The hull design evolved from a project at Austal to design a high speed, 40-knot-cruise ship. That hull design evolved into the high-speed trimaran ferry HSC Benchijigua Express and the Independence class was then proposed by General Dynamics and Austal as a contender for Navy plans to build a fleet of smaller, agile, multipurpose warships to operate nearshore in the littoral zone. Initially two ships were approved, to compete with Lockheed Martin's Freedom-class design.
Despite initial plans to only build ships of the winner out of the two competing Independence or Freedom classes, in 2010 the Navy announced plans to order up to ten additional ships of each class, for a total 12 ships per class.[17] In March 2016 the Navy announced their intention to order an additional two ships, increasing the order to 13 ships of each class.[18]
It was announced in early September 2016 that the first four vessels of the LCS program would be used as test ships rather than being deployed with the fleet.[19][20] This includes lead shipIndependence and Coronado. As of May 2019[update], nine ships have been commissioned. In February 2020 it was announced that the Navy plans to retire the first four LCS ships.[21] On 20 June 2020, the US Navy announced that all four would be taken out of commission in March 2021, and will be placed in inactive reserve, because it would be too expensive to upgrade them to match the later ships in the class.[22][23]
^Special from Navy Office of Information (29 December 2010). "Littoral Combat Ship Contract Award Announced" (Press release). Navy News Service. NNS101229-09. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2015.