The US Navy will make Fincantieri whiz, all the details

The US Defense has awarded Marinette Marine (Fincantieri) a contract linked to the Constellation-class frigate USS Chesapeake. The article by Aurelio Giansiracusa for Ares-Osservatorio Difesa

The United States Department of Defense awarded Marinette Marine Corporation (Fincantieri) an addendum worth nearly $ 537 million to the previously awarded contract to exercise options for the design and construction of a missile-class frigate, the future USS Chesapeake ( FFG-64) and built-in support for the digital environment.

This announcement follows the successful project review of last month's class leader USS Constellation (FFG-62), which is nearing the start of the construction phase.

The "Constellation" program was awarded in 2020 to FMM, with a contract for the first frigate with the option for 9 additional ships, in addition to after-sales support and crew training, worth a total of approximately 5.5 billion. dollars. As part of the program, the US Navy plans to build an additional 10 units, for a total of 20.

In this very prestigious competition, Fincantieri managed to impose itself on its US competitors thanks to a project judged to be the most advanced and innovative. The Group's proposal, in fact, is based on the FREMM frigate platform, considered the best in the world from a technological point of view, on which a program of ten units for the Italian Navy is based.

Fincantieri has also almost completed the modernization of its US yards aimed at allowing the construction of two frigates every year.

FMM represents the spearhead of Fincantieri Marine Group (FMG), which controls two other sites also in the Great Lakes region (Wisconsin) – Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding and Fincantieri Ace Marine – and has commercial and government customers. FMM is also involved in the Littoral Combat Ships programs, also for the US Navy, and Multi-Mission Surface Combatants (MMSC), for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as part of the United States Foreign Military Sales plan.

The Cosnstellation class frigates will have a displacement of about 7,500 tons, will have an overall length of over 151 meters, a width of just under 20 meters and a draft of about 8 meters.

The propulsion system will be of the CODLAG (COmbined Diesel eLectric And Gas) type and will consist of an LM2500 G + 4 gas turbine, two diesel engines and two HED (Hybrid Electric Drive) electric motors.

The USS Chesapeake (FFG-64), the third unit after the USS Constellation (FFG-62) and the USS Congress (FFG-63), will reach a maximum speed of 26 knots and 6,000 nautical miles of range at 16 knots.

The Constellation-class armament will consist of a 57mm BAE / Bofors Mk 110 gun, a 32-cell VLS Mk 41 system for RIM-66 Standard SM2 Block IIIC missiles, RIM-162 ESSM Block 2 and / or RIM-174 Standard ERAM, 16 launchers for anti-ship missiles (Naval Strike Missile) and a 21-cell RIM-116 RAM system for close-point defense. In addition, provision is made for a laser weapon up to 150 kW of power.

The electronic equipment will consist of an AEGIS Baseline 10 type combat management system compatible with AN / SPY-6 (V) 3 Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR), an AN / SPS-73 (V) 18 radar new generation surface search, an AN / SLQ-61 towed light sonar, an AN / SQS-62 variable depth sonar and an AN / SQQ-89F system for antisubmarine combat, as well as the AN / SLQ-electronic warfare suite 32 (V) 6 Block 2 and Mk 53 systems for launching Nulka deceptions.

Constellation-type units will have hangar and flight deck available to operate an MH-60R Seahawk multirole helicopter and an MQ-8C Firescout UAS rotorcraft.

Constellation-class frigates in the ranks of the US Navy will have escort duties, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft defense as well as surface contrast.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/marina-usa-fincantieri/ on Fri, 17 Jun 2022 13:55:31 +0000.