Flight II really should focus on some ASW capability. We have almost nothing in that department any longer, and we'll need it wether we're running convoys in the Pac or Lant
Why not build Flight II as two parallel tracks, one ASW and one AAW? The Legend class is now being built by Ingalls, but could also be built by other yards as well. We certainly can’t afford to be bottlenecked.
Thanks for that info. I suggested in an earlier post that Hanwha was a viable candidate to build the Constellation replacement before the grey hull Legend became the frigate du jour. Maybe they are getting the contract, not so much as a snub to Fincantieri, but as simple recognition that they are still up to their gunwales just trying to finish the two Constellations.
Someone? You're not wrong, and wouldn't be surprised if Austal took what Eastern already started to completion, in the meantime USCG is going to need a second yard if not a third given how far behind the program is...and FMM is already set-up.
That's fair. I think we have an air AAW capability with the Burkes, which are plentiful and still building. But we need ASW muscle. the Figs can provide us that
ASW work needs many, many hulls in the water. Current autonomous technology isn't mature enough and what has been made available doesn't move the needle.
Completely agree. Not sure how many hulls we'll need, but figure three for every one deployed. It will be a lot of bottoms, but we needed them 20 years ago
A FF can get by with a ESSM and SeaRAM as its AAW options. Gonna need whatever cells for ASROC or, whatever the next generation of AuSW weaponry is in the pipeline.
Well, the Mk-70 containter launcher (four cell) could handle both ASROC and ESSM (as well as basically every other missile available). The question is fire control; I'm not sure whatever cutters have would work well as multi-channel fire control system against missile or drone attacks. And Legend-class cutters have no sonar at all.
The Legend-derived frigate will do about as well as a Treaty cruiser in Iron Bottom Sound if it ever gets into a scrap with something tougher than a boat full of Somali pirates.
Consider Saronic is building two 150 foot usvs and a 180’ without a contract, these frigate need as secure, high bandwidth data links as is possible. More than the asw and vls it is missing.
Merry Christmas everyone! Anyone know how close we are to an improved DASH? An UAV with a dipping sonar to go with the SH-60 would make a decent ASW hull.
In the spirit of Christmas, I will not concentrate on the negatives, but hope that visions of VLS sugar plums are dancing in the heads of decision makers tonight. Quoting from TWZ, “…lack of VLS cells… At the same time, the new frigates will be able to carry modular payloads, including containerized missile launchers, on their sterns.” This will give us an immediate “missiles in a container” capability, with VLS cells proper in any sane future. BTW, how many SM-6 can you stuff into a container that will fit on the new FF?
Looking forward to what you and the good doctor have to say on this subject. And to all at sea this week, a merry Christmas, and to all a good night!
Well, the Mk-70 containerized launcher is for 4 strike-length cells. Which means it could accomodate four SM-6, or SM-3, or Tomahawks, or any other Mk-41 compatible missile.
Love the fear and shame approach. Based upon discussions I've had with..."tier"...types over the years (I ain't one!) they work incredibly well together to pull performance out of people they never knew they had in them in training. Which then became part of them in operations. Perhaps you driving a tack with a sledgehammer (again!) over the LCS and various other debacles will work...this time...
Yes, we are sadly behind. But we are where we are. As few Flight I as possible. HII has designs, Flight II needs AAW. We don't need ASW for convoy, just to protect the auxiliaries. We aren't convoying anything to WestPac. CHINA needs to convoy oil or they slow way down.
Fix NAVSEA. 4 Star with 8 year tenure like Naval Reactors. DESIGN ships, not Power Point. Focus on SHIPS, not acquisition, we have made a religion of acquisition. That process is buying stuff. No corporation has buying stuff as the biggest C Suite. CEO, COO, CFO, CIO. The actual process of buying? No. Then design ships, get Gibbs and Cox to help, but design ships. Start with next frigate for WestPac. Mostly it needs SWAPC. Threats are evolving high and low (Hypersonic, drones) we don't know what works precisely in each case. Don't wait to find out. Build ships with SWAPC and VLS now, knowing there aren't enough VLS or $$ for missiles in the world for the future fight. BUSHIPS knew how to do this, we built a new class of successively better dreadnoughts almost every year in the WW I era. The most complex things on earth at that time, every year, with paper and pencil. No multiple versions in Power Point. We have lost that. The current focus on iterating design until it is 100% in CATIA until it is perfect. No. Use these of course, not paper and pencil. Build it. Let the ship fitters move the pipe over an inch if they need, empower the deckplate engineers to approve, it doesn't change supportability.
