The U.S. Navy has awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries a $1.46 billion contract to design and build the U.S. Navy’s new amphibious transport dock Fort Lauderdale (LPD 28).
USS Fort Lauderdale will be the 12th and final ship of the U.S. Navy’s San Antonio-class of amphibious transport ships.
Ingalls has built and delivered 10 ships in the class so far while the 11th, Portland (LPD 27), was launched last year and is scheduled for sea trials in mid-2017.
“This contract demonstrates the confidence the Navy has in our shipbuilders’ performance in this program,” said Ingalls Shipbuilding president Brian Cuccias . “Building LPD 28 allows the entire LPD industrial base to maintain a hot production line so that our sailors and marines receive quality amphibious warships as efficiently and affordably as possible.”
LPD 28 is named Fort Lauderdale to honor the Florida city’s historic ties to the U.S. Navy, which date to the 1830s and include an important naval training center during World War II.
The 684-foot-long, 105-foot-wide San Antonio class ships are used to embark and land marines, their equipment and supplies ashore via air cushion or conventional landing craft and amphibious assault vehicles, augmented by helicopters or vertical takeoff and landing aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey.