The Navy is procuring a new type of surface combatant called the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). The LCS is a small, fast, relatively inexpensive combat ship that is to be equipped with modular 'plug-and-fight' mission packages, including unmanned vehicles (UVs). The basic version of the LCS, without any mission packages, is referred to as the LCS sea frame. The Navy wants to procure a total of 55 LCSs. The Navy's planned force of 55 LCSs accounts for about 18% of its planned fleet of 313 ships of all types. The first ship in the program (LCS-1) was commissioned into service on Nov 8, 2008. The Navy substantially restructured the LCS program in 2007 in response to significant cost growth and construction delays in the program. Congress originally funded a total of seven LCS sea frames in the FY2005-FY2008 defense budgets. The Navy subsequently canceled four of those ships as part of its 2007 restructuring of the program. The Navy in 2008 canceled another one of these ships -- the single LCS funded in FY2008 -- following Congress's decision, as part of its action on the FY2009 defense budget, to rescind the funding for that ship. Thus, of the seven LCSs funded in the FY2005-FY2008 defense budgets, a total of five were later canceled. The LCS program through FY2009 now includes four ships: LCS-1 (funded in FY2005), LCS-2 (funded in FY2006), plus two more LCSs funded in FY2009. The Navy has projected that it will request funds for three more LCSs for FY2010. Section 122 of the compromise version of the FY2009 defense authorization bill (S. 3001) delays the implementation of the LCS sea frame unit procurement cost to ships procured in FY2010 and subsequent years. The compromise version of the FY2009 defense appropriations bill provides $1,020 million ($100 million more than requested) for the procurement of two LCSs. Section 8042 of the bill rescinds $337 million in FY2008 shipbuilding funds for the LCS program, canceling the funding for the LCS procured in FY2008.


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