The US Navy will order a fourth America-class aircraft carrier.

Is this an effect of the program Lightning Carrier conducted from the USS Tripoli? While the Huntington Ingalls shipyard is currently finishing the major work on the USS Bougainville the Pentagon has confirmed that theUS Navy will acquire in fiscal year 2023 a new building of this type. Officially designated LHA 9 it will be the fourth America class warship. Will it be assigned to amphibious missions?

L’US Navy will therefore have to place his order between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023, i.e. during the 2023 fiscal year. Usually this type of contract is signed at the beginning of the financial year in order to save several weeks in the implementation of the construction site. The future LHA 9, whose name will only be known once the signature is affixed to the bottom of the contract, should be able to enter service during the calendar year 2026. It could notably have the primary role of replacing the USS Wasp , first in his class.

This is with a view to this LHA 9 becoming an amphibious force projection aircraft carrier as the USS America already is and as the USS Bougainville will be next year. Yet the successes in the concept Lightning Carrier might well drive theUS Navy to make this building a second light aircraft carrier dedicated to the 5th generation Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II very short take-off fighters. The LHA 9 would thus complete the USS Tripoli, in order to have one in the Atlantic-Mediterranean zone and a second in the Asia-Pacific zone. Global geopolitical upheavals between Chinese expansionism and Russian aggression could well work in favor of this option.

At the same time, the Pentagon revealed that three San Antonio class force projection ships, phase II, will also be ordered during the same fiscal year 2023. For the record, these buildings can carry Bell assault transport converter planes -Boeing MV-22B Osprey and Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion / CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopters.
Case to follow.

Photo © US Navy.

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