After years upon years of development and wrangling in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, the littoral combat ship (LCS) finally has made its way to Southeast Asia - and for operators, it feels like home. That is because the LCS was designed all those years ago just for such a deployment, and the deployments of Freedom-class variants USS Freedom and now Fort Worth to the region have allowed the Navy to finally see what the LCS can do, not just operationally but with the other navies in the region. In addition to the LCS' abilities to navigate the shallower littoral waters, its smaller size means it will be easier for the Navy to build partnerships with its Southeast Asian allies - a nice bonus, even if that is not why the LCS was built.
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