Austal shapes sea combat

The work under way at Austal's shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, is not for prying eyes. So much so that the even company's Australian owners need to sign in as visitors and be taken under escort on tours of their own facility.

But having to submit to high-security protocols is a small price to pay for being audacious foreigners who have designed and are building a revolutionary new class of aluminium combat warship for the US Navy.

Australian expertise is behind the new Independence-class littoral combat ships (LCS) that evolved out of a high-speed commercial trimaran ferry, the Benchijigua Express, that was designed and built in Austal's Henderson shipyard, just south of Perth, and launched in 2003.

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