The Great U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ship Reboot Has Arrived

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Key Points: The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, initially criticized for its lack of firepower and technical flaws, is being revitalized with significant upgrades.

-These include the addition of Mk.70 Payload Delivery Systems, allowing the deployment of long-range missiles like the SM-6 and Tomahawk.

-While this enhances offensive capabilities, it limits the versatility of LCSs, particularly their aviation and mine-countermeasure roles.

-Despite distributed firepower benefits, challenges remain, including limited air defenses and reliance on larger warships for sensor and radar coverage.

-Future concepts may integrate defensive missiles or transition to unmanned alternatives for cost-effective and risk-reduced operations.

Revamped Littoral Combat Ship: Will Mk.70 Missiles Save the LCS Program?

The flaws bedeviling the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program are many and infamous. 

Among the easiest to grasp was how their initially short-range-only armament meant they were absurdly under-gunned compared even to smaller missile boats and corvettes operated by Russia and China.

But that changed, according to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. Besides Naval Strike Missile launchers already installed on some LCSs, “…eventually many will receive the Mark 70 Payload Delivery System…vertical launch system technology,” he stated at a symposium in December. 

This means that between one and three boxy trailers the size of a standard 40-foot shipping container will be bolted onto some LCS flight decks, allowing them to spit out powerful, long-range missiles currently the preserve of large U.S. destroyers, submarines, and cruisers. 

Notably, in October 2023, the Navy test-fired an SM-6 missile from Independence-class LCS USS Savannah—a powerful and versatile supersonic weapon capable of both air defense and surface attack tasks.

LCSs could support up to three containers carrying four missiles each. A max of 12 long-range missiles admittedly amounts to just one-eighth the firepower of one of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. 

However, it would allow the Navy to spatially spread out offensive firepower for operational and tactical benefits, which aligns with the service’s doctrine of ‘distributed firepower.’ 

Littoral Combat Ship Gets More Weapons…For a Price 

That’s s all great—as long as you don’t need to use the flight deck. 

Currently, these provide LCSs with anti-submarine and mine-countermeasure warfare, search and rescue, personnel and logistics transport, and even air attack capabilities.

 Indeed, the superior aviation facilities of LCSs—particularly the Independence-class, which has space for two helicopters—have long been touted as one of their big selling points.

Indeed, Del Toro noted such “added capabilities” would feature on LCSs “particularly in the Pacific,” contrasting them with LCSs equipped for mine-countermeasure missions bound for the Persian Gulf. 

Helicopters are especially helpful if trying to sweep mines over a larger area. The MH-60S ‘Knighthawk’ helicopters embarked on LCSs can carry Air Launched Mine Detection Systems employing a laser to scan the water for mines for subsequent dispatch by a 30-millimeter Mk.44 autocannon or air-dropped underwater vehicles. 

Currently, the Navy plans to retain 15 trimaran Independence-class LCSs for mine countermeasure missions based in Bahrain and Japan, while 10 more conventional-looking Freedom-class LCSs are armed for surface warfare.

So, taking on long-range firepower means trading away a substantial aspect of the LCS’s support-role versatility. That’s unfortunate, but in keeping with LCS’s original concept of modularity—not the ability to do everything simultaneously, but the capacity to reconfigure in response to mission requirements. 

Whether the Navy foresees swapping Mk.70s on and off is unclear, though, as del Toro’s language seems to imply relatively permanent fitting.

Why the Littoral Combat Ship Needed More Firepower

In the early 2000s, the LCS program sought to build a new generation of small, agile, stealthy, and, above all, cheap corvette-sized warships able to slot in modular mission payloads (surface warfare, anti-submarine, or counter-mine) to reduce the demands placed on the Navy’s big, expensive destroyers to perform support and ‘presence’ missions across the globe facing presumably weak coast-based adversaries.

At the end of protracted development, the two resulting types of LCSs wound up costing over twice the advertised price, requiring over 50% more crew, and their modular mission-equipment concept proved unfeasible. 

Worse, Freedom-class vessels suffered frequent breakdowns at sea due to flaws with the combining gears of their hybrid diesel/gas-turbine propulsion systems. 

And, of course, by the 2010s, the LCS’s exclusively short-range armament was comically mismatched with the Navy’s new priority: preparing for potential conflict with a Chinese military bristling with long-range anti-ship weapons.

Navy leaders ended up battling Congress to halt further procurement even as the service ruthlessly decommissioned early seven early-production LCSs that would have required costly refitting. Now, the Navy is betting on a new multi-role frigate class (between a corvette and destroyer in size and capability), though that program is in trouble, too.

Still, the Navy plans to retain 25 LCSs—and these still have the potential to alleviate severe over-burdening of the Navy’s destroyers. 

Thus, the Navy’s Over-the-Horizon Weapon System program sought to remedy the firepower gap, starting with the addition of  two launchers on the bow able to fire eight subsonic NSM anti-ship missiles between them (max range 120 or 160 miles depending on variant.) 

Now, the addition of the Mk.70 expands combat range considerably using supersonic SM-6 multi-role missiles (estimated 300+ miles and set to grow with new Block 1B model) and slower Tomahawk cruise missiles (1,000+ miles)

Distributing Firepower to the Little Guys

The Navy’s mainstay Arleigh Burke destroyers, each counting 90-96 Mark 41 vertical-launch system cells recessed in their hulls. (Soon-to-be-retired Ticonderoga-class cruisers have 122.) Each can carry various offensive and defensive missiles effective at different ranges against different targets. 

