Huntington Ingalls modification contract for construction of USS Arleigh Burke DDG-51 class ship DDG 135.

According to a contract published by the U.S. Department Of Defense) on June 29, 2020, Huntington Ingalls Inc., Pascagoula, Mississippi, is awarded a $936,032,309 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target modification to previously awarded contract N00024-18-C-2307 to exercise the fiscal 2020 option for the construction of a USS Arleigh Burke DDG-51 class ship (DDG 135), the future USS Thad Cochran.
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Drawing of future U.S. Navy USS Thad Cochran Arleigh Burke DDG-51 class ship. (Picture source U.S. Navy)

This modification also includes options for engineering change proposals, design budgeting requirements and post-delivery availabilities on the fiscal 2020 option ship. If exercised, the cumulative value of the fiscal 2020 option ship will increase to $947,695,871. Work will be performed in Pascagoula, Mississippi (91%); Erie, Pennsylvania (1%); and other locations below 1% (collectively totaling 8%), and is expected to be completed by June 2027.

The Arleigh Burke class is a United States Navy class of guided missile destroyer built around the Aegis Combat System and the SPY-1D multifunction passive electronically scanned array radar. The class is named for Admiral Arleigh Burke, an American destroyer officer in World War II, and later Chief of Naval Operations.

The DDG-51 program was initiated in the late 1970s, 5 and the first DDG-51 was procured in FY (Fiscal Year) 1985. The DDG-51 program is one of the longest-running shipbuilding programs in Navy history, and the DDG-51 class, in terms of number of hulls, is one of the Navy’s largest classes of ships since World War II. The DDG-51 (Figure 1) is a multi-mission destroyer with an emphasis on air defense (which the Navy refers to as anti-air warfare, or AAW) and blue-water (mid-ocean) operations. DDG-51s are equipped with the Aegis combat system, an integrated ship combat system named for the mythological shield that defended Zeus.

The future USS Thad Cochran will be capable of fighting air, surface, and subsurface battles simultaneously and will contain a combination of offensive and defensive weapon systems to support maritime warfare, including integrated air and missile defense and vertical launch capabilities. The ship is 160 m long, has a beam of 59 feet and be capable of operating in excess of 30 knots. it will powered by four General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines.

The USS Thad Cochran will be armed with on 32 cell, one 64 cell Mark 41 Vertical Launching System, 96 × RIM-66 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-Asroc, missiles. The second armament will include on 5 in (130 mm)/62 lightweight gun, two 25 mm Mk 38 automatic cannons, 4 × .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine guns, two Mk 46 triple torpedo tubes and one 20 mm Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon System)

The Arleigh Burke-class vessels are being constructed at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (GDBIW) in Bath, Maine and Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi.