Austal Delivers Littoral Combat Ship 18 to U.S. Navy
Austal Limited (Austal)has delivered its ninth Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to the U.S. Navy.
The future USS Charleston (LCS 18) is the third Austal designed and built LCS delivered to the Navy this year and will be the fourteenth to enter the fleet.
“The Austal team is excited to deliver another of these incredible ships to the U.S. Navy. We are incredibly proud to be delivering this program with efficiency and reliability,” Austal CEO, David Singleton said.
“The maturity and success of the LCS program is a direct result of the dedication and skill of the Austal employees, and the technology invested in our Mobile, Alabama next generation shipbuilding facility.”
“The advanced production process developed at Mobile, is allowing us to roll out ships from the assembly bays one after the other in such quick succession, offering a huge competitive advantage for Austal to be able to support the U.S. Navy’s fleet expansion to 355 ships,” Mr Singleton said.
Five LCS remain under construction at Austal’s Alabama shipyard. Cincinnati (LCS 20) is preparing for sea trials. Assembly is underway on Kansas City (LCS 22) and Oakland (LCS 24) with modules under construction for Mobile (LCS 26) and Savannah (LCS 28). The future USS Canberra (LCS 30) is in pre-production and will begin construction early 2019.
Austal is also under contract to build 12 Expeditionary Fast Transport vessels (EPF) for the U.S. Navy. The company has delivered nine EPFs while an additional three are in various stages of construction.
