Freedom-class littoral combat ship

The Freedom class is one of two classes of the littoral combat ship program built for the United States Navy, small multipurpose warships meant to operate in coastal waters. It was proposed by a consortium led by Lockheed Martin as prime contractor with Fincantieri, whose subsidiary Marinette Marine built the ships at Marinette, Wisconsin, and it competed against the Independence class offered by General Dynamics and Austal. The construction contract for two ships was awarded in May 2004. The lead ship, Freedom, had her keel laid in June 2005, was christened in September 2006, delivered to the Navy in September 2008 and commissioned that November. Cost overruns led to a stop-work order in January 2007 and the cancellation, later reversed, of the second ship. In 2016 the Navy decided that the first four littoral combat ships would be test ships, and Freedom was decommissioned in September 2021. In 2020 a frigate derived from the Fincantieri FREMM design won the contest that followed the program.