HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding expands distributed shipbuilding to amphibious ships

HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding is extending its distributed shipbuilding approach to the U.S. Navy’s amphibious transport dock program, initiating modular unit construction on Philadelphia (LPD 32) to increase production throughput and strengthen the broader industrial base.

“Expanding distributed shipbuilding into the LPD program is a critical step in scaling capacity to meet rising fleet demand,” Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Blanchette said. “By shifting selected structural units to trusted partners, just as we’ve successfully done in the Flight III destroyer program, we’re enabling more parallel construction and freeing our Ingalls team to focus on the complex assembly and integration work that only a major shipyard can perform.”

As part of the effort, eight structural units for LPD 32 have been awarded to two partners and are already in early production. The move follows the model used on the Flight III destroyer line, where partner-built units for Thad Cochran (DDG 135) arrived ahead of the ship’s October 2025 keel authentication and supported early‑sequence work. Ingalls aims to replicate those gains across its amphibious shipbuilding operations.

Distributed shipbuilding remains a core element of plans to meet Navy fleet demand. The company doubled its distributed shipbuilding workload last year and expects outsourced shipbuilding hours to grow another 30% in 2026, with amphibious ships representing a significant portion of that increase.