowed and encouraged to expand the fleet then specialized vessels become highly desirable and then concepts like the LCS with a LIMITED mission will be designed and built.