Cancelled the constellation class frigate after looots of time and money, went to basically taking the Legend class cutter and modifying it. And then this comes out and makes it all seem a bit more absurd
I have a friend who makes almost 500k a year teaching agile classes at big software companies. He basically says the same thing. It's mostly bullshit wrapped in terminology so idiots in middle management sound smart when they talk to their bosses.
I always felt “some lady in a pantsuit makes a lot of money wasting someone else’s money doing this shit” but I’ve been more or less blue collar to enjoy project management
Software developers aren't supposed to be making Gantt charts, and any PM worth his salt knows to at least double any estimate given by a dev, who notoriously forget to include unimportant things like "testing" and "the software being in a releaseable state" when giving an estimate.
Don’t know if you know this but the Navy doesn’t build the ships, and the ship builders are much more sophisticated as each supplier has no less than 12 excel spreadsheets to manage a contract.
I really don't see what Fincantieri is going for here. The Constellation was canceled because the feature creep led to it barely being cheaper than a Burke and having sub 25% compatibility with European FREMM designs (it was supposed to have 75%+ in order to save costs). If you're going to clown USN procurement, clown them for their feature creep (which has been a problem since the interwar, as in post world war one). Feature creep is what keeps hurting the US military.
This is something I'm curious about. I work in the military, as a civ. Still pretty new, just over a year into mil and overall federal employment.
And even in my small group, which is mostly active duty, there are sooooo many goddamn good idea fairies. Not just officers, but even the enlisted and warrants. Someone has a good idea, officers greenlight it, then its up to idea fairy to implement it and train others and own it. OK, cool. But after the idea fairies rotate and PCS, who's going to maintain all this stuff? Us handful of civilians? The civs are outnumbered at least 10 to 1. I think technically it's supposed to be incoming active duty who continue to maintain these things, but it can take quite awhile for them to get trained and qualified and all that.
Is it like this for marks and advancement? Is this pervasive within the mil? Within the govt? As a civilian, as someone whose career has so far largely been outside of the mil and government, I have never seen so much idea bombing by the good idea fairies. And then given the go-ahead.
the Constellation Class FFG programme is cut (no new ships after the first two) in favour of the new FF(X) based on the National Security Cutter (NSC)/Legend Class Cutter of the USCG. Despite of the official rationale being that it'll deliver faster (with the target given to be 2028), there's not much evidence to suggest that it's a feasible goal. What's certain is that this NSC-derivative is mostly as well armed as the Coast Guard's version (not that the deadline allowed much design changes to be made), so no SPY-6, no MK41, and probably no ASW suite. Just to remind you that this whole thing is supposed to be a replacement of the LCS on the basis that the LCS is too weak for US Navy's need.
I love how the USN keeps asking for ships that are cheaper and lighter than the Burke class but keeps rejecting them for having less firepower and capability than the Burke class
when the Navy was doing with the Constellation, they insisted on all the changes to the baseline FREMM (which's already quite well-equipped) because they want the best, and suffered from various setback as a consequence.
now that the Constellation is troubled by delay, suddenly it's acceptable to replace it with a Coast Guard Cutter with no better (more likely, lesser) specification than a LCS just because of the alleged quicker delivery time and (even more dubious) more Americanized supply chain
Maybe the solution is to make a modular stealth hull out of Aluminium for the Ajax.
And make the turret more proprietary. If there's no ammo, then it won't be fielded to actual combat, which means fewer casualties from driving it around.
I will add that it wasnt really feature creep on the part of the Constellation. The ship was always going to have AEGIS, strike length VLS, IEP propulsion, and need revisions to hit USN damage control standards. Which I would say we're largely warranted as you dont want a class of ship that isn't compatible with the weapons and fire control systems of the rest of the fleet. Also the Connies were frigates but the quiet part about their procurement is that the Navy needs a minimally viable Burke replacement to stem the bleeding that is the imminent retirement of the flight I Burkes.
Now we get to repeat that process all over again with a different class, after completing all the needed design work on the connies to build two ships anyway.
What if we take a Burke, tie a load of Airships to it to make it lighter and use all the onboard computers to mine bitcoin so it partially pays for itself?
