16 April 2018. Moderator. There was a very interesting article in USNI News, about the Littoral Combat Ships. Both varieties of the LCS are having troubles. The article says that none of these vessels will be deployed operationally in 2018. Due to delays, retrofitting requirements, maintenance, mishaps, testing, etc., the plan to send two Independence-class LCSs to Singapore and one Freedom-class LCS to Bahrain this year probably won’t happen. Few of the ships have been deployed and four of the ships have been relegated to training. And the article notes that because the trimaran-hull Independence-class requires a dry dock for virtually any maintenance, and navy drydocks are in short supply, this will make the ships even less available for deployment. Some people question the whole LCS program – I’ve seen the ships referred to as Little Crappy Ships – and note that what were supposed to be cheap, flexible, efficient and deployable ships are none of the above. See Megan Eckstein, "Navy May Not Deploy Any Littoral Combat Ships This Year," 11 April 2018, USNI, https://news.usni.org/2018/04/11/navy-may-not-deploy-littoral-combat-ships-year
