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While General Dynamics Bath Iron Works remains the prime contractor on Coronado (LCS 4), Austal and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works revoked their current teaming arrangement in February 2010 to allow General Dynamics Bath Iron Works to compete for the proposed “second source” competition for the winning design. The delivered Final Revised Proposal consisted of almost 70,000 pages and a decision is expected by the Navy sometime in August. Austal has worked closely with their suppliers, their teammate General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, the State of Alabama, and local city and county authorities to develop a very competitive offering. The Austal LCS Team delivers proven design and construction expertise of commercially derived high-speed combat vessels in the United States and the integration of military computing environments for weapons, sensors, and communications. Regarding the proposal submitted by the Austal LCS team, Austal USA President and COO, Joe Rella commented, “Austal USA has come a long way from first arriving in Mobile, the silicon valley of shipbuilding, ten years ago. By leveraging the shipbuilding experience gained in Australia, the lessons learned from the LCS and Joint High Speed Vessel programs, our investment in facilities, combined with the best shipbuilders in the world, we have created the critical mass necessary to provide the lowest risk and best valued solution as prime contractor for this program. Without a doubt, we offer the most innovative, efficient, and capable vessel to the Navy.” Austal would like to thank Mayor Sam Jones, the Mobile City Council, and the Mobile County Commissioners for their efforts in providing commitments for infrastructure development. Governor Riley and the Alabama State Development Office and the Alabama Industrial Development Training organisations played a major role in providing both infrastructure and extraordinary assistance going forward. US federal lawmakers Senators Sessions and Shelby and Congressman Jo Bonner have provided their support in both the authorisation and appropriation processes for the vital LCS program, and their assistance to convince the US Navy to make capability a criteria in the competition. Finally Austal’s partner, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, will continue to make a major contribution in delivering the non-proprietary open-architecture computing environment that forms the backbone of this flexible mission LCS. Austal’s shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, has proven that is has the necessary infrastructure, processes, and skilled workforce in place to design, construct, deliver and service 100-metre-plus high-speed ships in the United States. Austal USA’s first 127-metre trimaran LCS, USS Independence (LCS 2), recently sailed away from Austal’s shipyard to join the fleet at its current location in Norfolk, Virginia. Austal has under construction the second Flight 0 Independence Class LCS, Coronado (LCS 4) and the first of three contracted 103-metre Joint High Speed Vessels, Spearhead (JHSV 1), part of a joint contract between the US Army and US Navy. The keel laying ceremony for Spearhead is scheduled to take place at Austal’s shipyard on July 22, 2010. Austal press release |
Austal has submitted its best and final offer to the US Navy today for a 10-vessel Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) contract.