BATH, Maine — Editor's note: The video above aired Oct. 2, 2021.
Bath Iron Works has been awarded a $54 million contract extension to continue to provide "lead yard services" for DDG 51 destroyers for another year.
“This contract extension enables BIW to continue to provide the most accurate, up-to-date engineering and design services for new DDG 51 class destroyers,” BIW President Chuck Krugh said in a release Thursday. “Our team is currently performing the fiscal year 2023 upgrade with the next-generation enhancements to the Arleigh Burke class that will ensure DDG 51s remain the most advanced surface combatants in an increasingly complex world.”
Lead yard services include configuration management, logistics, supply chain, engineering, and design services.
BIW currently has seven Arleigh Burkes under construction: DDG 120, the future Carl M. Levin; DDG 122, the future USS John Basilone; DDG 124, the future USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr.; DDG 127, the future USS Patrick Gallagher; DDG 126, the future USS Louis H. Wilson Jr.; DDG 130, the future USS William Charette, and DDG 132, the future USS Quentin Walsh.
DDG 51s are built by Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding of Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The Navy has proposed a new multi-year procurement for 2023-2027 of 9, and possibly 10, DDG 51s. Previous multi-year contracts have divided the ships between BIW and Ingalls.
The Navy plans to transition in approximately FY 2030 from building DDG 51 destroyers to a new destroyer currently being developed known as the DDG(X).
The Navy told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in April that it is "committed to a smooth and successful transition" between the two designs in order to "preserve the critical shipbuilding and supplier industrial base by executing a collaborative design process with current DDG 51 shipyards and transitioning to a proven limited competition model between these shipyards at the right point in ship construction."