USS Independence launched!

A Littoral Combat Ship as I understand it is designed for service near the shoreline, hence the use of the term "Littoral."

If France and the U.S. can get their anti-piracy legislation passed in the U.N. you can expect to see the revival of the pirate wars. Nations will finally have a free hand against international piracy.

Looks wise, it looks a LOT like the Sea Shadow - I wonder if it'll be "dark grey" and covered with RAM?

Interesting ship....

It's not "USS" anything yet!

As someone who has done a good bit of sailing, would call this design a trimaran.

Combat, combat, combat! What is going on in your heads? Go for the horn of africa to hunt pirates? You are going to hunt the weakest on earth? This people are not pirates, they are hungry and instead of killing them, better invest the money in helping them. No you build a combat ship. Why do you think they are poor? Because we are exploiting them by increasing violence! All I say is just mission accomplished stupid! We never learn out of history!

Patrick,

Correct! It is a USS nothing until it gets commissioned! Good catch - we're fixing that now!

Merv,

Good point, as well! I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote "tri-hulled catamaran" - talk about confoosing the issue!

Jason,

Go hug a tree somewhere.

But shure Einstein and Oppenheimer would have rather huged a tree, than contributing on self distruction of human kind after they invented the nuclear bomb. And if most of our people want to go that route, then please do it with honour and go for goliath and not david.

Ignorance lead to the fall down of the roman empire! Remember history!

jason

wait... didn't we spend millions trying to feed the Somalis in the early 90s? And how, pray you, did it become our fault that Somali pirates are attacking Japanese and French merchant vessels off the horn?

Did we ever colonize Africa? Wasn't that the combined nations of Europe?

I would have thought that tribal infighting, corrupt warlords, and the absence of civil authority would have been the glaringly obvious reason that Somalia is destitute. Nope! American greed!

In other news, I was a history major and am fortunate enough to know at least 124335 of the million differences between modern day America and the Roman Empire. Dork!

Because we are causing war to make other countries relie on us, because we use our military force to pursue our interests around the world, because we are not interested in them doing well, we are just a bit more clever than the romans or the old europeans, because we invented marketing, so we do not call it colonia or colonies, no we call it fight for democracy and rights of the people in the world.

Please do not be ingnorante and see that there is no difference between the roman empire and us. Even the perception of the united states outside the USA (which we hardly know about or care), is that we are compared to the roman empire, because we force our will on other nations and are regarded as the world police with a hidden agenda.

Thats the reality my friend, lets face it!

Hey Jason, the next time there is a tsunami or other major calamity in the world how about if we just sit it out and let some other country or countries do all the aid work. After all we would not be missed since we are nothing but an empire building monster devouring all the "little people"of the world according to Kool-aid drinkers like you.
Why is it that when ever there is trouble in the world everyone ask "where is the USA to help us?" ie. Bosnia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Indonisia,Kosovo the list goes on and on.

Jason is a cute li'l guy, isn't he? Not very bright, though.

The US remains one of the world's biggest donors of food, money, and goods to poor countries (not to mention footing more than our share of the bill for international agencies like the UN). Money doesn't buy your way out of international strife, though, regardless of your stand on the ethics and wisdom of either our international aid or military efforts.

Besides that, nowhere does it say that I am in any way bound to allow thieves and cutthroats free reign over other the seas simply because they are hungry. I have no idea of the personal situation of these current day pirates, but I do know this: they are opportunistically preying on and endangering the innocent. I'll be happy when the inevitable crackdown starts and the pirates realize that there are better ways to make money.

Like, maybe, helping to stabilize their own government and rebuild their own nation. That would be a fine start.

And why have police? All we are doing is stopping those poor little muggers, from feeding themselves and their families

Somebody ban that tool... that "evil imperialist Amerikkka" stuff is played out.

Those of us who have served know better.

Back to the ship... I do believe it is covered with RAM. Not sure how necessary it is considering it will likely face guys manning Boston Whalers, but it would work equally well against Iranian ships.

Looks kinda like the Merimac on steroids.

With a wimpy little 57mm gun, I don't see it supporting the ground pounders much, but otoh, it won't completely liquefy your average pirate-sized boat either.

Interesting amount of space behind the gun and in front of the bridge. Doesn't seem to be used for anything.

Is this the ship type that is supposed to replace the FFG-7 class ships on the "independent patrol" thing that they proved a little less than capable at? Speaking of which, I see that they made the same mistake of only giving it one CIWS... facing backwards.

You'd think they'd re-work the German Corvette Braunschweig class for US usage.

Seems like a more capable design, with enough firepower to project and protect itself.

the boat looks odd...