From Failure To Filler: Why US Navy Can't Quit Its Flawed LCS

As Brent Eastwood noted in an October 2025 National Security Journal (NSJ) article, the ship was designed in the post-9/11 period for low-intensity coastal missions such as counter-piracy, counter-narcotics, mine clearance and limited anti-submarine warfare.

In an era of great power competition, however, Eastwood argues the LCS is poorly suited for near-peer naval conflict, given its light armament and limited survivability against anti-ship missiles.

Technical failures compounded these conceptual shortcomings. A February 2022 US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that LCS operational testing revealed high failure rates in mission-essential propulsion and engineering systems, leading to frequent casualties and aborted deployments.

The report also noted the ship's limited self-defense capability, underperforming modular mission concept, and sustainment problems caused by small crews and heavy reliance on contractors, leaving the class dependent on larger combatants in contested environments.

However, US Navy fleet-sizing problems may give the LCS a temporary, if not second, lease on life. A US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report from April 2025 notes the growing gap between China and the US in hull numbers.

The report notes that China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surpassed the US Navy in total battle force ships between 2015 and 2020, reaching more than 370 ships by 2024, with projections of about 395 by 2025 and 435 by 2030.

By comparison, the report states that the US stood at 296 battle force ships in September 2024 and, under the FY2025 budget plan, is projected to decline to about 294 ships by 2030 before any later recovery.

The report stresses that this short-term US dip, combined with China's sustained construction pace and larger shipbuilding capacity, is driving concern in the US Congress and Department of Defense (DoD) about worsening numerical and industrial imbalances in the 2020s.

Rather than fixing the LCS's design flaws, the US Navy is increasingly seeking to redefine what usefulness looks like for a limited ship in an era of fleet scarcity.

Matthew Hipple argues in a June 2025 Proceedings article that the US Navy, with its LCS, and the US Marine Corps should leverage the Littoral Expeditionary Organic Network (LEON) concept to create a flexible, cost-effective littoral force package.

According to Hipple, the LCS is a well-suited platform for distributed operations in green-to-blue transition zones - particularly where US Marine units conduct advanced base operations - because of its mission bay modularity, high speed, and aviation support capabilities.

He notes that by integrating LCS with US Marine Corps maneuver elements under the LEON concept, the services can improve maneuver, sustainment, and mine-countermeasures capability in littoral seas.

Hipple emphasizes that this approach emphasizes adaptability over traditional high-end combat roles, proposing that the LCS's modular payloads and ability to operate with US Marine forces amplify its operational utility in low- and mid-intensity scenarios.

However, Bradley Martin argues in a July 2025 RAND report that the LCS was initially designed as a flexible platform for various mission payloads, but system integration challenges limited this goal.

Martin points out that the class mainly serves as a replacement for the Avenger-class mine warfare vessels and lacks the capability for other specialized missions, restricting its role in crises.