Defense Industry Daily:
Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls recently announced external link that the first steps towards constructing the first Flight III Destroyer have been taken. The destroyer ‘Jack Lucas’ will join the Navy’s fleet in 2024. The vessel is modelled after the 73 Arleigh-Burke class destroyers already in service, but it will be a very different, more capable killer than its predecessors.
‘Jack Lucas’ gets its extra punch by adding Raytheon’s newly developed AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radar. The Flight III is a major overhaul of the guided-missile destroyer. It required a 45 percent redesign of the hull, most of which was done to accommodate the AN/SPY-6 and its formidable power needs.
The Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) has been procured through a competition between Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. The AMDR-S provides wide-area volume search, tracking, Ballistic Missile Defense discrimination, missile communications and defense against very low observable and very low flyer threats in heavy land, sea, and rain clutter.
