The last true fleet vs fleet battle seen on Earth happened in World War II, when the US Navy bumbled and stumbled to a victory over Japan in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The following 50 years saw the US Navy become the seaborne Air Force, with the fleet concentrating around the aircraft carrier and escort ships designed to protect those high-value ($4.5 billion) assets. (h/t to Stranded Wind.) The only threat to US dominance of the seas was the submarine force of the Soviet Union, now long defunct. Hostile navies, including the Russian and Chinese, are no threat to our supremacy. Even the Admirals admit this.
Since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has been searching for a mission beyond supporting land operations via carrier air strike. Disastrous moments in the Middle East revealed a service not designed to cope with modern asymmetric warfare. But after typical Navy fumbling, the Admirals think they've found the answer.
Behold the Littoral Combat Ship. Or both of them. I'll explain.
This is LCS 1, USS Freedom. Built in Wisconsin by a group headed by Lockheed Martin, she's steel-hulled with an aluminum superstructure, crazy fast (47 knots) and crewed by a max of 75 officers and sailors.
Here's the competing design, USS Independence:
Built in Mobile by a group headed by General Dynamics, she's a 44-knot trimaran design, all-aluminum, also crewed by around 75 and larger than Freedom. The Navy has to decide between the two and hopes to build 10-20 more over the next few years, replacing the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates that are approaching their useful end.
Despite an acquisition process that has been a total mess, with epic screw-ups by both the builders and the Navy, I'm a big fan of this concept and these ships. The Navy has for years focused on the big, blue-water fleet action against an enemy that has never appeared. Instead, highly capable (read: obscenely expensive) ships have been called upon to operate in crowded, shallow water. Sensor suites designed to detect and engage dozens of supersonic bombers and missiles hundreds of miles away instead were trying to pick out hostile speed boats hiding between islands and tankers. The results weren't that good. Secondly, big expensive ships mean a Navy can't build as many as might be needed for an area patrol mission, such as the current anti-piracy patrols off the Horn of Africa. Somali pirates aren't going to attack an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, they're going to avoid being anywhere in the area. Thus, a bunch of smaller, less capable (expensive) ships with helicopters and fewer sailors can control a bigger area than one $1.2 Billion ship.
I believe these ships are the way to go forward for the Navy, because the mission (if there ever was one) has changed. Today's world requires sea control of the 18th century style, protecting sea lanes from asymmetric threats, rather than a huge battle fleet gearing up to fight an ocean-wide war that will never happen. I'm sure that we'll keep our carriers; the Navy loves its air power and too many Americans remember Tom Cruise zapping the Commies before getting the girl in Top Gun, but the rest of the fleet needs to be pared down and replaced with less expensive toys.
These ships, at $450 million each when in mass producion, represent a cut in military spending compared to the insane alternative. I know that many will disagree with me on that wording and would rather just cancel the program. My response is this: the Navy and the MIC are going to get their toys. It's a question of what kind of toys we're going to get them, ridiculous ships that can do everything except what we're trying to accomplish, or cheaper ships that address what we're going to face in the future.
Of the two LCS designs, I'm hoping the Navy chooses the Freedom class. It's smaller, less expensive (so far) and most importantly, steel-hulled. After all, warships sail into harm's way and aluminum construction has shown significant drawbacks over the years. While the superstructure is aluminum, which would leave it vulnerable to a disaster similar to the one linked above, at least the ship would be salvageable and better able to withstand battle damage. Freedom has already been deployed on an anti-smuggling mission in the Caribbean and is now involved in the RIMPAC 2010 exercise, while Independence needs some more evaluation and testing. One more of each ship has already been ordered before the Navy makes a decision.