BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK
he U.S. Army has signed a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars for its first new boat – yes, boat – in decades, the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light), or MSV(L), which will replace dozens of Vietnam War-era landing craft. The design will greatly improve the ability of the service’s substantial, but largely unknown watercraft fleet, to haul cargo and otherwise support combat operations and other emergencies, including responding to natural disasters.
Read all about the U.S. Army's largely unknown Navy of its own in this past feature.
On Sept. 28, 2017, the Army announced it had hired Vigor Works to build up to 36 of the new craft, with actual low-rate production of the first four boats expected to begin in 2021. The contract for the MSV(L)s is valued at just shy of $980 million.
The Oregon-based boat maker is perhaps best known in defense circles for a series of stealthy special operations craft it built for the U.S. Navy. It also built DARPA's unmanned submarine hunter named Sea Hunter. The company's sprawling facility on Swan Island, in North Portland, supports a large mix of vessels, including many of those used for missile defense and those in Military Sealift Command's inventory. Vigor claims its new floating dry dock, The Vigorous, is the largest in North America and it already has opened up its business portfolio to a whole new set of clients.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14898/the-us-army-is-buying-new-boats-to-replace-vietnam-era-landing-craft
