So, We Have a New Frigate?

...manage expectations and be content...

With this Monday’s announcement of USS Defiant (BBG-1) absorbing all the oxygen, it is easy to forget that just five days ago we found out about our next frigate. As I mentioned in my Tuesday article, I spun off this discussion just to focus on Defiant.

Well, I did more than that. I deleted it all. It was just too complicated. The frigate announcement was the second, after the LST announcement, of steps we are taking after the cancellation of my poor, abused baby—he Constellation Class FFG. I guess BBG-1 would be the third, so there is a lot of news floating around the U.S. Navy information space this holiday season.

In summary, we are going to do what was first proposed over a dozen years ago, a gray-hulled version of the Legend Class Cutter.

So much has already been said and this is Christmas Eve, I’m going to keep this uncharacteristically short.

On balance, I fully support this move. Yes, I wanted a USS FREMM, but I am only going to get two. We don’t have time for a clean sheet design, we are running out of time and we need hulls in the water.

There may have been other options that we’ve discussed here before, but this is what we have. We should run with it.

If, as it appears, the desire is to get hulls in the water, then I would expect Flight I to be roughly the same capabilities as the Legend Class Cutter with perhaps a few things spot-welded onto the existing design. That is what TWZ and others are hearing, and that makes sense. I’m resigned to this fate given what we know about NAVSEA. There are still missions for such a frigate to do instead of a DDG, which is what is happening right now.

However, I suspect that already there is work being done on a Flight II, which will incorporate the multi-mission capability of the patrol frigate proposed over a dozen years ago linked to above. Will there be a Flight III even more capable? I hope not.

Let’s go back to my recommendation first put forward in December of 2007 that manifested 13 years later with the Constellation Class:

In 2020 the Navy announced that it had selected the European multi-mission-frigate design, which is currently operated by four other nations, for modification and construction in the United States. Currently ten ships are planned, but there are clear indications that the number of Constellation-class frigates (as the category has been named) will grow considerably.

What I proposed in October of 2007’s post should sound familiar.

Let me beat that drum a little harder - license build a EuroFrigate NOW!!! Do it while we still have time - time to keep the Fleet numbers treading water and have enough shipyards open.

A revolutionary project on PPT is just that - on PPT. An evolutionary project (see pre-WWII Cruiser development and the history of carrier development as an example) results in ships pierside and ships underway. Good officers have bought the line over this decade that LCS with all its toys will let them cover 10x more water than the old Spru-cans did - and do it better. ADS was to be one of the keys in doing this.

We have put all our eggs in that gilded crap-basket of an LCS - thanks to Sid, we have the proof much of the oversold ASW capability increase portion has gone poof. With ADS gone we now have, well, a poorly configured, expensive, undermanned Corvette.

That was supposed to be a gap filler until we do what we need to start now—a modern, clean sheet multi-mission, sub-6,000 ton frigate that will follow the new frigate based on the Legend Class Cutter.

We are already 1.5 generations behind in modern ship design, and this frigate will only have us treading 2010 water.

Next week I’m going to make everyone mad by stealing an idea from Alessio Patalano. Fear and shame are great motivators, so I’m going to show everyone what our friends are putting in the water right now, and we’re not.

Until then, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and may 2026 be kind and fruitful for us all.