President Biden’s defense team is reworking the Pentagon’s fiscal 2022 budget request to reflect the new administration’s priorities. The biggest challenge is figuring out what to do about an ambitious naval shipbuilding plan unveiled by the previous administration on the eve of its departure.

The U.S. Navy is looking to integrate the new Naval Strike Missile onto at least one amphibious warfare ship in the coming year. This is part of a larger effort to look at ways to increase the firepower of these types of vessels, which could eventually include the addition of containerized missile launchers.

As the Navy looks to smaller and cheaper manned and unmanned ships to fill out its future fleet, a larger amphibious warship program is positioning itself to remain in shipbuilding plans by highlighting the ability to continue bringing costs down – including through a potential first-ever multi-ship buy – and adding capability.

The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS New York (LPD 21) arrived at Naval Station Norfolk, Nov. 22, 2020 concluding the ship’s homeport shift from Mayport, Florida to Virginia, The U.S. Second Fleet said in a release.

In a Defense News op-ed, Georgia Senator David Perdue emphasized the threat the U.S. Navy is facing as we are being surpassed in capability by competitors. He reinforced the need for the Navy to achieve a 355-ship fleet.

The U.S. Navy is scheduled to receive the first Flight II variant of its San Antonio-class amphibious platform dock ship (LPD) in the second quarter of fiscal 2025, a Navy official said, and the type is in serial production with the recent contract award of the second Flight II ship.

Reprinted with permission of Seapower, the official publication of the Navy League of the United States.

Huntington Ingalls Industries CEO Mike Petters, whose company builds military ships, discusses operating as a critical industry amid coronavirus, company earnings, and working with the Navy to ensure small business partners can continue to operate.

A top U.S. Navy official said acquisition and sustainment could emerge stronger, having withstood disruptions during the COVID-19 crisis. Speaking May 4 as part of a Navy League webinar sponsored by IBM for small businesses in the defense industry, James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said he views the pandemic as a crucible, where there will be some delays in production and maintenance, but also as an opportunity to strengthen the system.

Huntington Ingalls Industries has been awarded a potential $187.5M contract by the U.S. Navy for design and engineering of one America-class amphibious warfare vessel.

Navy leaders and defense industry execs are worried about the effect the COVID-19 pandemic is having on their supply chains, potentially interrupting critical repair and refit availabilities that could have knock-on effects on deployment schedules.

The federal contracting community has gotten used to seeing major upticks in contract outlays in the last couple months of the fiscal year. But for the Department of the Navy, April’s numbers rivaled those figures: Contract obligations this month are already up 30% compared to the same period a year ago, and almost double the figures from April 2018.