Page 26: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2003)

The multi-billion contract to build a new family of Navy ships took one giant step last month with the awarding of development contracts to three industry teams. The fight to win the contract to design and build the family of Littoral

Combat Ships (LCS) is sure to be fierce, as the deal to build up to 60 of the ves- sels will help feed the corporate coffers of the successful team for decades to

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LCS is indicative of the Navy's trans- formation from a deepwater fleet left- over from the Cold War threat of only one other credible super power, to the reality of today's multi-faceted threat environment: small, hard to find and diverse groups around the globe. The

LCS is designed to be a multi-function- al, multi-dimensional vessel, able to accomplish a diversity of missions equally well while operating in more dangerous shallow coastal waters.

While derided in some circles as "dis- posable," the LCS will represent some of the highest technology on the water, fully leveraging the modern military's move toward the network centric approach to battle. Simply put, rather than operating as an island or the cog in a small battle group, the LCS vessels will "plug into" the network of air, land, space and sea assets, helping to collect, process, analyze and disseminate infor- mation that will help to, ultimately, pro- tect lives and military assets.

The battle to build the LCS family has attracted true international attention, as a quick scan of the three remaining teams 26 surely bears out. "The LCS teams selected represent the best available domestic and internation- al expertise, and reflect strong efforts on the part of industry to provide innova- tive technologies and operational flexi- bility for the fleet customer," said John

Young, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and

Acquisition. "Our LCS acquisition strat- egy supports delivery of the first ship as early as fiscal 2007, within five years of program start."

Each of the teams features a broad international mix of companies that have imported advanced technologies to the shores of the U.S., technologies which in the long-run which will surely impact the productivity and stature of U.S. builders and suppliers in military, gov- ernment and commercial marine mar- kets, both domestically and abroad. "This award is a major accomplish- ment in Austal USA's plans to become a major competitor in high speed applica- tions for the US defense program," said

Austal USA's CEO, Greg Metcalf.

Over the next seven months, the three teams will put the finishing touches on

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