The US Navy’s Freedom-class littoral combat ship, USS Fort Worth (LCS 3), has been decommissioned after nearly 14 years in service.
The Fort Worth first entered service in September 2012 and was homeported in San Diego, California. It was originally expected to remain in service until the late 2030s.
According to National Interest, the ship’s early retirement reflects a combination of persistent Freedom-class mechanical reliability challenges, high maintenance costs, and the navy’s broader effort to shift priorities to a more modern and lethal fleet.
Many of the initial hulls in the Freedom-class, including USS Milwaukee (LCS 5) and USS Sioux City (LCS 11), have also been decommissioned well before their expected service lives due to similar issues.
USS Fort Worth
Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine built the USS Fort Worth in Marinette, Wisconsin.
Designed as a test platform for the Freedom-class variant, the Fort Worth helped test and validate new naval technologies and warfare capabilities.
It became the first LCS to conduct an overseas preventive maintenance availability and later tested the class’ first Anti-Submarine Warfare mission module.
Among its notable achievements was completing one of the longest deployments in the US 7th Fleet area of operations, spending 16 months at sea and traveling more than 15,000 nautical miles (27,780 kilometers/17,262 miles) in the Western Pacific.
Following decommissioning and inactivation, the LCS 3 will be dismantled at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Bremerton, Washington.
Freedom-Class LCS
The US Navy’s LCSs are modular ships designed for near-shore operations, including anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, and surface warfare, sailing at speeds of over 40 knots (74 kilometers/46 miles per hour).
The Freedom-class is one of two LCS variants in service with the navy, alongside the Independence-class. It comprises all odd-numbered hulls, from LCS 1 through LCS 31.
They are built with a steel monohull and measure around 388 feet (118 meters) long with a beam of about 58 feet (18 meters).
In May, the final Freedom-class ship, USS Cleveland (LCS 31), entered service.
