Out of time

The answer to this guest blog post at Information Dissemination called, “Littoral Combat Ship: give it time”, should be ‘no’.

I could point to many faulty points of reasoning in the piece but this will do:

"Look, LCS isn’t perfect -- by any stretch. But it’s still experimental. It’s still a bit like Humphrey’s Constellation and Ericcson’s Monitor when they first joined the fleet. New and untried, yes, but valuable in their own way to making us a more capable Navy. It just takes a little time to prove the concept. Sailors didn’t exactly clamor for PT-boat duty in World War II until it became a tactically proven and exciting option for them."

There is no more time. There is not money to waste on a faulty corvette with a destroyer price tag. The program should be killed so that the money can be used for something else of value.

The same can be said of the F-35 and the Stryker: monumental failures for each of the services.

And, killing the LCS now may actually save some lives.