Speaking at the WEST 2018 conference last week, James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy, said that a new contract lasting from 2018 to 2022 to produce Flight III Arleigh Burke-class vessels was up for grabs. The destroyers will be built either at Bath Iron Works in Maine or the Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi, or perhaps both.
Specifically, the Flight III Arleigh Burke ships feature Raytheon's AN/SPY-6 radar, an active electronically scanned array air and missile defense 3D radar. In advertising the radar on its corporate page of "7 fast facts about the navy's newest radar — and how it will keep the world a safer place," the firm boasts, "it has ‘spy' in its name."
Most of the 2017 funding for the Arleigh Burke program went into modeling and designing the vessel to incorporate new radars, USNI News reports.
"The Navy has worked with our industry partners to develop the Flight III testing to ensure each shipyard is well-positioned to execute this [multiyear procurement contract," Geurts said in an announcement.
The destroyers can carry out a variety of tasks including anti-air warfare, anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface missions.
