Navy Awards Two Contracts to Build New Combat Ships
Published NYTimes: December 29, 2010
The Navy on Wednesday awarded two companies contracts that could be worth a total of more than $7 billion to build 20 of its new littoral combat ships, splitting the purchase to obtain the vessels more quickly.
Navy officials said that if it exercises all of its options under the contracts,
Lockheed Martin would assemble 10 of the coastal warships for $3.62 billion over six years and Austal USA, a unit of an Australian company, would build 10 for $3.52 billion.
Littoral combat ship
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A
Littoral Combat Ship (
LCS) is a type of relatively small surface vessels intended for operations in the
littoral zone (close to shore). It is "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and
asymmetric threats in the littorals."
[1] Two ship classes are the first examples of the LCS in the
U.S. Navy: the
Freedom-class and the
Independence-class. LCS designs are slightly smaller than the US Navy's
guided missile frigates, and have been compared to
corvettes of other navies. However, the LCS designs add the capabilities of a small
assault transport with a
flight deck and
hangar large enough to base two
SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, the capability to recover and launch small boats from a stern ramp, and enough cargo volume and payload to deliver a small
assault force with
armoured fighting vehicles to a
roll-on/roll-off port facility. The standard armament for the LCS are
Mk 110 57 mm guns, while modules containing
Non-Line-of-Sight Launch Systems are available. It will also be able to launch autonomous
air,
surface, and
underwater vehicles.
[2] Although the LCS designs offer less air defense and surface-to-surface capabilities than comparable
destroyers, the LCS concept emphasizes speed, flexible mission module space and a shallow
draft.
