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" Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has instructed the U.S. Navy to cut orders of its troubled Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) from 52 to 40, and directed that the money go toward other programs. The LCS program has suffered from repeated delays in fielding equipment to make the ships fully functional. Originally meant to be a smaller, scrappier surface combatant for fighting near-shore environments, the Littoral Combat Ship morphed into two different ships in the 2,800-3,000 ton class\u2014one made by Lockheed Martin and the other by Australian shipmaker Austal. Part of the Secretary of Defense order is that the Navy choose one design and cancel the other.\u00A0 Littoral Combat Ships are designed with a minimum of built-in equipment\u2014the ships have only a single 57-millimeter gun and smaller light guns\u2014the rest installed via swappable &amp;quot;modules&amp;quot; offering specialized capabilities, that can be changed out at forward bases in just a few days.\u00A0 This would allow a single ship to act as a frigate, a minehunter, or a submarine hunter, with minimal modifications in the field.\u00A0 The reality is that the modules are not working as advertised. The anti-submarine warfare module is currently too heavy and the Navy is working on ways to reduce its weight. The anti-surface warfare module\u2014for use against enemy ships large and small\u2014is still in development, with a missile suitable for tackling larger ships still not chosen. The mine-hunting module is also having problems, with the mine-hunting robot unable to actually find mines. Some modules have been in development for nine years. Even the &amp;quot;easy swap&amp;quot; module concept itself is in jeopardy, with the process actually taking more like 3 weeks. Currently six Littoral Combat Ships serve in the Navy, without a single mission module to share among them. All of this has made the LCS vulnerable to having its budget drained to support other, competing programs. The money taken from the program will go to buy more F/A-18EF Super Hornets, which naval aviation wants to offset delays in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. Funds will also go to the new SM-6 surface to air missile, a new missile capable of downing cruise missiles, aircraft,\u00A0and ballistic missiles.\u00A0 The other winner is the Virginia Payload Module, a program that extends the length of the Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines, adding more cruise missiles and the ability to launch and recover unmanned underwater vehicles.\u00A0 The Littoral Combat Ship has been an ambitious program that has\u2014so far\u2014failed to the deliver. Without mission modules\u2014some of which will be unlikely to be ready for the fleet for at least two years\u2014the ships are only slightly better armed then Coast Guard cutters. If the Navy can&amp;#039;t justify the program by making\u00A0\u00A0them work, the entire LCS program will be at risk of being cancelled.\u00A0 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a18638/us-cuts-numbers-of-smallest-navy-ship/>