US Government Ship-Building Roundup

CVN 77: Men at work
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DID reader Lee Wahler points us to a pair of interesting articles. WorkBoat.com has a piece called “Boatyard Boom”:

“Everything indicates that the shipyard industry is on the leading edge of a boom,” said Butch King, chief executive officer, VT Halter Marine, Pascagoula, Miss. “Day rates are up, the steel market has stabilized, and operators find themselves with a good opportunity to upgrade and add to their fleet… The U.S. government announced plans to add 33 naval vessels to their existing fleet,” King added. The U.S. Coast Guard Deepwater program “continues to build and the demand for littoral combat vessels is growing.”

Note that commercial vessels are a sizable chunk of this activity. On the defense side of the ledger, however, MarineLog.com has an updated list of “Current Government Shipbuilding Contracts,” broken down by vessel type, anufacturer, and customer.

Some points to keep in mind as you read:

• “DDG” entries are all DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers, the multi-prurpose mainstay of the US Navy.

• LCS are “Littoral Combat Ships”. Each of the two competing team will produce two “Flight 0” ships.

• T-AKE Class cargo ships.

• The LPD ships are LPD-17 San Antonio Class ships. LPD 21 USS New York will include steel from the World Trade Center.

• CV 77 is the USS George H.W. Bush, the last of the Nimitz Class aircraft carriers.

• All SSN entries are SSN-774 Virginia Class submarines.

• DID has covered VT Halter’s FPC Fast Patrol Craft for the Egyptian Navy. Actually, they’re shaping up kind of like corvettes. By the time the contract reaches production, the total outlays for design work and construction of up to three vessels could grow to more than $450 million.

Note that this site also has more extensive lists of all ships built by US shipbuilders, stretching back into the late 1800s.