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CNN: US Navy commissions last littoral combat ship, ending decades-long program
The controversial program has faced cost and readiness criticism, and the Navy plans to keep the ships until new frigates enter service.
- The U.S. Navy commissioned the USS Cleveland, the final of its 35 littoral combat ships, earlier this month at a pier in its namesake Ohio city.
- Navy planners sought smaller platforms for coastal environments and selected two distinct designs from Lockheed Martin and Austal USA, though critics argue Admiral Vern Clark decided on the ship before defining its mission.
- Plagued by mechanical failures since 2008, the program has earned the derisive interpretation of "little crappy ships," while costs pegged at $60 billion could top $100 billion according to ProPublica reporting.
- Former Navy Captain Carl Schuster and analyst Emma Salisbury question the ships' combat utility, arguing they lack sufficient defenses for high-threat scenarios despite Navy upgrades announced in 2025.
- The Navy plans to keep the LCS fleet operational until new frigates enter service in 3-4 years, after which the ships will be quietly retired one or two at a time.
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At the beginning of this month, the U.S. Navy incorporated the last of its 35 coastal combat vessels, the USS Cleveland, on a dock in the city of Ohio that gives it its name.
The last ?small gangherata ship? headlines a deepening of the CNN remembering that at the beginning of May the U.S. Navy launched the last of its 35 ships...
After the ships have been affected by a series of mechanical failures and incidents since the first was commissioned in 2008, they have gained a depreciative interpretation of the acronym LCS: "little crabpy ships"
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Total News Sources14
Leaning Left1Leaning Right0Center12Last UpdatedBias Distribution92% Center
Bias Distribution
- 92% of the sources are Center
92% Center
C 92%
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