- Author
- Editorial Staff
- Subjects
- Ship design and development, History - post WWII
- Tags
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- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- December 2023 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
The June edition of this magazine announced the commissioning of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) USS Canberra in Sydney on 22 July 2023. Less than a month later it came as a surprise when news was received of the decommissioning of another LCS, USS Sioux City, after being in service for less than five years, amongst the shortest lifespans of a United States ship since World War II.
In replacing its aging Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates the USN sought to create a small, fast, manoeuvrable, inexpensive ship that could be reconfigured to differing combat roles. This was the genesis of the Littoral Combat Ship. With aluminium hulls they were light weight, and without conventional propellers they drew less water; requiring less maintenance they were minimum manned. They were built in two variants, the Freedom class with a mono hull and the Independence class with a trimaran hull. It was originally intended to have a total of 55 vessels between the two variants built at two separate yards. These vessels were expected to be in commission for 25 years. The first, USS Freedom, LCS-1, commissioned on 8 November 2008 and USS Independence, LCS-2, commissioned on 16 January 2010.
The program was soon in trouble with engineering problems and reports that neither variant could withstand the Navy’s full ship shock trials, and their survivability in a hostile combat environment was suspect. While these problems were being addressed the program was trimmed back to 35 vessels of 16 Freedom type and 19 Independence type. In 2017 the USN announced plans to replace the LCS with a new guided-missile frigate and this was followed in 2021 by the planned early retirement of some LCS vessels. To date, even before the last of the class have been completed, three Freedoms and two Independences have been decommissioned.
The following information, which appeared in Maritime News dated 16 August 2023, provides a background of the life of USS Sioux City.
In a ceremony at Naval Station Mayport on Monday, the Freedom class littoral combat ship USS Sioux City was decommissioned 20 years ahead of her expected lifespan. The vessel was the most accomplished of her class, having deployed four times for operations overseas. Sioux City headed into retirement four years and nine months after she was commissioned. According to naval commentator Chris Cavas, this ranks among the fastest decommissioning since the Second World War.
During her brief time in service, the ship deployed to the US Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Fleets. She was the first and only LCS to operate in the US Fifth Fleet, the main region where the class was designed to serve. She also carried out successful counter-narcotics patrols in the US Fourth Fleet, helping US Coast Guard boarding teams capture over 10,000 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $500 million.
‘It’s tempting to engross oneself with the finality of the process. Let us not lose sight of the memories we have made, the culture we have built, successes we have had and will endure forever,’ said Commander Michael Gossett, Sioux City‘s last commanding officer.
The US Navy has an interest in offloading its Freedom class LCS vessels, which have high maintenance and operating costs but limited lethality and survivability in a high-end fight. The ultimate cancellation of a planned anti-submarine warfare package also removed the ships’ utility as a platform for sub-hunting. The third-party ASW package for the Freedom-class was cancelled in 2022 after repeated developmental delays, and according to then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday, the small warships are ‘as noisy as an aircraft carrier’ – an inbuilt challenge for sensitive ASW sonar systems.
In 2022, the service proposed early retirement for every commissioned vessel of the type then in service, a total of nine hulls. The House Appropriations Committee limited this divestment plan to four ships in the FY2023 spending bill.
The Freedom class was designed by an aircraft manufacturer, and the Navy specified an unusually high top speed and low cost as its key design requirements. Achieving 40-plus knots in an affordable, conventionally-powered monohull meant accepting tradeoffs for armament and armour, resulting in a lightly-armed patrol vessel with limited utility in a near-peer conflict. This concern was identified by the program’s critics as early as 2016.
Later News
We are further informed that the Freedom class USS Milwaukee LCS-5 which commissioned in November 2015 decommissioned at Mayport, Florida on 8 September 2023 after less than eight years of service and the US Ships DetroitLCS-7 and Little Rock LCS-9 also decommissioned on 29 September 2023 after respectively six and seven years of naval service.
In comparison we note that the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill decommissioned at San Diego on 22 September 2023 after more than 37 years of naval service. It is also of interest that the latest Freedom variant USS Marinette LCS-25 commissioned in Menominee, Michigan on 16 September 2023 and the Independence variant USS Augusta LCS-34 commissioned at Eastport, Maine on 30 September 2023.
The torque produced by the high-powered power plant also proved too much for the vessel’s original combining gear, destroying clutch bearings and requiring expensive gearbox replacements. This problem has been fixed for the additional Freedom class LCS hulls still under construction.
Both the Freedom class and the (entirely different) Independence class Littoral Combat Ships are costly to operate – nearly as costly as a combat-capable Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, according to 2021 budget projections. Navy officials say that it would be less expensive to down-select to a single LCS design, keeping the Independence class and treating most of the early Freedom class hulls as a sunk cost.
The Navy could have taken the choice to down-select to one hull design at the outset of LCS production in 2010-11, but opted to continue with two separate programs. It considered the same choice during a review in 2017 and again opted to keep both.