Doing it all at once

The Navy has been working on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) for a while.  The ship is somewhat different in that it is intended to be reconfigurable to perform three primary missions: surface warfare; mine countermeasures; and anti-submarine warfare.  Although the ship has not yet been built, the Navy has already contracted for 26 of them.  There appears to be a problem or two with the Navy's plans:  design is not complete yet ships are being built;  ships are being built although the testing of these new ships has not been completed. And the GAO has questions about the underlying business case. "Elements of the LCS business case, including its cost, the time needed to develop and field the system, and its anticipated capabilities have degraded over time. There are also significant unknowns related to key LCS operations and support concepts and the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two seaframe variants."

Oh well, it's only at least $40 billion.  Ho hum.