Back to news

October 11, 2019 | International, Naval

Lockheed Martin-Led Team Begins Construction On Navy Littoral Combat Ship, The Future USS Nantucket

MARINETTE, Wis., October 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ - Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Fincantieri Marinette Marine marked the beginning of construction on Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) 27, the future USS Nantucket, with a ceremony in Marinette. As part of a ship-building tradition dating back centuries, a shipyard worker welded the initials of Polly Spencer, USS Nantucket ship sponsor and wife of U.S. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, into the ship's keel plate. This plate will be affixed to the ship and travel with Nantucket throughout its commissioned life.

"The USS Nantucket will confront many complex challenges," said Richard V. Spencer, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. "It will confront humanitarian relief all the way to great power competition, drawing on the strength of every weld, every rivet applied by the great people here."

Unique among combat ships, the focused-mission LCS is designed to support mine countermeasures, anti-submarine and surface warfare missions today and is easily adapted to serve future and evolving missions tomorrow. The Freedom-variant LCS is:

  • Flexible — Forty percent of the hull is easily reconfigurable, able to integrate Longbow Hellfire Missiles, 30 mm guns, and manned and unmanned vehicles designed to meet today's and tomorrow's missions.
  • Lethal — LCS is standard equipped with Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) and a Mark 110 gun, capable of firing 220 rounds per minute.
  • Fast — LCS is capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots.
  • Automated — LCS has the most efficient staffing of any combat ship.

"LCS' built-in flexibility makes it unlike any other Navy ship in the water today," said Joe DePietro, vice president and general manager of Small Combatants and Ship Systems. "LCS can serve a multitude of missions to include surface, anti-submarine and mine countermeasure missions by quickly integrating mission equipment and deploying manned and unmanned aerial, surface or sub-surface vehicles."

LCS 27 is the first Navy ship to be named after Nantucket, Massachusetts in more than 150 years. Nantucket has a deep connection to sailing and maritime traditions, serving as a whaling hub in the 1800s and as the home of generations of American sailors since the town's beginning. The previous USS Nantucket, the first to be named after the island, was commissioned in 1862 to serve during the American Civil War.

"I have been given a very special honor in being the sponsor of the future USS Nantucket. I am happy she is being built here in Marinette, Wisconsin, which has an impressive history of shipbuilding," said Polly Spencer, LCS 27 sponsor. "Thank you to all the talented people who are bringing this ship to life... it is going to be an amazing journey that I am thrilled to be on."

LCS 27 will be the 14th Freedom-variant LCS and will join a class of more than 30 ships. It is one of six ships in various stages of construction and test at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard.

"We are very excited to begin construction of the future USS Nantucket," said Jan Allman, CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine. "Our men and women are proud to put their efforts into giving the Navy versatile ships to keep our country and its interests safe."

Multimedia assets are available here:

For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs.

About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.

About Fincantieri Marinette Marine
Fincantieri is the leading western shipbuilder with a rich history dating back more than 230 years, and a track record of building more than 7,000 ships. Fincantieri Marine Group is the American subsidiary of Fincantieri, and operates three Great Lakes Shipyards: Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, and Fincantieri ACE Marine. Fincantieri Marine Group's more than 2,100 steelworkers, craftsman, engineers and technicians in the United States specialize in the design, construction and maintenance of merchant ships and government vessels, including for the United States Navy and Coast Guard.

About Gibbs & Cox
Gibbs & Cox, the nation's leading independent maritime solutions firm specializing in naval architecture, marine engineering and design, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company, founded in 1929, has provided designs for nearly 80 percent of the current U.S. Navy surface combatant fleet; approaching 7,000 naval and commercial ships have been built to Gibbs & Cox designs.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin

View source version on Lockheed Martin: https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-10-09-Lockheed-Martin-led-Team-Begins-Construction-on-Navys-Littoral-Combat-Ship-the-future-USS-Nantucket#assets_all

On the same subject

  • Harden the cybersecurity of US nuclear complex now

    October 26, 2022 | International, C4ISR, Security

    Harden the cybersecurity of US nuclear complex now

    Buried in both the Senate and House versions of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act are provisions augmenting the cybersecurity of the NC3.

  • Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 8, 2019

    January 9, 2019 | International, Land

    Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 8, 2019

    DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY McRae Industries Inc.,* Mt. Gilead, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum $9,934,688 modification (P00014) exercising the fourth one-year option period of one-year base contract (SPE1C1-15-D-1023) with four one-year option periods for hot-weather flame resistant combat boots. This is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Location of performance is North Carolina, with a Jan. 8, 2020, performance completion date. Using customer is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. *Small business https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1726571/source/GovDelivery/

  • Beetle-like Iranian robots can roll under tanks

    October 9, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR

    Beetle-like Iranian robots can roll under tanks

    By: Kelsey D. Atherton On screen, the small robot slides perfectly underneath the textureless tank. It is a modern iteration of an old promise in remote warfare, rendered with all the processing power of a desktop PC from 1994. Can a small, cheap robot prove useful against the vehicles of an enemy at war? A recent exhibition of unmanned ground vehicles by Iran suggests that the possibility, if not the reality, is already in development. Designed by the Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization of the Iranian Army, the Heidair-1 is almost certainly bound for life as an expendable battlefield platform. “There are many countries and forces using small [unmanned ground vehicles] for ISR and other roles — many belligerents in the Middle East have them, including several DIY models made by non-state actors,” said Samuel Bendett, an adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses. The Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces, or NEZAJA, shared pictures of the new machine on Twitter Oct. 3. The default body of the robot is a six-wheeled tan box, with a pair of antenna sticking out toward the rear of the machine. Of the six Heidair-1 platforms featured, two were models with assault rifles mounted on top of the little rovers, magazines pointed skyward. “NEZAJA had an expo in Tehran where it unveiled several concepts, including this small UGV, Heidar-1. It appears to be a proof of concept, and there is no evidence of this UGV taking part in combat,” Bendett said. In the same video, NEZAJA shows one of the robots driving toward a rough tank-like shape. It explodes, fulfilling the promise of the simulation, and hearkening back to an earlier era of anti-tank warfare. In World War II, Germany fielded thousands of Goliath remote-control anti-tank mines, designed to crawl under parked tanks and detonate through the softer armor below. “This is the first time we have seen Iran unveil such a vehicle,” said Bendett, a fellow in Russia studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. “Equally interesting is their claim that this will be a ‘networked' system of vehicles that can presumably function in more or less autonomous mode. At this point, however, they are remote-controlled devices.” In a video demonstration, the rovers are either single-use mines or armed with machine guns. They are shown being used as combined arms with flying multirotor scouts. Whatever the guts of the new rolling rovers, the ability to guide them remotely to targets spotted by drone adds to the range of threats small robots can pose to armored vehicles. “This Heidair-1UGV may act ... as a kamikaze vehicle that may sneak up on its target much faster given its overall small size,” Bendett said. “We may not see this UGV operate in Iranian Army, but we may see such a vehicle operated by Houthis in their campaign against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its aligned forces.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2019/10/08/beetle-like-iranian-robots-roll-under-tanks/

All news