Navantia Pitches 64-Cell F-110 IAMD Frigate to the US Navy

Spanish shipbuilder Navantia is positioning its F-110 frigate family as a candidate for the US Navy’s next surface combatant competition. The company is pushing the air- and missile-defense-focused Flight II variant, formally unveiled in October 2026, as a fit for the gap left by the scaled-back Constellation-class program.

Navantia currently offers two distinct F-110 configurations. Flight I is the anti-submarine-focused design already under construction for the Spanish Navy. Flight II, marketed internationally as the F-110 IAMD (Integrated Air and Missile Defence), is a reinforced version built to counter ballistic and air threats while keeping the family’s undersea and surface-warfare capabilities.

Flight II displaces roughly 7,000 tonnes, larger than the baseline design, and carries up to 64 vertical launch cells, compared with 16 cells (expandable to 32) on Flight I. That jump in magazine depth is the centerpiece of Navantia’s pitch to a navy that needs ships able to carry a heavier mix of interceptors and strike weapons.

Flight I’s combat system already combines Lockheed Martin’s Aegis command system with the AN/SPY-7(V)2 radar and Navantia Sistemas’ own Scomba combat management suite. The Navantia-Lockheed Martin relationship spans nearly three decades, going back to the integration of Aegis on Spain’s F100 frigates and extending to Norway’s Fridtjof Nansen class and Australia’s Hobart-class destroyers. Fitting SPY-7 to Spain’s own F-110 ships marks a new chapter in that partnership, one Navantia is keen to highlight for a US customer that already trusts the same combat architecture.

The timing is no accident. In November 2025, the US Navy moved to largely unwind the Constellation-class frigate program, which had been awarded in 2020 to Italy’s Fincantieri over Navantia’s own bid. The plan had called for six ships with an option for up to twenty, but design changes, weight growth and delays of roughly three years forced a rethink. Under the resulting agreement, the two frigates already under construction, USS Constellation and USS Congress, continue, while the four ships that had not yet started were cancelled outright.

That leaves the Navy publicly prioritizing speed to fleet over a clean-sheet design, which is exactly the argument Navantia is making: Flight II builds on a hull already in series production rather than starting from a blank sheet. The keel for Spain’s third F-110, the F113, was laid seven months ahead of schedule in October 2026, a data point Navantia can use to counter memories of Fincantieri’s multi-year slippage. Navantia is not the only foreign player circling the US market, either. South Korea’s Hanwha has expanded its own American footprint by acquiring a majority stake in the former Philadelphia Shipyard, now Hanwha Philly Shipyard, pursuing both commercial and military work there.

Beyond the US, Navantia’s order book keeps growing. In Australia, the F100-derived Hobart-class destroyers, fitted with Aegis and the SPY-1D(V) radar, are already in service. In the United Kingdom, Navantia UK, which includes the Harland & Wolff yards, leads the £1.6 billion Fleet Solid Support program building three logistics ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, with work split between British and Spanish yards. The company is also pushing into uncrewed systems with the LASV75, a 75-metre unmanned surface vessel unveiled in May 2026.

If the US Navy’s preference for proven, fast-to-build designs holds, a frigate already in series production with a combat system American sailors already operate gives Navantia a genuine opening — and could reshape the transatlantic frigate market well beyond this one competition.

Sources

• Infodefensa, “Navantia llama de nuevo a la puerta de Estados Unidos con su fragata F110, tras presentar la versión antiaérea”, November 2, 2026, infodefensa.com — primary and sole source for this report.