Navy officials are preparing to christen the newest littoral combat ship (LCS) into the fleet this week, designed to bolster U.S. capabilities in carrying out near-shore operations.
The new ship will be named the USS Minneapolis-St. Paul, Navy officials said Wednesday. It will be the 11th Freedom-class to enter into the Navy fleet since the LCS program’s inception in 2002.
The christening ceremony will take place at the Marinette shipyard in Wisconsin, service leaders said in a statement. Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Betty McCollum and Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy Jodi Greene will attend the ceremony on June 15.
Two Independence-class versions of the LCS and a single Freedom-class LCS will deploy to the Atlantic Ocean earlier this year, marking the first new deployments of the next-generation warship since 2016.
In 2016, Navy leaders ordered a “engineering stand down” of the entire LCS fleet in the wake of several high-profile failures at sea.*
“In 2016, the Navy had an LCS engineering stand-down,” Navy Spokesman Lt. Lauren Chatmas said, noting the stand-down only applied to engineering departments aboard the ships.
“After a series of unrelated maintenance issues, the Navy did a months-long review. The [LCS] program has been executing the recommendations from that ever since,” Lt. Chatmas added.
*The original story incorrectly reported that the stand-down was related to crewmember deaths aboard littoral combat ships. There were no deaths of personnel aboard littoral combat ships that year, according to the Pentagon.
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