HII announced that the U.S. Navy awarded its Ingalls Shipbuilding division a $283 million contract to perform FF(X) class frigate lead yard support activities for the new frigate class. The contract allows Ingalls Shipbuilding to procure long lead time material, execute design work and begin pre-construction activities for the first ship.
HII press release
“We are proud of our past performance in engineering, design and production of warships that meet U.S. military standards, a performance that gave the Navy confidence to select the national security cutter as the basis for the next small surface combatant and to choose Ingalls as the program’s lead yard,” said Brian Blanchette, Ingalls Shipbuilding president. “We are excited to partner with the Navy to bring these preproduction steps under contract to accelerate delivery of the frigates that our warfighters need.”
Under this contract, Ingalls Shipbuilding will begin cutting and shaping raw material to support future phases of work on the main structure foundation and the overall construction sequencing plan of the first frigate. This new approach will enable a smooth transition from design to production at Ingalls Shipbuilding and eventually across the industrial base.
In December 2025, the U.S. Navy selected Ingalls Shipbuilding to design and build the future FF(X), leveraging the stable and proven design of the Legend-class national security cutter (NSC). Ingalls previously delivered 10 NSCs to the U.S. Coast Guard and will use the same proven build sequence for the FF(X) program. The new frigates will be constructed alongside production lines that currently support DDG 51 Flight III destroyers, LHA assault ships, LPD Flight II amphibious transport docks, and modernization activities for the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers.
To meet urgent Navy demand and support construction of next-generation platforms, Ingalls Shipbuilding has invested more than $1 billion in modernizing its infrastructure, facilities, and toolsets. HII as a whole is actively working to expand U.S. shipbuilding capacity by, among other things, increasing the number of distributed shipbuilding partners, collaborating with international manufacturers, and evaluating the addition of another U.S. shipyard.
The Navy’s new class of smaller combatant ships, the FF(X), is a critical component of the Navy’s fleet of the future. The FF(X) will be a smaller, more agile surface combatant designed to complement the fleet’s larger, multi-mission warships and enhance operational flexibility around the globe.
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Naval News comments:
The U.S. Navy cancelled the Constellation-class frigate program on November 25, 2025. FF(X) is meant to replace FFG(X).
FF(X) is intended to be the low in a low-medium-high mix, joining with DDG-51 FLT III and BBG(X) to round out fleet capabilities. FF(X) is wholly intended to target low-end threat profiles and missions such as narcotics interdiction to allow for larger surface combatants to be used elsewhere. It was very much stressed by the panel to view the FF(X) program and it’s capabilities in this context, a strategy likely meant to combat views of the frigate being too close in design to it’s Coast Guard Cutter cousin causing errant capability and survivability concerns.
This low-end threat profile, combined with a doubling-down on speed (first hull in the water by 2028) is the probable reason for the selection of a Coast Guard Cutter derivative. This is a stark departure from the FFG-62 program, which produced a VLS armed, larger (7,000+ ton), Aegis/AN-SPY(V)3 equipped, and more multi-role vessel with a trade-off of greater cost. This was in addition to a long string of production lags in the class, continually increasing costs with changing program requirements.