Common U.S. Navy Missile Payloads for Mark 41 VLS
RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow	Short-to-medium range air defense. Quad-packable.
SM-2 Standard	Long-range air defense
SM-3 Block IB, II, IIA	Anti-ballistic missile defense (MRBM, IRBM, ICBM)
SM-6	Anti-ballistic missile defense (SRBM-IRBM), long-range air defense, time-sensitive surface-attack
SM-6 Block IB	Long-range time-sensitive surface-attack
Tomahawk	Long-range surface attack
RUM-139C ASROC	Standoff anti-submarine missile

These big warships rationalize their firepower via the Aegis Combat System, which coordinates air defense fires aided by Cooperative Engagement technology that enables an enemy detected by any friendly platform (plane, ship, satellite, drone, etc.) to be attacked by another platform in the network.

Retroactively trying to burrow Mark 41s inside tightly packed LCS’ hulls is impossible. 

But the Mk.70 systems (also used by the Army’s new Typhon missile units) can simply be plonked onto spare deck space. The Mk.70 (and thus implicitly the Mark 41) also recently demonstrated the capability to launch the Army’s Patriot air defense missiles.

While destroyers are more efficient, the Navy fears relying too much on small numbers of big warships, which could be overwhelmed by concentrated attacks. So, it’s ‘distributed firepower’ doctrine seeks to spread out missile shots across more platforms to concentrate fewer eggs in one basket and complicate enemy targeting. A distributed force can strike from more angles at once to confuse and overwhelm enemy defenses.

There are complications: defense against enemy missiles is particularly enhanced by the powerful radars and jammers on big warships—which also carry more air defense missiles. Clearly, the further a ‘distributed’ ship operates from destroyer-grade air defenses, the more vulnerable it becomes.

The Mark 70 now introduces the option that any ship with spare deck space and electrical capacity—say, an amphibious assault ship or even a civilian container ship—could theoretically be configured as moving missile batteries at sea, ideally contributing shots from behind a screen of more combat-optimized surface warships.

Notably, such vessels would lack the sensors needed to acquire distant targets. 

Still, as surface warships often direct long-range surface attacks at map coordinates based on reconnaissance by other platforms, this is acceptable for attack roles.

Can LCS Be Defensive? 

Yemen’s Houthi rebels might seem like exactly the kind of littoral-range threat LCSs were initially conceived to deal with in the 2000s. 

But none have been deployed in the Navy’s over-year-long campaign attempting to defend passage of those waters.

At a symposium in August, I asked the Navy’s commander of surface forces, Vice Admiral Brendan McClane, why. He explained they were unsuitable due to radar challenges in the Red Sea (including clutter produced by sand blown over the water) and the lack of Aegis Combat Systems on LCSs to manage threats posed by Houthi ballistic and cruise missiles.

But if the Houthis are too dangerous for LCSs, what of Iran and its extensive anti-ship capabilities along the narrow Persian Gulf? 

What of China in the Western Pacific? 

While the Navy can afford to keep LCSs from shooting wars, they would unavoidably be exposed to higher risks in a significant conflict.

Though LCSs have SeaRAM missile launchers (capacity: 21 missiles) and autocannons for close-range self-defense, they lack medium-range or greater air defense. 

Moreover, their sensors and SSCOMBAT-21 combat systems lack the full capabilities of Aegis systems on U.S. destroyers and their vastly longer-range radars. 

Fortunately, the long-range attack options opened by the Mk.70 offer opportunities to reduce the volume of enemy capabilities within range to retaliate. The stealthiness of LCS hulls should also make them harder to detect at long range, though admittedly, the Mk.70 containers may increase the vessel’s radar cross-section. 

However, it’s also possible Mk.70s could be armed with defensive surface-to-air missiles to extend the short-range coverage of their air defenses—though the Navy has yet to publicly indicate its interest in this more technically challenging use concept. 

Sensors and control systems pose issues. For example, an LCS can demonstrably fire an SM-6 missile capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. 

Still, its radar can’t see as far as the missile can fly, and its combat system wasn’t designed for ballistic missile defense. It may be possible to network with nearby destroyers to provide needed sensor and fire control coverage, though this involves tethering the LCS to the destroyer’s radar ‘bubble.’

Another intriguing concept is to focus on short-to-medium-range air defense using the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) with a range of 31+ miles. This is more comfortably within the range of LCS radars—and four can be stuffed into one Mk.41 cell.

 That means one Mk.70 might carry 12 ESSMs, allowing up to 36 per LCS. Such a ‘pocket air defense corvette’ might provide cruise missile defense where guided missile destroyers can’t be spared.

Littoral Combat Ship Sails Into the Future 

Still, it’s unclear whether the air defense concept of operations is realistic given its technical complications. For now, the Navy has only talked up surface-attack concepts for Mk.70s—a surer shot given the reduced complexity of execution.

However, the LCS’s potential as a pocket-missile platform should also be weighed against a compelling alternative: the planned ‘Ghost Fleet’ including 1,000-to-2,000-tons displacement LUSV-class drone warships carrying one or two dozen Mark 41 launchers and Aegis combat systems. Even smaller 500-ton MUSVs have proven adaptable to deploying Mk.70 container launchers.

Operating alongside Navy destroyers, crewless LUSVs might cost-efficiently provide the Navy’s spatially distributed firepower nodes—whilst not incurring the risks of losing dozens of crew when inevitably individually less well-defended small vessels are hit by enemy fire.

About the Author: Sebastien A. Roblin

Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com, War is Boring and 19FortyFive, where he is Defense-in-Depth editor.  He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.