OREANDA-NEWS. August 29, 2014. The U.S. Navy awarded General Dynamics Bath Iron Works a USD 100 million contract to provide planning yard services for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works is a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).

Bath Iron Works, as the LCS Planning Yard, will provide maintenance and modernization support for all Navy LCS 1 and LCS 2 variant ships.Work to be performed under this contract includes availability advanced planning, ship alteration design and logistics support, material support, ship planned maintenance, class services, onboard maintenance, and planning of all maintenance availabilities in the U.S. and abroad.

Bath Iron Works is also the planning yard for the DDG 51 and FFG 7 ship classes.

"We are pleased for the opportunity to apply our planning yard experience in support of the Navy's LCS program," said Bath Iron Works President Fred Harris. "We have been working hard to make every aspect of our business more affordable, enabling us to successfully compete for contracts like this. This award is a result of that work and we look forward to working with our industry partners to meet the needs of our U.S. Navy customer."

Bath Iron Works is the prime contractor under this contract, with partners General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Austal USA, CDI Corporation, and Marinette Marine Corp., a Fincantieri company.

LCS is a fast, agile, focused-mission platform designed for operation in near-shore environments yet capable of open-ocean operation. It is designed to defeat asymmetric "anti-access" threats such as mines, quiet diesel submarines and fast surface ships. The LCS seaframes are outfitted with reconfigurable payloads, called mission modules (which are made up of mission systems and support equipment), and can be changed out.

There are two variants of the LCS class, Freedom and Independence. This Planning Yard Services contract covers both variants. Bath Iron Works had previously been providing similar Interim Support Program services for the Independence variant. The Navy currently has four littoral combat ships in service and another twelve ships under contract for construction.