U.S. Plans to Make Six New Vessels Available for Sale

The U.S. Navy plans to decommission and make six littoral combat ships available for sale through its Foreign Military Sales program in the next two years.

The War Zone publication reported about this.

Two Independence class vessels and four Freedom class vessels are included in the ships intended for scrapping and sale abroad. The oldest and youngest of the ships intended to be sold have been in service for just under eight years and just under three years, respectively.

Indications that the U.S. Navy plans to sell six of its LCSs were presented in its recent 2024 long-range shipbuilding plan.

The shipbuilding plan stipulates that in the 2024 Fiscal Year, the Independence class vessels USS Jackson and Montgomery will be made available for sale via the Navy’s FMS program. Those ships were commissioned in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Then, in the 2025 Fiscal Year, the Freedom class vessels USS Wichita, Billings, Indianapolis, and St Louis will similarly be made available for sale via the FMS program. Those vessels were commissioned in 2019 and 2020.

Troubled ships

One of the arguments for abandoning the ships is that they were test and training facilities and served to work out solutions that are used today on ships in the littoral zone. Rejecting their modernization allows resources to be redistributed to more urgent needs.

Freedom class LCSs and Independence class LCSs have proven to be extremely expensive to operate. As The War Zone previously reported, it’s been suggested that the annual cost of running a single LCS amounts to around $70 million, compared to approximately $81 million for an Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer (DDG).

During a hearing of the US Senate Appropriations Committee, Admiral Michael Gilday, the U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations made a statement about the limited “war value” of littoral combat ships linked to the troubled anti-submarine warfare package, which has been in development for a long time. The package of anti-submarine weapons, he said, is “simply ineffective.”

There will also likely be significant costs to repair and modify the vessels for whoever buys them. Since their conception, multiple design problems have cut across both LCS classes. Perhaps most notably, the Freedom class has suffered issues with its propulsion system, preventing the vessels from meeting their intended performance potential.

Sale of LCS class vessels

It is currently unknown whether the U.S. Navy has already identified buyers or potential buyers for these ships. In the recently released shipbuilding plan, the service notes that “vessels intended for sale to foreign customers are kept in the appropriate status for no more than two years in accordance with FMS policy.”

It certainly remains to be seen who might be interested in buying examples of either vessel class, and what uses they might be put to after their time with the U.S. Navy. The price they will pay for these nearly new ships, which cost around half a billion dollars each, is another big question.