From Thursday’s DOD Contracts:
Austal USA, Mobile, Alabama, is awarded a $516,481,569 fixed-price incentive (firm-target) contract modification to a previously awarded contract (N00024-23-C-2203) to exercise an option for ordering long lead time material, continue/complete detail design and Construction of the Lead Ship of the T-AGOS 25 Class. Work will be performed in Mobile, Alabama (42%); Houma, Louisiana (13%); Camden, New Jersey (13%); Shelton, Connecticut (6%); Cincinnati, Ohio (5%); Grove City, Pennsylvania (3%); Semmes, Alabama (3%); Chesapeake, Virginia (2%); Milford, Delaware (2%); New Orleans, Louisiana (1%); and various locations across the U.S., each less than 1% (10%), and is expected to be completed by May 2028. Fiscal 2024 Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy funds in the amount of $516,481,569 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire through the delivery date of T-AGOS 25. Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-23-C-2203).
The Navy in FY2022 procured the first of a planned class of seven new TAGOS-25 class ocean surveillance ships for $434.4 million, with Austal picking up the prime contractor nod— with a potential value of $3.195 billion– in May 2023.
The planned MSC-manned TAGOS-25
The small waterplane area twin hull (SWATH) vessel, so built to utilize the huge (64-ton) AN/UQQ-2 Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) active and passive sonar arrays, is key to U.S ASW strategy in the Western Pacific.
Of note, the Navy’s five aging TAGOS ships–four Victorious (TAGOS-19) class ships (TAGOS 19 through 22) that entered service in 1991-1993, and one Impeccable (TAGOS-23) class ship that entered service in 2000– all use the same SWATH/SURTASS package and are based at Yokohama, Japan.
TAGOS-25 will be the largest of her type, as compared with this chart from the CRS:
The bonus for replacing five older, smaller, and slower TAGOS vessels with the seven newer and more capable TAGOS-25s gives the obvious yield of putting more eyes in more places on the underseas goings on in the Pacific.
Nice to see the program is getting some funding.