Last week General Dynamics’ [GD] Bath Iron Works (BIW) marked milestones for two U.S. Navy vessels: the keel laying of the future Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118) and the starts of fabrication of the future USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG-124).
DDG-118 is named after World War II Medal of Honor recipient and longtime Senator from Hawaii Daniel Inouye (D). The keel laying occurred on May 15 and with it the company said the ship is now half completed. At the annual Surface Navy Association symposium in January, Navy officials said the ship was about 48 percent complete.
GD said the ship’s keel was moved from the shipyard’s Ultra Hall onto the current yard building earlier in 2018. The keel laying marks the start of hull integration and is a precursor to integration, tests, and trials.
Separately, on Thursday BIW began construction on the future USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG-124) with a milestone of the first 100 tons of steel being cut.
DDG-124 is set to be one of the last Flight IIA configuration ship numbered before the upgraded Flight III configuration enters into service.
The Barnum was first awarded as part of a multiyear procurement in 2013 and in 2016 the Navy awarded BIW a $644.3 million modification for the ship. In 2016 the company valued that total multiyear buy at $3.4 billion (Defense Daily, March 30, 2016).
Last week Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Ingalls Shipbuilding announced it had started building the first Flight III Arleigh Burke-class, the future Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125), at its facility in Pascagoula, Miss. (Defense Daily, May 11).
The Flight III ships feature modifications to accommodate the new AN/SPY-6(V) Air and missile Defense Radar (AMDR), which improves on the Flight II’s SPY-1 radar’s ability to track ballistic missiles.
DDG-124 will have the Aegis Baseline 9 software and hardware upgrade while DDG-125 will have the latest capability, Baseline 10.