Israel Says "No Thanks" to LCS

The Littoral Combat Ship program just hit a speed bump on the way to the export market. Israel has decided they are no longer interested in the LCS, and cite costs as the major reason.

In a radical revamp of its surface fleet modernization program, the Israel Navy has shelved long-held plans to purchase Lockheed Martin-produced Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), as well as a fallback option involving corvetees built by Northrop Grumman.

Instead, sources say, the Navy is pushing to establish a combat shipbuilding industry through customized, locally built versions of a German corvette design.

Now in an exploration phase, the concept calls for a stretched, approximately 2,200-ton version of the Meko A-100 built by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the Hamburg-based consortium building two Dolphin-class submarines for the Israel Navy. Countries that are building or now operating the 1,650-ton German-designed corvette include Malaysia and Poland.

The interesting part of this story isn't necessarily that Israel doesn't want to buy the LCS anymore, and that is a big deal. The interesting thing is that the US would fund the LCS, but not the MEKO, through FMS grant money. By choosing to buy the MEKO, Israel will try to fudge the system and get some of the parts paid for by buying US, with US funding.

If the system was honest, that should get some attention from Congress.

About two years ago, the LCS was making headlines with all kinds of export possibilities. Lockheed Martin's version wasn't only a possibility in Israel, but it was also an honorable mention at one time for the Indian Project 17A stealth frigate. It is unclear if the General Dynamics/Austal design for the LCS has potential on the export market. With the cost of the first platform of that design much higher than the Lockheed Martin design, it is very much unclear what the future export market looks for any ship built in the US.

This program can't seem to find good news.