Littoral Combat Ships on Oil patrol.

Massing ships around Iraq's two terminals has been effective so far, says Capt. Kurt Tidd, commander of the Navy task force in charge of protecting the terminals. But the world's oil infrastructure is vast. "We can line up all the ships in the world around all the platforms in the world, and we're going to run out of ships."

If the US Navy wants to protect the flow of oil from Africa and the Persian Gulf and interdict terrorists on the high seas worldwide then it's going to need a bunch of cheap and versatile ships, hence the LCS.

-HJC