Slow roll the battleship. Stupid target. We don't even have a drydock for it unless we displace a carrier. Use the effort to get the CG(X) (what we are calling DDGX) right.
In parallel design the NEXT DDG Smaller than CGX, bigger than FFX. Something we can produce at Burke scale.
Never mind . .Foreign Military Transfers: The majority of the fleet was transferred to the navies of the Philippines, Bahrain, and Egypt for continued service in their coastal defense.
Scrapping: Some ships, like USS Zephyr (PC-8) and Shamal (PC-13), were decommissioned and designated for scrapping.
Great post. I am curious, to what extent should the Constellation-class experience be interpreted as a loss of institutional design capacity in U.S. frigate programs, versus a case of overextension before the industrial base was ready and current fleet inventory needs were met? Is there likely anything recoverable from this project for future, more capable frigate designs once production tempo and shipyard capacity are rebuilt? In short, does Constellation reflect a design and intellectual-capacity failure, or primarily a manufacturing and productive-capacity failure? Merry Christmas sir, appreciate the continual insights.
Well, I spend my career running middlin' to fairly large (8- and low 9-figure) software projects, not ships. But, to be 5 years in and have commenced building (or programming) without agreed-upon requirements and a design that might be 10% complete is a recipe for failure, and it's not the fault of the builders for trying to make something as defined by nothing. All the industrial capacity in the world won't accomplish much if the challenge is "I can't tell you what I want, but you're already late so start building it." I can't see how Constellation got far enough in the design process to put stress on the industrial base. The excuse that Fincantieri didn't have enough welders doesn't make sense to me. Without a design, weld what? Another thing: apparently the metric used to determine design % complete is the number of pages produced, and I read somewhere that those pages didn't need to be modeled to make sure flange A would mate with slot B as the modules went together. As best I know FMM has produced good ships when given a good and stable design and set of requirements. Speaking as a Wisconsin resident and frequent visitor to the Green Bay area, I'd like to see them build flight II patrol frigates under license.
No, the Navy metrics were (and are) total BS. It was going to take years longer than they claimed and cost far more then they claimed, and to SoN knew they were lying. I think he should also fire everyone involved in the deception.
Couldn't agree more. If the metric is # of pages, then pages get produced, whether it's a page of executable design or a page of doodles. I'd be curious what other meaningless easy-to-game metrics the Nave uses to make failure look good on paper, and it appears allow the people responsible for failure to make flag rank.
As has been true forever, "Better is the enemy of good enough." The SYSCOMS are not the holders of requirements. The Fleet needs to tell NAVSEA, "Thank you for your input, the next time I want your opinion about requirements, I'll beat it out of you." When I was the PM for Harpoon, I ran headlong into NAVSEA "requirements" a number of times. In my fading memory of long ago heroics, I won every one of those -- by adhering to straightforward engineering and needs. I refused to redo a shock test because NAVSEA couldn't justify the numbers in the spec as they should relate to Fleet operations. I put down their objections to the number of Harpoon configurations. COMNAVSEA said I had lost configuration control until I laid out:
- One sustainer section
- With and without booster
- Five launch configurations (one sub, one air, three surface)
- Three guidance sections (replacing them in Depot as available)
- Two paint schemes (reducing to one as missile went through Depot_
- Warshot v exercise v test v exercise with telemetry
- 240 possible configurations - every damned one in control
Don't let the engineers in NAVSEA try to baffle you with BS -- they are highly unlikely to dazzle you with brilliance (and sometimes even marginal competence)
Yes, you do that CDR Salamander and pray you have the inside track to Mis S. Wells so POTUS can be shown the “Truth”.
Fret not, standby with the cheap champagne to smack the prow (Bow) as it is slid backward into the water.
