Gilday proposes selling LCS to South American countries

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday has suggested selling used Littoral Combat Ships to other countries -- citing South America as an example -- instead of scrapping the ship entirely.

The Navy’s fiscal year 2023 budget request plans to decommission 24 ships -- nine of which are the Freedom-variant LCS.

The anti-submarine warfare package developed for the Freedom-variant hull was ineffective and wouldn’t match the Chinese undersea threat, Gilday said during a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing today.

One of the nine LCS posed to be decommissioned was involved in joint exercises with the Dominican Republic Navy, performing drug interdictions, according to Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), a member of the subcommittee.

“In terms of what are the options going forward with these ships, I would offer to the subcommittee that we should consider offering the ships to other countries that would be able to use them effectively,” Gilday said.

“There are countries in South America as an example . . . that would be able to use these ships that have small crews and so instead of just considering scrapping as a single option, I think there are others that we can look at,” Gilday said.