One more Littoral Combat Ship ordered by Navy
NewsApril 01, 2016
WASHINGTON. The U.S. Navy contracted a Lockheed Martin led team one fully funded Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Included in the contract is funding for seaframe construction, testing, and systems integration.
Navy officials say they used savings from its original block buy contract to take advantage of an option to build an additional Freedom-class LCS under its current block buy arrangement. The new build, dubbed LCS 25, will be the 11th ship procured under the 2010 block buy contract and the 13th Freedom-class variant overall. LCS 25 is planned for tdelivery to the Navy in 2020.
Under the current 10-ship block buy, costs per ship have been reduced to half the cost of the first ships of class and two ships per year are being delivered to the Navy.
The Lockheed Martin team is now in full-rate production of the Freedom-class variant, and has deployed three ships to the U.S. Navy so far. There are seven ships in various stages of construction at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, with another three in long-lead production.
USS Freedom and USS Fort Worth have had two operational deployments to Southeast Asia, sailing more than 180,000 combined nautical miles since delivery.
The Freedom-variant’s steel monohull design has 40 percent reconfigurable shipboard space, enabling it to accommodate additional lethality and survivability upgrades.
Fincantieri Marinette Marine is building the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship in Marinette, Wisconsin, with naval architect Gibbs & Cox of Arlington, Virginia, providing engineering support. The industry team invested over $100 million to modernize the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard, hire additional staff, and train a new workforce.
For more information, visit www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs.