Asking for the second time, where will this be?
Code-Word… “Plus-One”…
Nurse Jane… stood by and helped Carpenter Chris this morning in the brisk wind.
Carpenter Chris can be tasked with Officers Country.
Tomorrow, I’ll be standing “Creek-Side” in Brandywine, PG County, Maryland. A creek runs through his property. I love all furry animals who need the creek Let’s play “Wind in the Willows”, shall we?
Who wants to be Toad, beep-beep?
Carpenter Chris has work in the North Door of Forevermore by the Bay, four (4) times since November 2024. Today Carpenter Chris sat in the Captains Chair in the SS Nurse Jane.
I gave him a quick lesson to understand wind direction and how much daylight was left. carpenter Chris asked “Where’s the deep water?” Another lesson given. He caught on quickly! Give Carpenter Chris a chance, please. Thank you! Nurse Jane
I come back to the question I raised a decade ago. What is it for?
The USN built 40 Knox-class FFs in the 1960s to escort convoys across the Atlantic in the teeth of the Soviet sub threat. We built Perry-class FFGs to replace them in the same mission. But that mission evaporated with the Soviet Union.
Since then, we’ve seen a push to have 40 SOMETHINGS…but nobody knows why. What they are supposed to do. ASW? AAW? ASuW? Presence?
After the fiascos of LCS, DDG-1000, Constellation, and the Ford problems, I remain convinced that the best use of the money is to fund F/A-XX. Followed by a VSX and an upgraded MQ-4 (bigger engine). Time to stop throwing money down yet another NAVSEA rathole.
If you want to argue in favor of an ASW mission, I won’t disagree. And there are several options for that. What would a reprocured/updated Perry cost? A licensed Mogami? Or cut a deal, trade Japan-built Mogamis for a couple of CVNs?
I’m not sufficiently versed in the ASW options to comment on them.
However, I am familiar with cargo transport. And it’s a long way across the Pacific. I have little doubt that the PLA-N has avidly studied Döenitz, his campaign, tactics and ultimately his frustrations.
We don’t have merchantmen anymore. We can get some more, perhaps. But they’re much, much larger than the Liberty ships. So each loss removes exponentially more war material from the logistics equation than during the Battle of the Atlantic.
In WWII, we built ‘em faster than they could sink ‘em.
It is not plausible that the US could build merchant ships at the required rate. And, I wonder if we could produce nearly enough war materiel to fill replacements for sunken ships as in days of yore.
Someone above commented that capital ships must be escorted. I submit that it is more important for the merchantmen carrying supply to be escorted, as they have no defense. Otherwise, we’ll be Winchester, quite quickly.
Escorted with what is a question I must leave to the more knowledgeable folks here.
—
Kinda gloomy for Christmas Eve, sorry. But I wish everyone a merry Christmas.
China has studied our WWII War in the Pacific and took the lessons learned to heart. We have forgotten those lessons- China will remind us of what we lost.
Maybe. But being a variant of the Littoral Combat Ship hull raises my pucker factor. Perhaps unfairly. But there it is. Let's see how they work out for the Saudis.
The mmsc has no asw but defense as per Lockheed. It will not fit. It has 8 vls. No more will fit, just too heavy. So it is a dead end without meeting minimums. So it just won't work.
The nsc can take 16 vls and has room for full asw. I suspect it will need an upgrade in gensets and cooling which it has room for. Can the Navy screw it up trying to make it a mini burke? Yep. Hopefully someone can keep that from happening.
Probably a good move--actually said that some time ago with many others. At the time, there were comments about this horse already having left the barn due to USCG cancelling the last two ships in the program. I never did get a clean answer as to why---contractor inefficiency? USCG program changes not funded? Design issues? All of these? In any case, sure hope USN fixes whatever was wrong before going down the same path. Yeah, hope is not a strategy.
design and production issues. So.......we're going to redesign the ship and rely on the same yards because the power of Trump? Make it make sense for me. The current cadre should be too smart for this.
On shipbuilding, other than the Arleigh Burkes, no one in two decades has proven to be competent, let alone smart. In deference to our Host, this is not the forum for political discussions.
