Latest US Littoral Combat Ship To Be Named In Saturday Ceremony In Wisconsin - Navy

The naming for the 21st warship of the littoral combat ship (LCS) class will be conducted at a ceremony in the US state of Wisconsin on Saturday, the US Navy announced in a press release on Wednesday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th June, 2019) The naming for the 21st warship of the littoral combat ship (LCS) class will be conducted at a ceremony in the US state of Wisconsin on Saturday, the US Navy announced in a press release on Wednesday.

"The Navy will christen its newest Freedom-variant littoral combat ship, the future USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul), during a 10 am ceremony Saturday, June 15, in Marinette, Wisconsin," the release stated.

The LCS program began in the early 2000s and has run into repeated cost overruns, reorganizations and upgrades to ships already under construction.

In 2017, Congress issued cost cap contracts of $584 million for the building of a single ship, to bring costs down from $1.8 billion per vessel.

In 2016, then-Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John McCain complained that up to $12.4 billion had been wasted on ships from the program that have no effective combat capability.

The vessel will be the 21st LCS to join the Navy, which expects to receive 55 to 60 of the ships in all.