I really don't understand the new frigate. Most navies use frigates for specialized roles (anti air, ASW). Getting both means you're building a Burke class destroyer equivalent. However, the new frigate doesn't have the Mk41 VLS to carry the surface to air missiles for fleet defense, the radar system to target/guide them, nor any kind of capable sonar system with rocket propelled torpedos to kill the subs.
At least when the NSC bid for FFG(X) it included integration of the radar, a small VLS pack , and some sonar arrays. It could have been an ASW frigate
Jury is still out, but I think this could be a significant step up from LCS. It's looks like the ship will have dedicated space for several containerized payloads that won't take up flight deck space. Reloading MK41 cells at sea is a tricky skill the Navy can just barely perform. Meanwhile, any commercial shipping company in the world can switch out MK70s in under an hour.
I have also seen speculation of an MK56 suite, though I have no idea if that's true.
8-12 ESSMS, 8-12 containerized vls, 16 NSM s, and RAM all while still being able to use your flight deck? That would be a tremendous upgrade from an LCS.
From memory, they went into LCS without a set standard for the actual modules, ending up with an incompatible mess that barely existed.
I'd have to go and actually readshudder to see if they've matured the idea since then. Though, if they just wanna rotate the same kind of kit for reloads, it might be easier to pull off.
The anti mine module works wonderfully after some delay. The Independence Class are replacing the Avengers and doing a good job. I actually love the idea that my minesweeper can defend itself and also complete other missions. It took a while but they got that part right
They also just shot the bed with the LSM. The Navy spent 5 years designing a $125m commercial vessel, then at the last minute added $400m of bolt on systems to the final RFP. But it was too expensive at $500m per so they are building a short range cargo ship to project power from Hawaii to the Philippines.
You are only looking at deck space. Those modules go 25-28 feet deep into the deck and weigh over 32,000 pounds per 8-cell module. That below below deck space is critical. You lose tremendously more space and add tremendously more weight when looking at 3-dimensions.
That's not even including the electronics and tactical command space that you need to build into the ship for MK41 that is completely self-contained in the MK70.
You are 100% using less net space per missile with two MK70 compared to an 8-cell MK41 strike length
Jury is still out, but I think this could be a significant step up from LCS
TBF, that bar is basically on the floor. A modified Legend probably will be better than an LCS, but I expect it to be worse than an unmodified FREMM.
Edit~ Honestly it's really a shame that the NAVSEA insisted on trying to Frankenstein a perfectly good frigate into a Burke. All it really needed was upgraded engine power for future upgrades (like laser point defense) and an upgraded flight deck to better support drone operations.
The LCS has grown on me the last few years. The NSM and Nulca upgrades are legit. I wish they had more air defense, but they are taking on important deployments nowadays
The Legend class were very much built with a "designed for but not fitted with" wartime loadout, but I don't believe it's anywhere near what the Navy wants in a frigate.
With no VLS they literally might as well just keep building the LCS instead. In fact they'd be better off buying the MMSC version of the Freedom LCS because it actually has a VLS.
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Mark my words, in three to six years they realize that the need another replacement for the burke, but this time, they try to purchase a cruiser with a gun and a lot of missiles. The gun is there to check the "Gun fire support role".
And to make it cheaper, it is basically a modernized Version of the Burke.
A few years ago, there was a South Korean navy proposal of taking a flight 3 Burke, make it slightly larger, delete the helo hanger, and fill all of the available deck spaces with VLS cells.
It would've had 2-3 times the VLS cells of a regular flight 3 Burke and the capability of replacing a pack of 4 cells with large missile cells for launching intermediate range ballistic missiles (at the PRC) or bunker busters (at North Korea when their elites would likely flee to mountain bunkers in a war).
It's like that with all defense contractors. The good ones are good because everyone else is somehow even more shit, not because they themselves are any good.
I work for GDEB and we always joke about how we’re the best submarine builder…due to virtue of not being HII (sorry HII…). It really is staggering how much of a mess these companies can be. However, if you thought the gov contractors were bad you should see how the Public Gov Shipyards operate. Makes the contractors look like superheroes sometimes. At least we’re all one big dysfunctional family trying our best I guess?
I don’t understand how we’ve arrived at the point where shipyard Twitter accounts are acting like Wendy’s and firing shots at NAVSEA. How has it come to this?