I'm convinced we can't design and build warships anymore. After the Burke's nothing. And don't cite the LCS. What is its mission? Modules? We don't need no stinking' modules. Based on available results, at least at the moment we're SOL. Can someone convince me we can still do this?
so in a past life I did combat systems safety engineering for the WMSL-750. This ship was built to Steel Vessel Rules, not the Naval Vessel Rules. Does anyone remember a clusterfuck shipclass that tried to shift from SVR to NVR? I do--LCS. This is not going to be painless if we are going to build her under the NVR, and I see no indication that we are not. Likewise, the ship does not have the SWAP-C that the old Spruance class did--we're not going to get a superstructure redesign without a major redesign penalty. This is going to look like CONSTELLATION level re-design by the time we are done. The combat system will be changed out, the C2, the shock qualification, the compartmentalization--everything. It's going to be a brand new ship when it is all said and done. This is not a win.
Why am I not surprised we have backpedaled 20 years (1st laid down in 2005) and said --again-- oh, a common hull with the Coast Guard" might be prudent for low end capabilities. At least they have worked the LEGEND structural issues out for rough blue water ops. When does the first hull go down the skids? What yard will be told to stop what they are building to shoehorn this in with LEGEND's still being built; and SSNX, SSN AUKUS, SSBN COLUMBIA, BURKE's, FORD,s new LST-med, new BBG, or is it CBG, or BBGN, or just what they resurrected, an arsenal ship. We do not have the excess shipyard capacity - or creative management onsite, to do all this, full stop.
If memory serves me (a lot to ask these days), Ingalls had two Patrol Frigate (PF) design concepts, 4920 and 4921. 4920 was pretty much a straight forward NSC with a few added weapons systems that was designed to be a quick alternate solution to the range and maintenance issues plaguing the LCS.
4921 was more robust and was being pushed by Ingalls as an FMS version and, perhaps, later a way for the USN to save face when the LCS finally imploded.
Both designs came out of the naval architecture shop, based in Avondale at the time, that had pretty good creds.
The USN did everything in its power to quash this effort including, as mentioned before, providing no support to the FMS version.
In 2017 HII proposed another variant, the PF4923. From https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/huntington-ingalls-has-new-frigate-could-give-the-us-navy-19020 : "the HII FF4923 would be well furnished. It would include a 3D rotating phased array radar, an EO/IR sensor, passive ECM, hull-mounted sonar and towed-array or variable depth sonar. It would be armed with a Mk-41 vertical launch system with 16 cells capable of carrying the Standard SM-2 and RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile. It would also be equipped with ASROC anti-submarine rockets, eight Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a single triple torpedo launcher and a 76mm gun." Perhaps that design concept will be dusted off for Flight II?
Flight II really should focus on some ASW capability. We have almost nothing in that department any longer, and we'll need it wether we're running convoys in the Pac or Lant
Why not build Flight II as two parallel tracks, one ASW and one AAW? The Legend class is now being built by Ingalls, but could also be built by other yards as well. We certainly can’t afford to be bottlenecked.
They have already said Hanwa will build them to. Seems like a snub to Fincantieri.
Thanks for that info. I suggested in an earlier post that Hanwha was a viable candidate to build the Constellation replacement before the grey hull Legend became the frigate du jour. Maybe they are getting the contract, not so much as a snub to Fincantieri, but as simple recognition that they are still up to their gunwales just trying to finish the two Constellations.
Fincantieri would be best shifting their attention to USCG and propose a plan for their OPC after Eastern backed-out of their contract.
Austal is already building them. Someone in the south will finish the ones eastern started.
Someone? You're not wrong, and wouldn't be surprised if Austal took what Eastern already started to completion, in the meantime USCG is going to need a second yard if not a third given how far behind the program is...and FMM is already set-up.
There is plenty of business building Jones Act hulls to be had.
They just built the Mark W. Barker in their Sturgeon Bay yard....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzBkq_wAZzU
And that yard will now be building sections of the 2 frigates
A rather handsome ship.
That's fair. I think we have an air AAW capability with the Burkes, which are plentiful and still building. But we need ASW muscle. the Figs can provide us that
Legit call.
