Littoral Combat Ship Deploys to WestPac, Ending 18-Month Gap

Lt. Thomas Cummings, assigned to the Independence-class littoral combat ship USS Montgomery (LCS 8), communicates with the Philippine Navy from the ship’s bridge as Montgomery arrives in Davao City for a scheduled port visit. U.S. NAVY / Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tristin Barth

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has deployed a littoral combat
ship to the Western Pacific for the first time in 18 months, the first of three
LCSs the service plans to deploy this year.

The first LCS deployment this year apparently was kept
quiet by the Navy until the service published a July 1 web article by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Greg
Johnson of commander, Logistics Force, Western Pacific/CTF 73 Public Affairs,
of the Independence-class USS Montgomery (LCS 8) making a port call in Davao,
Philippines, on June 29.

The last LCS to deploy, USS Coronado (LCS 4), returned from the
Western Pacific on Dec. 5, 2017. It had been preceded by the USS Freedom (LCS
1) and its Freedom-class sister ship, USS Fort Worth (LCS 3), in 2015 and 2016,
respectively.

The commander of Naval Surface Forces told reporters in a
Jan. 11 teleconference that LCS deployments would resume in 2019, saying that
the Independence-class LCSs USS Montgomery and USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) would
deploy from the West Coast and that the first LCS deployments from the East
Coast, departing from Naval Station Mayport, Florida, would be undertaken by
the Freedom-variant LCS USS Detroit (LCS 7), followed by sister ship USS Little
Rock (LCS 9) in 2020.

For all of these deployments, the ships will carry the
full surface warfare mission package, Brown said.

“It’s happening,” Brown said during the teleconference,
noting that from then on “there will always be LCS forward-deployed.”