Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced on June 17, 2020 that its Ingalls Shipbuilding division has received a third contract modification from the U.S. Navy for $145 million to provide long-lead-time material and advance procurement activities for amphibious assault ship LHA-9. This modification brings the total advance funding for LHA-9 to $350 million.
«This advance procurement contract will help protect the health of our supplier base and strengthen our efforts to efficiently modernize the nation’s amphibious fleet as we continue to build amphibious ships for the U.S. Navy», Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Cuccias said.
Ingalls is the sole builder of large-deck amphibious ships for the U.S. Navy. The shipyard delivered its first amphibious assault ship, the Iwo Jima-class USS Tripoli (LPH-10), in 1966. Ingalls has since built five Tarawa-class (LHA-1) ships, eight Wasp-class (LHD-1) ships and the first in a new class of amphibious assault ships, USS America (LHA-6), in 2014. The second ship in that class, USS Tripoli (LHA-7), was delivered to the U.S. Navy earlier this year. USS Bougainville (LHA-8) is under construction.
Huntington Ingalls Industries is America’s largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. For more than a century, HII’s Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. HII’s Technical Solutions division supports national security missions around the globe with unmanned systems, defense and federal solutions, nuclear and environmental services, and fleet sustainment. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs more than 42,000 people operating both domestically and internationally.
General Characteristics
| Builder | Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., Ingalls Operations, Pascagoula, Mississippi |
| Date Deployed | Delivered to the fleet in on April 10, 2014 |
| Propulsion | Two marine gas turbines, two shafts, 70,000 total brake horsepower/52,199 kW, two 5,000 horsepower/3,728 kW auxiliary propulsion motors |
| Length | 844 feet/257.3 m |
| Beam | 106 feet/32.3 m |
| Displacement | Approximately 45,000 long tons full load /45,722 metric tons |
| Speed | 20+ knots/23+ mph/37+ km/h |
| Crew | 1,059 (65 officers) |
| Load | 1,687 troops (plus 184 surge) |
| Armament | 2 RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) launchers |
| 2 NATO Sea Sparrow launchers with ESSM (Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile) | |
| 2 20-mm Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapon System) mounts | |
| 7 twin 12,7-mm/.50 cal. machine guns | |
| Aircraft | 9 F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) STOVL (Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing) aircraft |
| 4 AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters | |
| 4 CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters | |
| 12 MV-22B Osprey VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) tiltrotors | |
| 2 MH-60S Sea Hawk Search and Rescue (SAR) helicopters | |
| UH-1Y Huey helicopters |
Ships
| Ship | Laid down | Launched | Commissioned | Homeport |
| USS America (LHA-6) | 07-17-2009 | 06-04-2012 | 10-11-2014 | Sasebo, Japan |
| USS Tripoli (LHA-7) | 06-22-2014 | 05-01-2017 | ||
| USS Bougainville (LHA-8) | 03-14-2019 | |||
| LHA-9 |