About $2.95B for detail design and construction of the FFG(X) guided missile frigate — built by a yard an order of magnitude smaller by contract value (Marinette Marine, Navy)

1A gap in ship classes

Among the 207 Department of Defense contracts this site holds as of 2026-08-28 are construction awards for aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, destroyers, amphibious transport docks and fleet oilers. What was long absent is the frigate. A frigate is smaller than a destroyer and takes on convoy escort and anti-submarine work.

How to place a ship that can be fielded in numbers, rather than continuing to add large hulls, is a question about the composition of the fleet itself, and this contract sits on that side of it.

2An order of magnitude apart in award value

Grouping contracts by shipyard makes the difference in scale plain. Electric Boat holds nine records worth about $130.8 billion; Huntington Ingalls, across two spellings of its name, holds twenty worth about $96.3 billion. Marinette Marine holds one, at about $2.95 billion. Within a structure that concentrates contracts on the few yards that build large hulls, frigate construction has gone to a different yard.

A difference in ship class becomes a difference in which part of the industrial base is used.

3Fourteen years of design and construction

The period runs from April 2020 to May 2034, fourteen years. Across the 207 records this site holds as of 2026-08-28, ten years is the most common duration at 24 records, with close to half in the eight-to-fourteen-year band; ships sit at the longer end, with construction advancing while the design is still being settled.

That detail design and construction are combined in one contract follows from that: rather than ordering once the design is fixed, the design is fixed while the work runs. The number of hulls to be built is not part of this record.