Littoral Combat Ships, The US Navy's $22Bn Vessels That Don't Work

Comments · 1.9K

• ME

  @megaprojects9649 · 10 months ago · pinned

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• DU

  @dustinkh92 · 10 months ago

  You managed to post this on the same day the Constellation class got cancelled.

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• TS

  @tsundokujim · 10 months ago

  Corruption isn&apos;t a side-effect of these kinds of projects; it is the project. The barely functional systems that ultimately get delivered are whatever could be scraped together from the scraps left over after all the grifters get paid.

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• JO

  @jobias514 · 10 months ago

  Hilariously, today (Nov 25 2025) it was announced that the LCS&apos; &quot;pragmatic&quot; successor, the Constellation class, has also been cancelled.

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• WL

  @wli2718 · 10 months ago

  how can anyone argue these ships to be failure? have you ever tried to make $20B for selling something that doesnt work? thats gotta be world class, leading edge sales and marketing skills.

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• LO

  @LordOfCinder85 · 10 months ago

  These Ships are so fast that they get through their expected service life in half the time.

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• ME

  @Mediatech492 · 10 months ago

  Admiral: Our ships leak.<br>Politician: Drill a hole in the bottom to let the water flow out.

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• JI

  @jimtalbott9535 · 10 months ago

  “The first rule of government spending - why buy one, when you can have two at twice the price?”<br>- S R Hadden, Contact

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• RE

  @RealInsomnis · 10 months ago

  What’s absolutely funny is that these same ships (specifically the Independence variant) were included in Cars 2 working for a bunch of lemon cars

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• MR

  @mrteacher1315 · 10 months ago

  Actually, LCS did work! &nbsp;It made LOT OF MONEY for military-industrial complex!

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• SU

  @SuperRage1998 · 10 months ago

  The fact that modularity was pitched without the procurement aperatus saying &quot;design me a plug and socket system that fits every mission package that you pitched us&quot; is just wild to me. Forget the hull, they should have had to prove you can actually make a swiss army knife mechanism. Every state could have gotten a different mission package to build and actual logistical benefits could have been realized.

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• PL

  @Plaprad · 10 months ago

  You forgot the maintenance set up. A lot of tasks that the crew were trained to do for maintaining the ship in the long term was considered &quot;proprietary&quot; to the builder. Therefore, could only be done by the builder. One of them had a maintenance task come due overseas that would have cost the crew a few tens of thousands of dollars to do in a few days. But, the crew wasn&apos;t allowed, and the Navy had to spend millions to fly contractors out, do the job as slow as possible, and fly them and their equipment back. <br><br>The whole program was basically a textbook example of graft at all levels of the government. <br><br>I had friends in Alabama who still tout how amazing it is, not because it&apos;s a game-changer in warfare, but it gave a family member a steady job. Needless to say I don&apos;t have much to do with them anymore.

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