Credibly, what is the point of building the CG cutter for the Navy? Is it really just so Trump can say we’re building ships and number go up? Because I don’t see where you can stick VLS cells on it and it doesn’t have the power Gen capacity for beefy radars and lasers. I’ve seen the “modularity” show before and am convinced Big Navy has no idea how to make it work; it’s reeks of “someone else will figure this out later”.
The only CG I like in my navy is Cruiser, Guided Missile.
Edit: FFGN pls. Stick an SMR or two in that bitch and use electric drive propulsion.
I don’t understand how we’ve arrived at the point where shipyard Twitter accounts are acting like Wendy’s and firing shots at NAVSEA. How has it come to this?
Lack of respect and professionalism among Government Officials causing a downward spiral. When people see the President and most of Congress, who are among the most powerful people in the world, acting like children their own standards fall through the floor. The bar for basic dignity now lies somewhere in hell, thereabout.
Credibly, what is the point of building the CG cutter for the Navy? Is it really just so Trump can say we’re building ships and number go up?
Mostly, though there may or may not have also been some bribery and corruption involved along the way and/or some guy just told Trump it was a good idea once and no one stopped him. The US Secretary of Navy officially claims that the Constellation was taking too long and that they were switching to this to build ships at a faster rate.
…and I realize as I’m writing this that the Secretary of Navy owns a private investment company. I’d look up their investments, but I feel like I know the answer.
Because I don’t see where you can stick VLS cells on it and it doesn’t have the power Gen capacity for beefy radars and lasers. I’ve seen the “modularity” show before and am convinced Big Navy has no idea how to make it work; it’s reeks of “someone else will figure this out later”.
To your latter point: yep.
To the former: This is what the original scale model for the Frigate looked like. From what I’ve read, planned model only has ~16 VLS with a displacement similar to that of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class. Not familiar enough with naval design to know if it’ll enough good enough power for the better radars/lasers.
Right but the OHP’s faced a radically different threat environment. I wonder if frigates just don’t make sense for navies which can afford carriers, cruisers, and destroyers anymore. My theory for why the Constellation’s requirements creep happened is that a non-attritable asset really does need all of those things to survive these days and in the future.
I can’t picture a conflict right now where losing a frigate (or more) would be considered an acceptable loss for Americans. Maybe unmanned arsenal ships are the answer to beef up a CSG’s combat power while reducing the load on Burkes. Trends seem to indicate the USN desperately needs a replacement for the Ticos.
. I wonder if frigates just don’t make sense for navies which can afford carriers, cruisers, and destroyers anymore. My theory for why the Constellation’s requirements creep happened is that a non-attritable asset really does need all of those things to survive these days and in the future.
I would argue there very much is for them, especially for a navy such as America. ~70% of the Chinese navy has been launched since 2010 and being able to have a cheap, spammable patrol ship would help massively to offset this (especially if China is successfully able to get a foothold in the Pacific). Quantity is a quality all of its own after all and more ships = more spread + deployment opportunities.
As well, even if the end result is worse in a more direct peer to peer conflict compared just more Burkes, they would be a useful asset in putting down conflicts with weaker navies, patrols, and anti-piracy operations across the world (thus freeing up the “good” ships for a conflict with China).
Lastly, it could also be adapted for export to potential US allies with weaker navies.
I can’t picture a conflict right now where losing a frigate (or more) would be considered an acceptable loss for Americans. Maybe unmanned arsenal ships are the answer to beef up a CSG’s combat power while reducing the load on Burkes. Trends seem to indicate the USN desperately needs a replacement for the Ticos.
I addressed the first point earlier, but I’ll reiterate just in case: the point isn’t to have “destroyer but weaker” to act like a meat shield, the point is that it can run more menial operations to free up much larger ships for combat (at least imo).
For the second point: maybe tbh, but at that point I think you’d likely be seeing something much closer to a drone carrier (where drones can effectively act as cheap, long range missiles + disposable scouts) or a destroyer/cruiser outfitted with hypersonics (to hit a ship before the missiles can be easily intercepted).
Note that F-35s are planned to be receiving Loyal Wingmen drones as well, which should (in theory) allow them to get much closer and spam anti-ship missiles.
Edit: Also, when are we getting Elder Scrolls 6?
