General Dynamics, Ingalls to Design US Navy’s Next-Gen Guided-Missile Destroyer

General Dynamics subsidiary Bath Iron Works and Huntington Ingalls Inc. (HII) have been awarded fixed-price contracts by Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters to provide engineering and design analysis for Guided Missile Destroyer (DDG(X)) construction.

Bath Iron Works will carry out work at its Maine facility, while HII will perform its contracted tasks at facilities in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Avondale, Louisiana, and Newport News, Virginia. 

The companies are expected to complete the project by July 2023.

The contracts, which had undisclosed values, will extend to July 2028 depending on each firm’s success, the Department of Defense wrote.

The work will utilize data gathered from construction of the multi-mission Arleigh Burke-class DDG 51, in which HII also served as a major contractor, as well as the Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines.

“Bath Iron Works is eager to bring our cutting edge engineering and design expertise, now applied to the DDG 51 program, to the next generation of large surface combatants,” Bath Iron Works President Chuck Krugh said in a press release.

DDG(X) Program

DDGs are one of the longest-produced combat vessels in US Navy history. The ships are expected to be made until 2027 and remain in service until the 2060s.

The DDG(X) program is an enhancement initiative to bolster current vessels such as the DDG 51 and others yet to be constructed. 

The program offers “increased missile capacity, sensor growth, longer range offensive, high-powered directed energy weapons, increased survivability, increased efficiency, reduced impact on command logistics fleet, and improved distributed maritime operations.”