July 28, 2025: U.S. Navy is allowing the Marine Corps to have several trimaran Independence class Littoral Combat Ships/LCS ships as Littoral Explosive Ordnance Neutralization/LEON vessels. In plant English this means dealing with mines. The 3,100-ton Independence class ships are 127 meters long and have an alleged top speed of 81 kilometers an hour. There is a crew of 75. They can carry 210 tons of cargo. Original armament consisted of a 57mm gun, three autocannon to defend against missiles and boarders as well as eight anti-ship missiles, a helicopter and two drones. The LEON version dispensed with most of this, leaving more space for mine clearing and special marine boars and equipment. LEON still had LCS radars installed, but these could be shut down to make the vessel stealthy and undetectable. Modern warships often track each other by searching for the electronic signals other ships continually broadcast. LEON can use passive heat sensors to safely navigate on the high seas,

LEONs have a large landing pad and a lot of internal space to store equipment. This allowed the Marines to install the LEON equipment and much more including one or more 7-meter Rigid-Hull Inflatable Boats/RHIBs, or dozens of aerial or naval drones. LEON has an overhead cable for launching and recovering RHIBs and other small craft. LEON vessels can carry 122 sailors and marines as well as a secondary operations center. There is space for one or more twelve marine boarding parties, which usually travel in RHIBs. Unlike other LCS ships, the marine boarding parties can be stationed on LEON vessels for long periods. They use one of the LEON’s two operation centers (the other is for ship operations) to plan and monitor their operations. The marines see the LEONS as ideal vessels for planning and carrying out its new Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations/EABO in the South China Sea or other regions of the Pacific. The LEON ships can more easily slip marines onto a remote island along with all the equipment they

In 2024 the navy reversed its plan to quickly discard its remaining LCS and instead upgrade many of them. The only combat an LCS has seen was last year off Yemen when an LCS fired back at Houthi rebels who were attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

In 2023 the navy declared that its LCS program would be eliminated. That came after more than a decade of effort to build at least fifty of them to replace 51 very successful Perry-Class frigates and 26 smaller mine warfare ships.

Only 35 LCS ships were built and they are being rapidly retired, often after only a few years of service. The main reason for this is that the LCS never performed adequately, and cost much more than they were supposed to. The navy saves a lot of money by eliminating the LCS ships and can use the savings to maintain or expand construction of ships that work.

Currently there are only seventeen LCS ships in service and some are not operational. The Navy never came close to obtaining the 55 LCS ships originally planned. The failure of the LCS was not unusual because the U.S. Navy has, since the 1980s, had a number of new ship designs that failed. The LCS failure was not sudden, but the result of a growing number of construction defects and design flaws that have caused the planned number to be produced or kept in service revised downward five times. The latest reductions may be the last because a replacement ship has already been selected and ordered. LEON ships can return regularly to resupply these small marine detachments or move them to another location. The shallow 4.3 meter draft of LEON LCS ships enables them to utilize areas of the South China Sea the most warships cannot enter.