Marinette Marine Set To Launch New Naval Combat Ship

Marinette Marine will launch a new littoral combat ship on Saturday. The company says it’s confident the U.S. Navy will continue the program even though problems were reported with previous ships.

The USS Little Rock will hit the water on Saturday. It belongs to a class of small warships that have had problems with weaponry and other systems.

Joe North, vice president of littoral ships for contractor Lockheed Martin, downplayed the seriousness of the problems.

“There were a couple of smaller systems that weren’t performing to the, I’ll say the performance level that the vendors quoted,” he said.

North said the company changed vendors to ones that “made the mark.”

Marinette Marine employs 1,600 people and 400 more work for contractors. There are seven LCSs in production at the yard now and more to come.

North said the work should last until 2022. Lockheed Martin is bidding for as many as 20 more ships. That work may be split between Marinette and Austal which works out of Mobile, Alabama.