Small Combat Ships and the Future of the Navy: The Navy is Wisely Preparing to Introduce a New Ship Design, But It should Evaluate the Prototypes Comprehensively Before Moving Into Production (Littoral Combat Ship‪)‬

In November 2001, the U.S. Navy announced a new family of 21st century surface warships that includes a small, focused-mission combatant called the Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS. The LCS would be a fast, stealthy warship designed specifically for operations in shallow coastal waters. It would have a modular mission payload, allowing it to take on three naval threats--diesel submarines, mines, and small "swarming" boats--but only one at a time. Inclusion of the LCS in the Navy's future plans caught many by surprise. Just one year earlier, the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan pointedly excluded any mention of small, modular, focused-mission combatants. And throughout the 2001 defense program review, an effort conducted at the start of every new administration, the Navy had panned the idea of small warships. It had instead supported a future fleet comprising multimission warships, the smallest of which had a displacement of 9,000 tons. Small warships are those having a displacement of less than 3,000 tons; the LCS would displace about 2,700 to 2,900 tons.