Bath Iron Works Team Wins Design Award for LCS

The U.S. Navy has awarded General Dynamics Bath Iron Works a $9 million contract to develop a preliminary design for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). With a focus on affordability, LCS will provide the Navy with the capability to defeat terrorist swarm boats, mines, and diesel submarines prevalent in coastal waters around the world. Bath Iron Works leads an international team that includes General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, General Dynamics Canada, General Dynamics Electric Boat, Austal USA, BAE Systems, CAE of Canada, Maritime Applied Physics Corporation, and Qinetiq of the United Kingdom. The team will further develop its trimaran concept based upon Austal's innovative, high-speed commercial ship design. The flexibility, speed, endurance, volume, seakeeping, payload capacity, and maneuvering characteristics of the trimaran, coupled with modular mission packages and other modifications to address military-specific requirements, provide an optimal solution for the Navy's LCS requirements. These same characteristics make the BIW-led team's trimaran concept applicable to a wide variety of other domestic and international navy, coastal defense, and high-speed logistics support programs.