Thanks
ASW work needs many, many hulls in the water. Current autonomous technology isn't mature enough and what has been made available doesn't move the needle.
Completely agree. Not sure how many hulls we'll need, but figure three for every one deployed. It will be a lot of bottoms, but we needed them 20 years ago
The RUM-139 Vertical-Launch Anti-Submarine Rocket (VL-ASROC or VLA) is what the frigate needs to provide Stand off ASW and ASUW punch.
A FF can get by with a ESSM and SeaRAM as its AAW options. Gonna need whatever cells for ASROC or, whatever the next generation of AuSW weaponry is in the pipeline.
Thank you for that reminder.
Well, the Mk-70 containter launcher (four cell) could handle both ASROC and ESSM (as well as basically every other missile available). The question is fire control; I'm not sure whatever cutters have would work well as multi-channel fire control system against missile or drone attacks. And Legend-class cutters have no sonar at all.
The Legend-derived frigate will do about as well as a Treaty cruiser in Iron Bottom Sound if it ever gets into a scrap with something tougher than a boat full of Somali pirates.
That’s okay though. If they’re on pirate patrol then the Burkes are freed up for warfighting.
Sorry. Typo. "a fair AAW Capability in the Burkes. . ."
Consider Saronic is building two 150 foot usvs and a 180’ without a contract, these frigate need as secure, high bandwidth data links as is possible. More than the asw and vls it is missing.
Merry Christmas everyone! Anyone know how close we are to an improved DASH? An UAV with a dipping sonar to go with the SH-60 would make a decent ASW hull.
Cusv with mh-60r dipping sonar.
That could definitely work.
In the spirit of Christmas, I will not concentrate on the negatives, but hope that visions of VLS sugar plums are dancing in the heads of decision makers tonight. Quoting from TWZ, “…lack of VLS cells… At the same time, the new frigates will be able to carry modular payloads, including containerized missile launchers, on their sterns.” This will give us an immediate “missiles in a container” capability, with VLS cells proper in any sane future. BTW, how many SM-6 can you stuff into a container that will fit on the new FF?
Looking forward to what you and the good doctor have to say on this subject. And to all at sea this week, a merry Christmas, and to all a good night!
Adl/ngels might fit the same number of cells but be easier to use for aaw. Also gmlrs in 20’ container is an option now. 2 boxes per container.
Well, the Mk-70 containerized launcher is for 4 strike-length cells. Which means it could accomodate four SM-6, or SM-3, or Tomahawks, or any other Mk-41 compatible missile.
But you don’t want it for aaw most of the time. No one wants it in the up position for sailing at speed in a heightened sea state.
Love the fear and shame approach. Based upon discussions I've had with..."tier"...types over the years (I ain't one!) they work incredibly well together to pull performance out of people they never knew they had in them in training. Which then became part of them in operations. Perhaps you driving a tack with a sledgehammer (again!) over the LCS and various other debacles will work...this time...
Yes, we are sadly behind. But we are where we are. As few Flight I as possible. HII has designs, Flight II needs AAW. We don't need ASW for convoy, just to protect the auxiliaries. We aren't convoying anything to WestPac. CHINA needs to convoy oil or they slow way down.
Fix NAVSEA. 4 Star with 8 year tenure like Naval Reactors. DESIGN ships, not Power Point. Focus on SHIPS, not acquisition, we have made a religion of acquisition. That process is buying stuff. No corporation has buying stuff as the biggest C Suite. CEO, COO, CFO, CIO. The actual process of buying? No. Then design ships, get Gibbs and Cox to help, but design ships. Start with next frigate for WestPac. Mostly it needs SWAPC. Threats are evolving high and low (Hypersonic, drones) we don't know what works precisely in each case. Don't wait to find out. Build ships with SWAPC and VLS now, knowing there aren't enough VLS or $$ for missiles in the world for the future fight. BUSHIPS knew how to do this, we built a new class of successively better dreadnoughts almost every year in the WW I era. The most complex things on earth at that time, every year, with paper and pencil. No multiple versions in Power Point. We have lost that. The current focus on iterating design until it is 100% in CATIA until it is perfect. No. Use these of course, not paper and pencil. Build it. Let the ship fitters move the pipe over an inch if they need, empower the deckplate engineers to approve, it doesn't change supportability.
