Independence-class littoral combat ship

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The Independence class is a class of littoral combat ships built for the United States Navy. The hull design evolved from a project at Austal to design a high speed, 40-knot (74 km/h; 46 mph) cruise ship. That hull design evolved into the high-speed trimaran ferry Benchijigua Express and the Independence class was then proposed by General Dynamics and Austal as a contender for Navy plans to build a fleet of smaller, agile, multipurpose warships to operate nearshore in the littoral zone. Initially two ships were approved, to compete with Lockheed Martin's Freedom-class design. Despite initial plans to only build ships of the winner out of the two competing Independence or Freedom classes, in 2010 the Navy announced plans to order up to ten additional ships of each class, for a total 12 ships per class. In March 2016 the Navy announced their intention to order an additional two ships, increasing the order to 13 ships of each class. It was announced in early September 2016 that the first four...

Read on Wikipedia · Image U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Josiah J. Kunkle, Public domain