Navy Wants to Dispose of Nearly New Combat ships. How will LCS Alabama Fare?

     The Detroit News reported earlier this month that the LCS Detroit is among a group of 24 virtually new ships being decommissioned:

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday said the primary reason for retiring the ships is that the anti-submarine warfare system made for them "technically has not met its requirements."

"It is incapable, in other words," Gilday told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

LCS Alabama in 2020

     One of the ships NOT named for decommissioning, but of the same class as the group built in Mobile by Austal shipbuilders, is the LCS Alabama.

General Characteristics, Independence variant

Builder: General Dynamics (LCS 2 and LCS 4), Austal USA (LCS 6 and follow)

Length: 421.5 feet (128.5 meters)

Height: 126.3 feet (38.5 meters)

Beam: 103.7 feet (31.6 meters)

Displacement: approximately 3,200 MT full load

Draft: 15.1 feet (4.6 meters)

• Three months before the LCS Detroit decommissioning decision, the U.S. Navy bragged about the ships in this news release. 

• On December 30th of 2021, the top two commanding officers of the Alabama were relieved of duty over their handling of a sexual mistreatment investigation.
  

•  And Austal continued to win contracts from the Navy.

Governor Ivey attended Austal ceremony on April 12th celebrating the company's expansion its steel-making facility in Mobile.