Rumors suggest that the contract for America’s next guided-missile frigates--replacements of the troubled Littoral Combat Ship--will be awarded as early as this afternoon. The two original Littoral Combat Ship builders are the likely winners. Here's why.
to slag. The attack re-ignited long-standing Navy fears that aluminum is too dangerous for close combat, and encouraged operational changes in the way Austal’s militarized catamaran, the, was used. Keeping the all-aluminum hull-form for the new frigate—a platform expected to jostle shoulders with the Chinese in the South China Seas and beyond—would ignite a firestorm.
Austal’s other problem is political; Alabama is not in play in the 2020 presidential election. And with former Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions running for Senate, the Trump Administration would be loathe to offer Alabama anything that might boost Jeff Sessions’ political prospects as he is “persona-non-grata” at the White House.Independence
Class Littoral Combat Ships are getting out into the Pacific, and, with the aid of good maintenance at the up-and-coming Vigor Industrial, vessel maintenance challenges are getting resolved. And yet, without an additional frigate contract, Austal’s future in the U.S. looks bleak—the yard would probably shutter, or, at best, dwindle to a shadow of it’s current size. There is little work left for the shipyard outside of finishing up the final brace of legacyclass Littoral Combat Ship platforms, and forcing a transformation to a conventional steel-based shipyard to bid for more “conventional” Navy or Coast Guard ships would be difficult.
The primary reason Fincantieri is favored to win has nothing to do with the platform itself. The overarching factor that favors Fincantieri’s FREMM offering is politics. It’s simple — if the Trump Administration fails to win Wisconsin in November, then the Trump administration won’t receive a second term.
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