The U.S. Navy's Surface Combatant Family of Ships (SCFOS) will employ a transformational acquisition approach and focuses on developing a ship that can accommodate modular combat systems. The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) combat systems modules will be developed separately from ship construction and will be integrated in an open systems architecture model. Additionally, early LCS development will heavily leverage pre-existing technologies. By leveraging the existing R&D efforts performed by the Navy and industry and accelerating the timeline for requirement development and acquisition, LCS will keep delivery times significantly shorter than those of traditional ship programs.
