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Two Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships. US Navy Photo
Austal USA and Lockheed Martin were awarded contract modifications to build the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2018 batch of Littoral Combat Ships, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday. Read More
Artist’s concept of a DDG-51 Flight III with AMDR. Raytheon Photo
THE PENTAGON – The Navy will buy the first of its Future Surface Combatants in 2023 – a large warship that will be built to support the Arleigh Burke Flight III combat system and will pull elements from the Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) and Zumwalt-class (DDG-1000) destroyer designs. Read More
The following is the July 31, 2018 Congressional Research Service report, Navy Frigate (FFG(X)) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. Read More
Top: Artist’s concept of Royal Australian Navy Hunter-class guided-missile frigate. Bottom: (left to right) U.K. Royal Navy Arrowhead Type 31e design, Austal USA FFG(X) design and Lockheed Martin FFG(X) design
CAPITOL HILL – The U.S. Navy is in talks with Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom in the hopes that all four navies will design and field frigates with common combat systems – or at least interoperable ones – the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for ships told USNI News. Read More
The following is the July 3, 2018 Congressional Research Service report, Navy Frigate (FFG(X)) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. Read More
BAE Type 26 Frigate, BAE photo
BAE Systems won a $26 billion contest to design and build nine frigates for the Royal Australian Navy, according to Thursday media reports.
A crane moves the lower stern into place on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) at Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. on June 22, 2017. HII Photo
The Senate Armed Services Committee is looking for more information from the Navy before it will support buying additional ships in Fiscal Year 2019, which its House counterparts wholeheartedly endorsed doing. Read More
The following is the April 6, 2017 Congressional Research Service report, Navy Frigate (FFG(X)) Program: Background and Issues for Congress. Read More
USS Billings (LCS-15) launches sideways into the Menominee River in Marinette, Wisconsin in 2017. Lockheed Martin Photo
CAPITOL HILL — Navy leaders are committed to buying a single Littoral Combat Ship in Fiscal Year 2019 despite increasing concern the rate would put shipbuilders at a disadvantage in the upcoming frigate competition. Read More
Littoral Combat Ship Tulsa (LCS-16) is heading back to Austal USA after launching from the drydock at BAE Ship Systems. She’s passing Austal’s vessel completion yard where USNS Yuma (EPF 8), future USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) and future USS Omaha (LCS 12) are docked in 2016. Austal USA Photo
The Navy’s plan to buy just one Littoral Combat Ship in Fiscal Year 2019 has the two LCS shipbuilders uneasy, just a year before the program is set to transition to a guided-missile frigate and downselect to a single contractor. Read More
