Last week, the U.S. Navy awarded a major maintenance, modernization, and repair contract to General Dynamics NASSCO, a subsidiary of General Dynamics.
The contract, which is initially worth $15.6 million, covers the maintenance and modernization of the USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) and USS James E. Williams (DDG 95). The contract also has options that, if exercised, would bring the total cumulative value to $753.8 million.
“NASSCO and our industry partners are looking forward to executing a pair of successful availabilities and are thankful the Navy has sole-sourced the contract to us to lead this effort,” said Dave Baker, vice president of Repair for General Dynamics NASSCO. “Much like our recent success with the modernization on USS Pinckney, our repair team is ready to tackle another opportunity with our Navy partners and get these ships back to the fleet in a timely manner.”
According to the information provided by the U.S. Navy, DDG 95’s depot modernization period will be approximately 23 months, beginning in November 2023 and completing in October 2025.DDG 93’s depot modernization period will be approximately 24 months, beginning in October 2023. USS Chung-Hoon, which is currently based out of the Pacific, will likely be dry-docked at NASSCO’s San Diego shipyard. While the USS James E. Williams will likely head for NASSCO’s Norfolk shipyard.
Furthermore, GD NASSCO provided some early information indicating that the vessels would have their AN/SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare system upgraded. Both the DDG-93 and DDG-95 are currently equipped with an aging Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 1, which originally began fielding in the 1990s. While it remains unclear which SEWIP version the vessels will receive, Naval News thinks that it will be the SEWIP Block 2. The system began fielding on DDGs in 2014 and is currently being rolled out to more vessels.
