PASCAGOULA, Miss., July 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — HII’s (NYSE: HII) Ingalls Shipbuilding division has reached a key milestone in its distributed shipbuilding initiative with the installation of the first grand blocks, made up of three units constructed by partner facilities, for Thad Cochran (DDG 135), a Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Fabricated by Gulf Copper and Eastern Shipbuilding, the units arrived at Ingalls ahead of the ship’s October 2025 keel authentication, demonstrating successful early-sequence production by qualified offsite partners and enabling increased throughput at Ingalls.
“This milestone reflects the strength of our partner network and the efficiencies of distributed shipbuilding for our destroyer production line,” said Ingalls Shipbuilding President Brian Blanchette. “The DDG 135 pilot is proof that we can expand capacity across the program while allowing our skilled Ingalls shipbuilders to focus on final assembly, integration and testing.”
Photos accompanying this release are available at: https://www.hii.com/news/hiis-ingalls-shipbuilding-erects-first-grand-blocks-built-by-distributed-shipbuilding-partners-on-thad-cochran-ddg-135.
Since 2023, Ingalls has built an expanded network of qualified fabrication partners through a structured evaluation process that included technical capability assessments, workforce reviews, quality system verification and close collaboration with Portfolio Acquisition Executive Maritime’s Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair Gulf Coast (SSGC). All partners are fully integrated into HII’s quality and material-control systems, ensuring consistency with shipyard production standards.
Building on the success of Thad Cochran, outsource work is also underway for John F. Lehman (DDG 137) and Telesforo Trinidad (DDG 139) by five different partnering companies that support Ingalls-destroyer construction. To date, all of the off-site production contracts have been awarded for 32 structural and pre-outfitted units for DDG 137 and 37 units for DDG 139. Of those units, the first two for DDG 137 have already arrived at Ingalls Shipbuilding ahead of the previously announced start of fabrication ceremony that took place July 1, marking another advantage as outsourced units are phased into the Ingalls construction processes for destroyers.
“Early deliveries for DDG 137 units show the model is not only repeatable but scalable,” said Blanchette. “Pushing work outside yard increases capacity. We have more hands working on more units that enables more work to be done in parallel and can contribute to accelerating the build by the Ingalls team. I’m confident as more partners come online and produce larger, more outfitted units, over time we expect to gain additional schedule efficiency while expanding capacity across multiple ship classes.”
There are 40 ships under construction at both HII shipyards and the shipyards will deliver five ships over the next 12 months, including an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. To sustain this momentum, HII is counting on distributed shipbuilding to help increase the throughput to meet a generational demand. Combined, HII doubled its distributed shipbuilding last year, and has a goal of increasing it by an additional 30% this year.
About HII
HII is America’s largest shipbuilder, delivering the world’s most powerful ships and all-domain mission technologies, including unmanned systems, to U.S. and allied defense customers. HII is the largest producer of unmanned underwater vehicles for the U.S. Navy and the world.
With a more than 140-year history of advancing U.S. national security, HII builds and integrates defense capabilities extending from the core fleet to C6ISR, AI/ML, EW and synthetic training. Headquartered in Virginia, HII’s workforce is 44,000 strong. For more information, visit:
Contact:
Kimberly K. Aguillard
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228-355-5663
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/59225793-e4b4-49ea-bc25-2960af69ecb1
