Independence Class LCS

The Independence class is a class of littoral combat ships built for the United States Navy.
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.