The United States Navy desperately needs a small, tough, heavily armed surface warship. Its failed efforts over the last 30 years to develop a credible small surface combatant help explain why Iran has given our Navy fits in the Hormuz Strait’s narrow confines.
The fleet is top-heavy with large blue-water combatants like the 9,000-ton-plus Arleigh Burke destroyer, a capable, sturdy surface combatant. Designed for long-range engagement blue-water operations, the Burke is poorly suited to provide the presence necessary to provide the sea control genuinely needed in littoral waters such as those found in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Strait narrows to 21 miles and features islands from which missiles, drones, and small attack boats can launch—a nightmare for ships whose armament is skewed to long-range weapons.
What’s required are heavily armed vessels designed for littoral waters, carrying modern guns and inexpensive missiles to counter drone swarms, anti-ship cruise missiles, and fast attack craft. This is what is needed, but are dozens of expensive new ships based on the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Security really going to meet this need?
Of course, we were already supposed to have ships built to fill this need: the Littoral Combat Ships.
Yet, after spending billions, we got under-crewed, lightly armed, low-endurance, unreliable vessels that deliver abysmal bang for the buck. At about 3,500 tons, 50 percent larger than the legendary all-steel WWII Fletcher-class destroyer, they were built only to the Navy’s lowest Level 1 survivability standard and are outgunned by ships half their size.
The LCS can’t even protect itself, much less other ships, and has played no significant role in Hormuz operations.
Promised to come in at just over $200 million each, the program unit average cost ballooned to $875 million. To say they are not beloved is an understatement, with Navy ranks nicknaming them “Little Crappy Ships.”
The Constellation-class frigate was supposed to reduce the risk of another LCS disaster by basing the design on Italy’s proven FREMM, which has served effectively with multiple navies for over a decade.
The program was flawed from the start. Marketed as the Navy’s new “small” surface combatant, it grew to over 7,000 tons and 496 feet, comparable to many WWII cruisers and 80 percent the displacement of a Flight I Arleigh Burke while only nine feet shorter.
Cramming Burke-class capabilities into an unsuitable hull produced a Burke-lite costing 60 percent as much, with roughly 30 percent the missiles and weaker radars, and none of the needed littoral capabilities.
After adding billions to the national debt, the 18-ship program was canceled on Nov. 25, 2025. In the end, the Navy will only receive two ships at a projected $1.4–1.8 billion each, costs that history suggests will climb further.
Now the Navy plans a small surface combatant based on the Coast Guard’s Legend-class National Security Cutter. Will the third time be the charm? Likely not.
The Legend is an excellent cutter with a 12,000-nm range, but it was not built as a warship. It meets only Level 1 survivability standards, which are appropriate for support vessels, not for a 4,750-ton combatant. (Burkes are Level 3; the Oliver Hazard Perry frigates the LCS replaced were Level 2.)
Right out of the gate, it lacks the toughness expected of a warship. Further, after criticism for gold-plating the Constellation, the Navy seems to be overcorrecting by only incorporating a modest upgrade in firepower over the lightly armed Coast Guard baseline.
The result is a plan to build 32, $1.6 billion, 4,750-ton warships with far less firepower than Israel’s $300 million, 2,000-ton Sa’ar 6 corvette—ships that will be severely outgunned by similarly sized ships in service with Russia, China, and others. While the Navy is planning to build 33 more heavily armed versions of the frigate starting in 2033, they will still suffer from being built to Level 1 survivability standards.
This begs the question—why build such weakly armed ships when, for a fraction of the cost, allies are already fielding proven designs like the Sa’ar 6 corvette, whose weapons loadout is ideal against drones, fast boats, and cruise missiles?
Though the $400 million Sa’ar 6 is built to Level 1 survivability standards, its extensive anti-missile and anti-drone defenses make it more survivable than many Level 2 ships. A 3,000-to-3,500-ton upsized version could meet Level 2 standards, support a larger crew (reducing automation dependence), while providing improved helicopter facilities.
With the right naval design team, some discipline, and incentives, such a design could be completed in under a year—coming in at under a billion dollars per ship.
This is not to say that the Sa’ar 6 (or a scaled version) is the only option. The Navy simply needs a real littoral combatant for environments like the Strait of Hormuz.
China builds 13,000-ton warships (Type 055 destroyer) as powerful, or more powerful, than our $2.5 billion Arleigh Burkes for under $1 billion each. Hence, paying roughly $1.4–1.6 billion for a lightly upgraded Coast Guard cutter, about 37 percent the size, with a small fraction of the capability and firepower, is unacceptable.
Bottom line, the Legend-class is a fantastic Coast Guard cutter, but it was not designed to warship standards—period. Given its price tag and survivability shortfalls, we should not embark on a multi-decade program to build 65 ships that will be greatly overmatched by less expensive ships in service with China and Russia.
Instead, we need to design a true littoral combatant with the structural toughness and armament required.
Finally, we must abandon the fantasy that in a world of cheap drones and technological parity, America can wield power without the risk of losing ships. That ship has sailed.