When naval based on Bannerlord’s gets added. Trust.
The point isn’t to have “destroyer but weaker” to act as a meat shield, the point is that it can run more menial operations to free up much larger ships for combat
I’m going to push on this, not because I think you’re wrong, but it seems to be an under-discussed topic in naval strategy. What are these missions?
Anti-piracy, minesweeping, coastal patrol?
I think some of these could be replaced by aviation and/or drones. With others (eg Minesweeping) I wonder if we’d ever be doing them outside of a major theater operation anyway? Add to this with the US retreating from global guarantor of security and allies rediscovering their need to maintain credible militaries, are these lower-level functions something we should push onto regional partners (ie I don’t think the USN will need to de-mine the Gulf of Mexico anytime soon, but the Saudis should be extremely interested in being able to de-mine the Straight of Hormuz or Singapore the Straight of Malacca)?
This is mostly food for thought. It’s not like the LCS (comparable to the CG cutters in capability) have featured heavily in anti-piracy operations where they kind of should work (to my knowledge). Maybe that’s combatant commanders asking for the Cadillac option every time, but I wonder if these lower-intensity missions are a place policy-makers are failing to think outside the box and have Frigate get-there-itis.
For the record, I’m a Silicon Valley/drones are the future skeptic.
To take on all the USACE’s waterway maintenance roles of course. Get a multimission cutter that can dredge, deploy ATON’s and intercept narco subs that plague the inland waterways. You require less men to do all the same missions at 10x the cost and half the original capabilities. Add modular and I’m sure there’s a DC pitch deck right there.
because you'd rather have a coast guard cutter (which isn't 100% navy standard either) than a actual AEGIS-equipped frigate with somewhat less-than-perfect standard?
What functions is the CG cutter supposed to perform and what functions are USN frigates supposed to perform? Does the coast guard do anti-submarine warfare, convoy escort duty, and mine clearing across long ranges or do they operate near CONUS, interdict drug runners, and perform rescue operations.
IMO those are really different missions with different requirements. I’d rather buy a Japanese or Korean frigate as-is (designed to be Aegis capable) or no frigate at all! Sinking money into floating liabilities which will incur costs for decades is the worst possible outcome. Maybe HII will figure it out and field something useful, I’m skeptical.
Easy to build when every blueprint has 10 pages of CCRs amended to it telling you the drawing is now completely different so ignore every dimension for a new one, except they don’t actually update the drawing itself you just have to make your own updates for internal drawings to keep track or read every CCR and memorize them.
Customer change request. And they usually come as additional documents telling you what changed on the original design drawing. They don’t do complete design updates because it takes too long, too many resources and too many vendors to update. So you just get a list of changes to keep track of which makes it 10 times more complicated.
For example we had a new machinist drill a bunch of holes on a Virginia class submarine part, except the CCR said a section of those holes are no longer in the design, still on original print though so he just put them in. Had to weld plugs into them after to fix it.
Honestly as some who has worked in defense contracting I actually think companies like Anduril and Hadrian and other technology first defense startups are positioned to easily leapfrog the primes simply by having a hard reset on manufacturing systems and software development. It’s a nightmare right now dealing between primes using 20 different types of software or 20 year old systems to keep manufacturing going.
funnily enough just recently someone tried to tell me that all these new start ups are all just grifts with no real substance. ( the person was specifically angry about anduril but didn't explain why, and i still have no idea.) I just think that CCAs are a cool concept that'd like to see in reality at least once.
Andruil clearly has innovative demos and tech, but that is to get them a seat in the room for when the DoD solicits bids on a next gen ship, MPC, aircraft, etc. Lockheed will bid based on a facility that hasn’t been updated in 30 years with the same equipment they used to produce the last gen. Andruil has no choice but to be modern and they cut cost by being passionate and having a ton of people working 80 hours on 40 hour salaries because they are young and want to win.
First time they get a major contract, if they can deliver on time and on budget they will have officially hit the reset button.
It's also incredibly stupid that they canceled it now. The issues were in modifying the existing design to fit what the navy wanted, and that's basically done now. They have the design, and because getting that design was such a hassle they've decided that they're only gonna build two of them now that they have it? That makes no sense
FFM offered a concept for the FFG(X) program that was significantly divorced from the FREMM.
