Chinese See U.S. Littoral Combat Ship as ‘Powerful Tool’ in Future Distributed Conflicts - USNI...

The concept was awesome. The implementation sucked big time. We had to retire them because they flat out didn't work on most levels. The engineering plant was a disaster that cost more than the cost of the ship to keep working and they never knew when the propulsion would fail (kinda sucks when your in combat). The idea of swapping out mission modules was a failure, so they each ended up becoming a single mission ship with no flexibility. So, for the same price, you can buy 2 Raleigh Burke DDG's, that is a proven multi mission capable platform. Sure, it doesn't have an advertised speed of 40+ knots like the littoral, but neither did the littorals either, except for sea trials.

I agree. Why are we retiring vessels that appear to have real serviceable lives yet to give? I understand budgetary concerns, and manpower, but why not more of these smaller ships and fewer carriers? Seems the force structure is geared towards multibillion dollar ships that need escort vessels, that cost hundreds of millions. Wonder if we shouldn't de-mothball some older, better armored vessels, refurbish and update and return to the fleet. I am no expert but this makes sense. Sort of why the Air Force doesn't retire the BUFF (why? because it still works).

Or they are making the same dumb mistake we did