Naval experts at Lockheed Martin Corp. will start building four corvette-sized small surface warships for the government of Saudi Arabia, under terms of a $451 million order last month. Officials of the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking Lockheed Martin Corp. to buy long-lead materials and continue designing the Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) for Saudi Arabia. The MMSC is a variant of the Lockheed Martin Freedom-class littoral combat ship (LCS) that can be configured with a variety of sensors and weapons that help enable interoperability among U.S. naval forces and those of allied navies during joint operations. Long-lead materials are difficult and time-consuming to obtain, and are funded early in the ship design process to keep overall production on schedule. The MMSC will have an open-architecture design with a semi-planing mono-hull made of steel and an aluminum superstructure, and feature the Lockheed Martin COMBATSS-21 combat management system (CMS) to integrate the ship’s sensors, communications, and armament. Sensors will include a TRS-4D surveillance and target acquisition radar, a modern fire control radar, a multi-function phased array radar, an identification friend or foe (IFF) system, towed hull-mounted and dipping sonars, and a compact low-frequency active and passive variable-depth sonar.
