Bollinger Shipyards this week announced the most recent Navy order for Mine Countermeasures Unmanned Surface Vessels (MCM USV) covers four more vehicles, bringing the current total under contract to seven.
Last month the Navy awarded Bollinger a $12.5 million
modification to produce an unspecified number of additional MCM USVs (Defense Daily, Sept. 29).
The company first won a $14 million contract to produce three vehicles to take over from Textron Systems [TXT], which had worked with the Navy for years on MCM USV experimentation with prototypes (Defense Daily, April 11, 2022).
The initial contract included options for up to six more vehicles in the base year and 24 more MCM USVs following that. If all options are exercised, the total contract value will rise to $123 million and work will last through April 2027.
The company is building these vessels at its Lockport, La. facility.
Textron protested the award, but the Government Accountability Office ultimately sided with the Navy and Bollinger (Defense Daily, Aug. 11, 2022).
“Bollinger is honored to be entrusted by the U.S. Navy to continue building the Mine Countermeasures Unmanned Surface Vessel program,” Ben Bordelon, president and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards, said in a statement. “Our skilled workforce is second to none. We are proud to support and protect the men and women of the U.S. Navy with state-of-the-art, multi-mission unmanned surface vessels that can operate in the most challenging conditions,” he continued.
The MCM USV is an autonomous vessel tasked with supporting minesweeping, mine hunting and mine neutralization missions. It is part of the Unmanned Influence Sweep System (UISS) system that has the vessel tow anti-mine payloads like the RTX [RTX] AN/AQS-20C sonar to detect, localize and classify bottom, close-tethered moored and volume moored mines.
The Navy aims to use the MCM USV to help replace capabilities deployed on the aging Avenger-class MCM ships and MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters. The vessel will be launched and recovered by the Littoral Combat Ship, other vessels of opportunity or shore sites.
A company spokesperson told Defense Daily these is no expected change to the production line with these modifications, which are part of the original production contract.