BAE Systems has received a $197.4 million contract from the U.S. Navy to drydock and perform maintenance and modernisation work aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp.
This is the second time in four years that the company has performed significant work onboard the Wasp.
Under the new contract, BAE Systems Norfolk shipyard will begin working aboard the 843-foot-long USS Wasp in February 2021, performing hull, tank and mechanical work.
BAE Systems say that the contract includes options that, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value to $237.7 million.
During the company’s last maintenance availability aboard the Wasp, from December 2016 to May 2017, BAE Systems added modifications to support Joint Strike Fighter operations onboard.
“BAE Systems is very familiar with USS Wasp, performing substantial upgrade work onboard before its forward deployment to Japan three years ago,” said Mark Whitney, deputy general manager of BAE Systems Ship Repair and general manager of Norfolk Ship Repair.
“Our team of skilled tradespeople and subcontractors look forward to executing another long sustainment period on Wasp, to ensure the ship retains its sharp warfighting capability.”
It is understood that in order to prepare for drydocking the Wasp, BAE Systems sent its largest floating drydock in Norfolk to a Baltimore, Maryland, shipyard for five months of lifecycle maintenance. The drydock, called ‘Titan,’ returned to Norfolk earlier this month. The lifecycle maintenance work performed on Titan drydock will enable the yard to service the largest Navy ships in the port of Norfolk for another 20 to 25 years.
BAE add that Titan is capable of lifting up to 52,500 long tons. The USS Wasp displaces about 40,500 long tons.
Try not to set fire to it guys! By the way, is BAE still British Aerospace or has history been whitewashed in order not to upset the sensitive?
It’s grown from those early days. They now have factories/yards all over the world.
I am surprised they kept the BAE brand though and not tried to make it less British considering most of its work is based in the US.
Their biggest acquisition was United Defense in the US wasn’t?
I do also wish they kept some of the UK Branding like Vickers Defense for land systems, Bofers still seems to get mentioned at times regarding their Swedish arm.
And most of its shares are US owned also.
However the UK government owns a golden share which gives certain controls
The BAE brand
“Bloody Awful Engineering”…yep that’s about right!
How many jobs in the UK are going to be created by this maintenance contract? Job creation in relation to defence procurement and maintenance with the US appears to be very one sided.
None, BAE have facilities in the US. They wouldn’t get many US military contracts otherwise.
This is good news.
Will there be a Sting in the Tail though ?
News from the USN have said that the USS Bonholme Richard is going to be paid off and scrapped. They calculated it was going to cost nearly $3 Billion to repair or half of that to convert it to a hospital ship. Sad way for a ship to go!
Not very quick or easy to replace either. Well if the USN need some help in the flat top dept I’m sure QE or PoW could assist.