Littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth prepares to deploy with lessons from Freedom

Almost a year after the first littoral combat ship deployed to Singapore, contractors and crews have completed about 400 improvements to the second-in-class USS Fort Worth and are finishing last-minute preparations for a Monday departure.

The USS Freedom, which spent 10 months in Southeast Asia dealing with significant maintenance problems, also delivered humanitarian relief supplies to areas of the Philippines hardest hit by a 2013 typhoon.

The Navy has taken advantage of the lessons learned on the Freedom’s maiden voyage and incorporated those and other changes into the Fort Worth — including different air compressors, fixes to cooling systems that experienced corrosion issues and a 15 percent increase in fuel capacity, in addition to cosmetic changes, the commander of the ship and the commodore of LCS Squadron 1 said.

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