Austal has announced that the future USS Kansas City (LCS 22) has successfully completed acceptance trials in the Gulf of Mexico.
Designed and built by Austal in Mobile, Alabama, USS Kansas City is the eleventh Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to reach this milestone and will be the third ship Austal USA delivers to the US Navy in 2019.
LCS 22 is to be delivered as part of the Independence-class LCS program, which is at a full rate of production across Austal’s shipyards. Austal has five ships currently under construction, while final assembly is well underway on the future USS Mobile (LCS 26) and USS Savannah (LCS 28).
The future USS Oakland (LCS 24) has recently launched and is preparing for trials; modules for the future USS Canberra (LCS 30) are under construction in the module manufacturing facility, and construction on the future USS Santa Barbara (LCS 32) began in October.
The Independence-class LCS is a high-speed, multi-mission, small surface combatant designed to defeat growing littoral threats and provide access and dominance along coastal waters.
Capable of operating independently or in a group, these ships are fast, manoeuvrable, and networked, providing the required warfighting capabilities and operational flexibility to execute focused missions such as surface warfare, mine warfare and anti-submarine warfare.
