The U.S. Navy's Troubled Littoral Combat Ship Program

With the Defense Department spending nearly $900 billion per year in taxpayer money, ProPublica decided to examine one of the most expensive failed military projects in recent memory: the littoral combat ship program.

LCS was supposed to launch the U.S. Navy into the future. Instead, the ships broke down across the globe and many of their weapons never worked.

Now the Navy is getting rid of them, but it took an array of naval leaders and two consecutive defense secretaries to finally stop the program.

In this virtual conversation, ProPublica reporters Joaquin Sapien and T. Christian Miller walk us through how the Navy sank billions of dollars of taxpayer money into a failed project.

Read the full story: https://propub.li/3Ew6GQ4
Dive deeper into story takeaways: https://propub.li/48dbbfV

0:00 Start
0:44 Why we decided to dive deeper
2:20 Idea behind LCS and the end result
5:50 LCS weapon systems
9:18 Speaking up about problems
10:54 Making connections with sources
13:05 Why weren't warnings heard
15:18 Who were the big proponents of LCS
16:40 2016 incidents
20:56 Status of LCS
22:36 LCS long-term cost
23:54 Oversight responsibility
25:15 Role of defense contractors
27:35 Voter outcry
29:11 Are we behind the competition?
30:38 Ultimate fate of LCS

#usnavy #navy #lcs

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