Does High-Low Have to Mean Big-Small?

I'm willing to give the Littoral Combat Ship time to work out the normal kinks of a new type of ship. We do need a cheaper ship to provide numbers, but the LCS isn't anywhere cheap enough to be a brown water combatant and is too expensive for green waters, too.

I'm in favor of a high-low (in cost and capabilities) mix of ships so we have the numbers to afford losses. Otherwise, we won't commit any of our fewer high value surface ships to dangerous environments. But I was overly optimistic 8 years ago in thinking the LCS would be cheap enough for a true "low" part of the mix.

I concede the caveat that as a naval power whose ships have to travel long distances to reach patrol stations (some countries enter their patrol zone the moment they clear the harbor entrance), that we do need ships of some minimum size to be seaworthy enough just to travel to their destination. That may doom any efforts to field a globally mobile inexpensive combatant--although the Perry class frigates seemed to work out.

Unless we permanently base some truly small combatants overseas, some tonnage minimum will constrain a high-low mix differences.

Of course, I think Modularized Auxiliary Cruisers could have a role in providing numbers or a surge capacity in times of need. A high-low mix doesn't necessarily have to be the same as big-small, eh?