The contract, announced Friday by the Department of Defense, falls under foreign military sales, with work expected to run through October 2025. KSA FMS funding of $124.2 million has been obligated to the company upon award. The contract falls under a sale approved by the State Department in 2015 totaling over $11 billion for the ship class.
The Multi-Mission Surface Combatant is a variant of the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship being developed to meet the requirements of the KSA for a light surface combatant with anti-surface, anti-submarine and air warfare capabilities. It will have the same hull and propulsion systems of the Freedom-class, giving it a range of over 6,000 miles and a top speed of over 30 mph.
The MMSC will use a derivative of the AEGIS Combat System currently deployed on air warfare ships like the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and many allied surface combatants.
The MMSC will mount an 8-cell Mk 41 vertical launch system for Evolved Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missiles for shooting down incoming missiles and enemy aircraft. ESSMs can be "quad-packed" with four missiles to a VLS cell, allowing the MMSC to carry 32 of them for air defense. It will also carry two port-and-starboard Close In Weapons System 20mm rotary cannons for point-defense.
The ships will be armed with the Bofors 57mm cannon used on the LCS for anti-surface and anti-aircraft engagements and is planned to mount the Naval Strike Missile, the proposed replacement of the aging Harpoon anti-ship missile.
For anti-submarine work it can carry a MH-60R Seahawk helicopter and deploy hull-mounted, towed-array and dipping sonars for detecting and tracking enemy undersea targets. It will also have an AN/SLQ-25 torpedo decoy system.
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