Slow roll the battleship. Stupid target. We don't even have a drydock for it unless we displace a carrier. Use the effort to get the CG(X) (what we are calling DDGX) right.
In parallel design the NEXT DDG Smaller than CGX, bigger than FFX. Something we can produce at Burke scale.
End of rant.
Flight I is going to be way too useful. Giving up the Cyclone class was a mistake, and the Navy knows it, even if they don't admit it.
Are they in mothballs? If so, why not bring them back
Never mind . .Foreign Military Transfers: The majority of the fleet was transferred to the navies of the Philippines, Bahrain, and Egypt for continued service in their coastal defense.
Scrapping: Some ships, like USS Zephyr (PC-8) and Shamal (PC-13), were decommissioned and designated for scrapping.
You make some good points, John, but what defenestrated NAVSEA was shutting down the Navy’s organic shipbuilding; our naval shipyards.
Great post. I am curious, to what extent should the Constellation-class experience be interpreted as a loss of institutional design capacity in U.S. frigate programs, versus a case of overextension before the industrial base was ready and current fleet inventory needs were met? Is there likely anything recoverable from this project for future, more capable frigate designs once production tempo and shipyard capacity are rebuilt? In short, does Constellation reflect a design and intellectual-capacity failure, or primarily a manufacturing and productive-capacity failure? Merry Christmas sir, appreciate the continual insights.
Well, I spend my career running middlin' to fairly large (8- and low 9-figure) software projects, not ships. But, to be 5 years in and have commenced building (or programming) without agreed-upon requirements and a design that might be 10% complete is a recipe for failure, and it's not the fault of the builders for trying to make something as defined by nothing. All the industrial capacity in the world won't accomplish much if the challenge is "I can't tell you what I want, but you're already late so start building it." I can't see how Constellation got far enough in the design process to put stress on the industrial base. The excuse that Fincantieri didn't have enough welders doesn't make sense to me. Without a design, weld what? Another thing: apparently the metric used to determine design % complete is the number of pages produced, and I read somewhere that those pages didn't need to be modeled to make sure flange A would mate with slot B as the modules went together. As best I know FMM has produced good ships when given a good and stable design and set of requirements. Speaking as a Wisconsin resident and frequent visitor to the Green Bay area, I'd like to see them build flight II patrol frigates under license.
No, the Navy metrics were (and are) total BS. It was going to take years longer than they claimed and cost far more then they claimed, and to SoN knew they were lying. I think he should also fire everyone involved in the deception.
Couldn't agree more. If the metric is # of pages, then pages get produced, whether it's a page of executable design or a page of doodles. I'd be curious what other meaningless easy-to-game metrics the Nave uses to make failure look good on paper, and it appears allow the people responsible for failure to make flag rank.
As has been true forever, "Better is the enemy of good enough." The SYSCOMS are not the holders of requirements. The Fleet needs to tell NAVSEA, "Thank you for your input, the next time I want your opinion about requirements, I'll beat it out of you." When I was the PM for Harpoon, I ran headlong into NAVSEA "requirements" a number of times. In my fading memory of long ago heroics, I won every one of those -- by adhering to straightforward engineering and needs. I refused to redo a shock test because NAVSEA couldn't justify the numbers in the spec as they should relate to Fleet operations. I put down their objections to the number of Harpoon configurations. COMNAVSEA said I had lost configuration control until I laid out:
- One sustainer section
- With and without booster
- Five launch configurations (one sub, one air, three surface)
- Three guidance sections (replacing them in Depot as available)
- Two paint schemes (reducing to one as missile went through Depot_
- Warshot v exercise v test v exercise with telemetry
- 240 possible configurations - every damned one in control
Don't let the engineers in NAVSEA try to baffle you with BS -- they are highly unlikely to dazzle you with brilliance (and sometimes even marginal competence)
Many in NAVSEA need to be fired. Almost everyone is dancing around that need.
Fired from a cannon, one would hope...
