Overview
- USS Cleveland, commissioned Saturday in its namesake city, becomes the 16th and final Freedom-variant littoral combat ship.
- The ship was built by Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Wisconsin and now heads to homeport at Naval Station Mayport under Cmdr. Bruce Hallett after Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao placed it in service.
- The class drew a 2013 Pentagon test verdict of not survivable in combat and later saw a Freedom-variant transmission flaw that paused 2021 deliveries and hull cracks on some Independence ships that restricted operations.
- Costs rose to about $500 million per ship from early $220 million estimates, and the Navy has retired seven LCS while keeping 28 in service after announcing in January it would pause plans to decommission seven more.
- The Navy frames LCS Cleveland as the program’s endpoint as reporting points to a shift toward new frigates, with USNI noting a planned follow-on and Naval Technology reporting the Constellation-class cancellation in late 2025 and criticism of successor concepts.