The US Navy has awarded a Lockheed Martin-led team including Fincantieri Marinette Marine a multi-billion dollar order to construct four Multi-Mission Surface Combatants ships for Saudi Arabia.
Fincantieri will build the ships - part of the US foreign military sales programme - at the Marinette yard in Wisconsin. The contract has is worth some $1.3 billion dollars to Fincantieri Marinette Marine.
“Orders such as these, besides being very significant from an economic point of view, mark themselves for important industrial aspects," said Fincantieri's chief executive officer Giuseppe Bono.
Winning the contact in the "very complex" US market "is an acknowledgement of the strategic, technological and management skills that Fincantieri is able to express always to the highest level and in any context," said Bono.
The Multi-Mission Surface Combatant is a lethal and highly-maneuverable, multi-mission surface combatant, which features the flexibility of the Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship steel mono-hull, an increased range of 5,000 nautical miles and speeds in excess of 30 knots, making it capable of littoral and open ocean operation, and able to confront "modern maritime and economic security threats" the Fincantieri statement said.
The same team has already built and delivered nine LCS vessels for the US navy and there are currently seven ships in various stages of construction), the statement noted.
US defence and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, Fincantieri Marinette Marine, naval architect Gibbs & Cox and over 800 suppliers in 42 states are already cooperating on the US Navy’s LCS program, one of the most ambitious in the world within the surface ships, said the statement.
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