Navy to retire littoral combat ship Fort Worth

The U.S. Navy plans to decommission the Freedom-variant littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) during a ceremony set for July 29 at 10 a.m. PDT at Naval Base San Diego, according to a service announcement.

USS Fort Worth, named for the city in Texas, is one of the earliest ships in the Freedom variant of the littoral combat ship program, a class built by a Lockheed Martin-led industry team in Marinette, Wisconsin. The ship has been in service for more than a decade, operating primarily with the Pacific Fleet.

The event comes as the Navy continues to reshape its surface force and scale back the LCS inventory after years of shifting mission priorities and maintenance challenges within the program. In recent budget cycles, the service has proposed retiring several Freedom-variant hulls ahead of their expected service lives, a move that has drawn scrutiny from Congress but has proceeded for a number of ships.

Details about post-service disposition for USS Fort Worth were not immediately available. The ceremony is scheduled to take place on the San Diego waterfront, the home port for many of the Navy’s surface combatants.