New Navy ship will honor city of Cleveland, integrate with variety of missions

April 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy will launch the future USS Cleveland this weekend, making it the 16th and final Freedom-variant ship to be manufactured and launched.

On Saturday, Navy and shipyard officials in Marinette, Wis., will attend the planned side launch of the vessel at the Marinette, Wis., shipyard. Subsequent launches at the site will utilize a shiplift system instead of a more traditional side launch.

It will be the fourth ship to be named in honor of the Ohio city.

The Littoral Combat Ship class is made up of fast, mission-tailored surface ships that integrate with joint, combined, manned and unmanned teams. The LCS class has two variants, Freedom and Independence, designed and built by two different manufacturing teams.

The Freedom variant team is led by Lockheed Martin and is a steel monohull design constructed in Wisconsin.

Freedom-varient craft such as the new USS Cleveland are almost 400 feet long and employ a combined diesel and gas turbine engine that can move the ship at more than 40 knots.

Robyn Modly -- wife of former acting secretary of the Navy and Cleveland native Thomas B. Modly -- will break a bottle of sparkling wine across the ship's bow to symbolically christen it.

"This christening is a significant milestone for the future USS Cleveland, the ship's sponsor Mrs. Robyn Modly and the prospective crew," said Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro in a statement. "LCS 31 will be another step closer to ... continuing to defend our nation, and representing the strong connection our Navy has with the city of Cleveland."

Thomas B. Modly was raised in Cleveland and served as acting secretary of the Navy from 2019 until 2020. He was a 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He said the cost of the ship would be from $600 million to $800 million, depending on its final configuration.

The Cleveland is the 16th and final Freedom-variant LCS and the fourth ship to be named in honor of the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Previous USS Clevelands were used in World War I, the Second World War, and the Vietnam era.

Even though U.S. Navy officials rely heavily on littoral combat ships, the crafts haven't been without some controversy.

In 2022, half of the Navy's fleet of such surface craft was found to be experiencing structural defects that led to cracks in the hulls of several vessels, limiting their speed and the kinds of seas in which they could operate, according to the Navy Times.