USN commissions Freedom-variant LCS 21
Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul. (Photo: USN)
USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul will be based at Naval Station Mayport in Florida.
The USN on 21 May commissioned the Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS 21), which is the first vessel in the class to receive a fix to a long-running combining gear problem.
The USN accepted delivery of Minneapolis-Saint Paul in November 2021 following rigorous testing of a modification to the Freedom-variant’s combining gear.
The USN had paused deliveries of the Freedom-variant due to a class-wide design flaw.
The commissioning comes as the USN has requested the retirement of nine other ships of the variant as part of the US DoD’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget request.
The US said the decision to retire the nine Freedom-variant LCS was partly due to it scrapping the LCS ASW mission package.
One of the Freedom-variant LCS the USN wants to retire in 2023, USS St Louis (LCS 19), was only commissioned in 2020, meaning it will have served for three years in the USN fleet.
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