General Dynamics Bath Iron Words delivered the future USS Carl M. Levin (DDG-120) to the Navy last week, the service announced.
The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer finished acceptance trials in December off the coast of Maine, USNI news previously reported.
“A Flight IIA destroyer, DDG 120 is equipped with the latest Aegis Combat System. The Aegis Combat System provides large area defense coverage against air and ballistic missile targets, and also delivers superior processing of complex sensor data to allow for quick-reaction decision making, high firepower, and improved electronic warfare capability against a variety of threats,” the service said in a news release.
Carl M. Levin is slated to commission into service sometime this year.
The destroyer’s delivery comes as Bath Iron Works digs out of a backlog at its Maine yard that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and labor issues at the yard over the last few years. The Navy issued BIW the contract for Carl M. Levin in March of 2014 and the company started building the destroyer in September of 2016, according to the Fiscal Year 2023 budget documents. Those documents listed the delivery for Carl M. Levin as September 2022.
The yard last delivered USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) in March of 2021 and the destroyer was commissioned later that year.
BIW has several Flight IIAs and Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers under construction at its yard in Bath. Those include future destroyers Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG-124), John Basilone (DDG-122), Patrick Gallagher (DDG-127), Quentin Walsh (DDG-132), William Charette (DDG-130) and Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG-126), according to Naval Sea Systems Command.
The FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act included language allowed the Navy to ink another multi-year procurement deal for as many as 15 Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, as lawmakers push the service to work up to buying three destroyers per year. The last multi-year deal went through FY 2022.
