 Latoral combat ships or LCS serve as vital assets to the fleet and provide needed capabilities for evolving threats on the waterfront. LCS may be configured for three purposes, surface warfare, mine countermeasures or anti-submarine warfare. These configurations provide warfighting capability directly supporting the Navy's Asia Pacific Rebalance Strategy. The ships are staffed using the 3-to-1 concept, meaning three crews will rotate between two ships. One ship will be forward deployed, while the other remains stateside for workups and training. This cycle provides a persistent forward presence, which enables four ships to generate eight times the presence of a single crewed, conus-based destroyer. These ships are capable of providing destroyer and cruiser-based naval presence for a fraction of the cost, allowing the ships to be used for more high-end missions. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Tony Rosa.