Yes, you do that CDR Salamander and pray you have the inside track to Mis S. Wells so POTUS can be shown the “Truth”.
Fret not, standby with the cheap champagne to smack the prow (Bow) as it is slid backward into the water.
Asking for the second time, where will this be?
Code-Word… “Plus-One”…
Nurse Jane… stood by and helped Carpenter Chris this morning in the brisk wind.
Carpenter Chris can be tasked with Officers Country.
Tomorrow, I’ll be standing “Creek-Side” in Brandywine, PG County, Maryland. A creek runs through his property. I love all furry animals who need the creek Let’s play “Wind in the Willows”, shall we?
Who wants to be Toad, beep-beep?
Carpenter Chris has work in the North Door of Forevermore by the Bay, four (4) times since November 2024. Today Carpenter Chris sat in the Captains Chair in the SS Nurse Jane.
I gave him a quick lesson to understand wind direction and how much daylight was left. carpenter Chris asked “Where’s the deep water?” Another lesson given. He caught on quickly! Give Carpenter Chris a chance, please. Thank you! Nurse Jane
I come back to the question I raised a decade ago. What is it for?
The USN built 40 Knox-class FFs in the 1960s to escort convoys across the Atlantic in the teeth of the Soviet sub threat. We built Perry-class FFGs to replace them in the same mission. But that mission evaporated with the Soviet Union.
Since then, we’ve seen a push to have 40 SOMETHINGS…but nobody knows why. What they are supposed to do. ASW? AAW? ASuW? Presence?
After the fiascos of LCS, DDG-1000, Constellation, and the Ford problems, I remain convinced that the best use of the money is to fund F/A-XX. Followed by a VSX and an upgraded MQ-4 (bigger engine). Time to stop throwing money down yet another NAVSEA rathole.
“But that mission evaporated with the Soviet Union.”
I wish I could be convinced of this.
If you want to argue in favor of an ASW mission, I won’t disagree. And there are several options for that. What would a reprocured/updated Perry cost? A licensed Mogami? Or cut a deal, trade Japan-built Mogamis for a couple of CVNs?
No wise warrior choses a knife fight and that is what a sub vs surface combatant fight. Keep the crewed ship so the sub doesn’t have a chance.
I’m not sufficiently versed in the ASW options to comment on them.
However, I am familiar with cargo transport. And it’s a long way across the Pacific. I have little doubt that the PLA-N has avidly studied Döenitz, his campaign, tactics and ultimately his frustrations.
We don’t have merchantmen anymore. We can get some more, perhaps. But they’re much, much larger than the Liberty ships. So each loss removes exponentially more war material from the logistics equation than during the Battle of the Atlantic.
In WWII, we built ‘em faster than they could sink ‘em.
It is not plausible that the US could build merchant ships at the required rate. And, I wonder if we could produce nearly enough war materiel to fill replacements for sunken ships as in days of yore.
Someone above commented that capital ships must be escorted. I submit that it is more important for the merchantmen carrying supply to be escorted, as they have no defense. Otherwise, we’ll be Winchester, quite quickly.
Escorted with what is a question I must leave to the more knowledgeable folks here.
—
Kinda gloomy for Christmas Eve, sorry. But I wish everyone a merry Christmas.
"....Escorted with what...." ???
over and over I suggest that MODERN, amphibious, fully rigid hulled 100 kts AIRSHIPS are correct tool for the job. ( NOT blimps or dirigibles )
during WWII, even lowly blimps escorted over 80,000 ships, with one loss due to enemy action. One.
China has studied our WWII War in the Pacific and took the lessons learned to heart. We have forgotten those lessons- China will remind us of what we lost.
I’m content with a frigate cheap enough to buy in number rather than pretend we can build a Burke Lite just as cheaply.
That ship would be the mmsc not nsc.
Maybe. But being a variant of the Littoral Combat Ship hull raises my pucker factor. Perhaps unfairly. But there it is. Let's see how they work out for the Saudis.
The mmsc has no asw but defense as per Lockheed. It will not fit. It has 8 vls. No more will fit, just too heavy. So it is a dead end without meeting minimums. So it just won't work.
