I knew that therer were going to be 29 before all is said and done...but 24 is a number that will soon be the total number building or launched.the number appears to have grown from 32 to 35 recently:
"A committee staffer said HASC determined the Navy’s one-LCS request was “damaging to the two construction yards” – the Navy had previously said it needed to buy three a year to maintain shipyard efficiencies and to keep both Austal USA and Fincantieri’s Marinette Marine healthy ahead of the frigate competition next year – and so the subcommittee recommended the full committee include funding for three ships. That would put the Navy at 35 LCSs total, compared to its stated need of 32, ..."
etc., source is USNI News linked Apr 26, 2018
Right now, each class has 11 vessels that have been lad down or already launched and the next one each lays down witll bring the total for both classes to 24. That is what I was referring to.
Although I truly wish they would just top thee and get on about a larger number of FFGs, each class has 15 planned at this point and for whatever reason the Navy is hlding firm to that commitment.
They can and truly must uparm every single one of them with the things I have spoken of here so many times...but we would be better of halting ny more construction and building more true multi-purpose FFGs, and building 24-30 of those.
oh well...time will tell.