The US Navy has commissioned the USS Cleveland (LCS 31), a Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), on 16 May 2026 in Cleveland, Ohio.
This event marked the vessel’s entry as the final ship in the Freedom-variant programme.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Senior US officials attended the commissioning ceremony, including acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, who delivered the principal address.
Other speakers included Senator Jon Husted, Representative Shontel Brown, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, Admiral Karl Thomas of the US Fleet Forces Command, and Stephanie Hill, President of Rotary and Mission Systems at Lockheed Martin.
The event also included the official hoisting of the colours and commissioning pennant. Acting Secretary Cao placed the vessel in active service with the US Navy.
The Navy accepted the USS Cleveland from Fincantieri Marinette Marine on 26 November 2025. It became the 16th and final Freedom-variant LCS delivered to the service.
Following its commissioning, the vessel was set to proceed to its designated homeport at Naval Station Mayport in Florida.
USS Cleveland is the fourth Navy vessel named after the city of Cleveland. Its predecessors included a cruiser (C-19) commissioned in 1903, the Cleveland-class light cruiser USS Cleveland (CL-55) with 13 battle stars during World War II, and the Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Cleveland (LPD 7) that saw service from 1967 to 2011.
Freedom-variant littoral combat ships, built by Lockheed Martin’s team in Marinette, Wisconsin, comprise part of the US Navy’s two-variant LCS class, alongside the Independence variant.
These ships were intended to operate in near-shore environments, either independently or as part of a larger battle force.
However, the twin-variant LCS has suffered through significant troubles during their brief service life, with a number of vessels having been decommissioned after just a handful of years of operational service.
The procurement of the LCS programme was planned to see the introduction of 52 vessels split evenly between the two variants, but this was continuously scaled back before settling somewhat on a 32-ship fleet.
Ironically, the Constellation-class guided missile frigate, a platform intended to replace the LCS in US Navy, also bit the buffers and was cancelled in late-2025 following cost overruns and huge delays to delivery.
The replacement to the replacement, the much more simple FF(X) frigate, has also been criticised for lacking vast swathes of offensive and defensive capability.