The nsc can take 16 vls and has room for full asw. I suspect it will need an upgrade in gensets and cooling which it has room for. Can the Navy screw it up trying to make it a mini burke? Yep. Hopefully someone can keep that from happening.
Probably a good move--actually said that some time ago with many others. At the time, there were comments about this horse already having left the barn due to USCG cancelling the last two ships in the program. I never did get a clean answer as to why---contractor inefficiency? USCG program changes not funded? Design issues? All of these? In any case, sure hope USN fixes whatever was wrong before going down the same path. Yeah, hope is not a strategy.
design and production issues. So.......we're going to redesign the ship and rely on the same yards because the power of Trump? Make it make sense for me. The current cadre should be too smart for this.
What cadre in Navy shipbuilding has shown that they are smart?
What cadre of Trumpanistas have shown that they are smart?
On shipbuilding, other than the Arleigh Burkes, no one in two decades has proven to be competent, let alone smart. In deference to our Host, this is not the forum for political discussions.
the Burkes are inertia. not ingenuity.
I'm convinced we can't design and build warships anymore. After the Burke's nothing. And don't cite the LCS. What is its mission? Modules? We don't need no stinking' modules. Based on available results, at least at the moment we're SOL. Can someone convince me we can still do this?
The usch cancelled and their money should be buying soares. Now they can fight with the navy.
Or grab a river Class/Type 26 design and go with it as a closer stop gap.
Too big, expensive and slow to the water.
so in a past life I did combat systems safety engineering for the WMSL-750. This ship was built to Steel Vessel Rules, not the Naval Vessel Rules. Does anyone remember a clusterfuck shipclass that tried to shift from SVR to NVR? I do--LCS. This is not going to be painless if we are going to build her under the NVR, and I see no indication that we are not. Likewise, the ship does not have the SWAP-C that the old Spruance class did--we're not going to get a superstructure redesign without a major redesign penalty. This is going to look like CONSTELLATION level re-design by the time we are done. The combat system will be changed out, the C2, the shock qualification, the compartmentalization--everything. It's going to be a brand new ship when it is all said and done. This is not a win.
I think we have to go to SVR. without the ability to actually design anything means converting to NVR is a shit show. At some point we need hills
Why am I not surprised we have backpedaled 20 years (1st laid down in 2005) and said --again-- oh, a common hull with the Coast Guard" might be prudent for low end capabilities. At least they have worked the LEGEND structural issues out for rough blue water ops. When does the first hull go down the skids? What yard will be told to stop what they are building to shoehorn this in with LEGEND's still being built; and SSNX, SSN AUKUS, SSBN COLUMBIA, BURKE's, FORD,s new LST-med, new BBG, or is it CBG, or BBGN, or just what they resurrected, an arsenal ship. We do not have the excess shipyard capacity - or creative management onsite, to do all this, full stop.
If memory serves me (a lot to ask these days), Ingalls had two Patrol Frigate (PF) design concepts, 4920 and 4921. 4920 was pretty much a straight forward NSC with a few added weapons systems that was designed to be a quick alternate solution to the range and maintenance issues plaguing the LCS.
4921 was more robust and was being pushed by Ingalls as an FMS version and, perhaps, later a way for the USN to save face when the LCS finally imploded.
Both designs came out of the naval architecture shop, based in Avondale at the time, that had pretty good creds.
The USN did everything in its power to quash this effort including, as mentioned before, providing no support to the FMS version.
Let’s hope NAVSEA doesn’t screw this one up.
Cheers and Merry Christmas!
In 2017 HII proposed another variant, the PF4923. From https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/huntington-ingalls-has-new-frigate-could-give-the-us-navy-19020 : "the HII FF4923 would be well furnished. It would include a 3D rotating phased array radar, an EO/IR sensor, passive ECM, hull-mounted sonar and towed-array or variable depth sonar. It would be armed with a Mk-41 vertical launch system with 16 cells capable of carrying the Standard SM-2 and RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile. It would also be equipped with ASROC anti-submarine rockets, eight Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a single triple torpedo launcher and a 76mm gun." Perhaps that design concept will be dusted off for Flight II?