The Israeli Navy wants a smaller ship and BIW hopes the corvette is the vessel.
AUGUSTA – Bath Iron Works, one of Maine’s key employers, wants to sell warships to the Israeli Navy. The warships – corvettes – are smaller than any vessel built by BIW in decades.
“It is smaller than the DDG-51 destroyers that Bath has been building, but BIW is uniquely positioned to build the corvette,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said recently. “I spent a considerable amount of time meeting with the Israeli officials that will decide on the corvette and I am encouraged.”
Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was in Israel last month and met with Defense Minister Amos Yaron and Maj. Gen. Yedidia Ya’ari, the chief of the Israeli Navy. She said the discussions were “very positive” and she is optimistic about BIW’s chance of winning a contract.
The Israeli Navy wants a smaller warship than either the DDG-51 or the proposed DD(X) or LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) warships planned for the U.S. Navy. A corvette is about a third the size of a DDG-51 destroyer. Israel is initially looking at two ships, with the possibility of two more in later years.
“We have done the concept design and reviewed them with the customer,” Allan Doughty, BIW’s international development director, said last week. “We are looking at 2004 being a project definition phase where we actually get to the design baseline contract. The plan is to make a final decision in early 2005.”
Doughty said that means Israel will pay for the final design work needed to develop the corvette to the specifications of the Israeli Navy. He said the Israelis may have some specific weapons or other equipment needs for the ship that may differ from the preliminary design.
BIW’s basic corvette design was developed as part of a consortium founded in 1999 between BIW, IZAR, a Spanish defense contractor, and Lockheed-Martin. The group is called the Advanced Frigate Consortium.
“I think a sale to the Israelis is their best bet,” Pierre Chao, a defense industries analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, said last week. “And that’s because of the military assistance Israel gets from the United States. I think it will be a long shot for BIW to get any other corvette contracts.”
Chao said corvettes are not big ticket warships like those BIW builds for the United States. He said the profit margin is much thinner and BIW would have “extremely stiff” competition from European and Asian shipyards that have lower costs.
“I think the real issue may be to help the yard sustain its workforce,” he said.
That’s an issue of major concern to BIW. New construction funding for the DDG-51 or “Burke” class of destroyers is scheduled to end in 2005, with the last of those ships to be completed in 2008.
While BIW will help build the new generation of destroyers, the DD(X), it lost the competition to a group led by Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi to build the lead ship, so any construction work it will get will be after the first of the new ship class is built.
“The gap is an issue that has all of us concerned,” Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, said last week. “There needs to be a level of work at the yard to keep the workforce together.”
Any gap in shipbuilding at one of the state’s largest employers, with its $280 million annual payroll, could have a serious impact on the state’s economy. BIW employs a little more than 7,000 workers.
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