The Argument the LCS Classes are Really Frigates

The die is cast and the U.S. Navy has made its big bet – the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)-Next is going to be an uparmed and uparmored version of the current vessels that the service has redesignated as an FF, or fast frigate.

"These are not ‘L' class ships," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said last month during his keynote address at the Surface Navy Association (SNA) National Symposium. "When I hear ‘L,’ I think amphib. I spend a good bit of my time explaining what ‘littoral’ is." It is a good time, he says, to re-establish Navy tradition for naming ships properly. "It’s a frigate. We’re going to call it one."

Of course calling it one won’t make it one. Many doubt the idea that that the modified LCS will live up to the true definition of a frigate. But perhaps it's about time to give the Navy a chance to prove out its case. The service brass says it has the ships it wants and everyone can argue over the next few years whether the decision is a good one, but the truth is that only time will tell whether the gamble will be worth it. Indeed, with the new Navy focus on “distributive lethality,” where every ship will be armed up as much as possible, it’s difficult and perhaps impossible now to foresee how the new FFs will fare in the future force structure.

Having said that, it’s also time to clear up a few things about LCS performance thus far that factored into the Navy’s LCS-FF decision.

link.

Its an FFL, bit an FF.  (corvette, not a frigate)