The US Navy commissioned the last of its 35 littoral combat ships, the Manitowoc, WI-built USS Cleveland, earlier this month at a pier in its namesake Ohio city. “Steel. Strength. Power,” acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao posted on social media to mark the occasion.
Critics of the littoral combat ship (LCS) program had some other descriptions. “Easy meat,” said one. “An experiment that didn’t work,” said another.
USS Cleveland heads for its namesake port for commissioning recently. [US Navy]
“One of the worst boondoggles in the military’s long history of buying overpriced and underperforming weapons systems,” the ProPublica report said.
The LCS are at what the Navy calls the “low-end” of its surface ship fleet. They’re smaller than its guided-missile destroyers, carry fewer crew, and have less firepower and defenses, but they’re faster and able to operate in more shallow waters.
But after the ships have been plagued by a range of mechanical failures and mishaps since the first one was commissioned in 2008, they’ve earned a derisive interpretation of the LCS acronym, “little crappy ships.”
After the Cleveland entered the fleet last weekend on the shores of Lake Erie, the big question became – what now for the LCS?
Read the full story here: https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/27/us/us-navy-last-littoral-combat-ship-hnk-intl-ml