Yet clearly sold the timeline and cost as if they were building a standard FREMM. I suspect all the other competitors either offered a less accommodating design or a more realistic time and cost.
TLDR, navsea should have known better then to trust a Euro defence manufacturer
Pretty much everyone in defense does price to win proposals and contract capture. Basically means they do market research to guess what their competitors will bid for cost and timeline and they attempt to bid slightly lower cost and time to win the contract. This works because 50% through usually you just ask for you contract modification for more time and money and keep going. The important part is just getting awarded the contract and figure out the rest as you go.
Out of the loop, what's going on?
Cancelled the constellation class frigate after looots of time and money, went to basically taking the Legend class cutter and modifying it. And then this comes out and makes it all seem a bit more absurd
it'll be meme-worthy if USS Constellation (since they're still going for the first two ships) actually got in the water faster than the FF(X)
Or if the FF(X) also suffers a similar fate because the Navy yet again applied Agile/Scrum software project management to shipbuilding.
I always hated my project management class, now I have reason to back it up.
If I hear “gantt” every again I’m going to lose my mind
Gantt is anti-agile change my mind. Ain’t no dev on earth able to predict how long a feature will take.
I honestly have no idea, I never did any of the required readings and got an A in the class by just making it up and using provided references
Congratulations, you are now in charge of a navy procurement project.
I have a friend who makes almost 500k a year teaching agile classes at big software companies. He basically says the same thing. It's mostly bullshit wrapped in terminology so idiots in middle management sound smart when they talk to their bosses.
I knew it
I always felt “some lady in a pantsuit makes a lot of money wasting someone else’s money doing this shit” but I’ve been more or less blue collar to enjoy project management
Software developers aren't supposed to be making Gantt charts, and any PM worth his salt knows to at least double any estimate given by a dev, who notoriously forget to include unimportant things like "testing" and "the software being in a releaseable state" when giving an estimate.
Just gotta use those magical three letters. MVP
Escape hatch for all that other nonsense. Just fix later with hotfixes and updates.
I like IOC. Oh yeah that's just the Initial Operational Capacity. Logging and proper error handling will be feature enhancements.
This is the Navy's Minimum Viable Product
Planning to deliver MVP in 2 years for $20Bn but, as you say, all the later fixes will take a lot more time and money
Cmon now. Whats $20B amongst the MIC and DOD?
That looks like an MVP I would easily pay double that for.
WATERFALL!
Swim lanes
Don’t know if you know this but the Navy doesn’t build the ships, and the ship builders are much more sophisticated as each supplier has no less than 12 excel spreadsheets to manage a contract.
Agile sucks all my homies hate Agile.
Maybe they'll upgrade the coast guard cutters with VLS cells. Would go nicely with the new shoot first, ask questions later policy.
I really don't see what Fincantieri is going for here. The Constellation was canceled because the feature creep led to it barely being cheaper than a Burke and having sub 25% compatibility with European FREMM designs (it was supposed to have 75%+ in order to save costs). If you're going to clown USN procurement, clown them for their feature creep (which has been a problem since the interwar, as in post world war one). Feature creep is what keeps hurting the US military.
Minor nit with this. We knew that there would have to be changes made to meet USN requirements for mission and survivability.
Cutting steel before your design is complete is stupid.
Is that on NAVSEA or Fincan?
The same thing is going to happen to this haze gray cutter, because requirements are requirements.
Agreed, but the Navy keeps changing the design. They never settle because the good idea fairies keep coming up with new shit to tack on.
There's only so much shit to tack on.
Radar, SLQ, VLS, ASW suite, gun, engines, helo deck.
Fitting that out on an "85% design" should be trivial.
This is something I'm curious about. I work in the military, as a civ. Still pretty new, just over a year into mil and overall federal employment.
And even in my small group, which is mostly active duty, there are sooooo many goddamn good idea fairies. Not just officers, but even the enlisted and warrants. Someone has a good idea, officers greenlight it, then its up to idea fairy to implement it and train others and own it. OK, cool. But after the idea fairies rotate and PCS, who's going to maintain all this stuff? Us handful of civilians? The civs are outnumbered at least 10 to 1. I think technically it's supposed to be incoming active duty who continue to maintain these things, but it can take quite awhile for them to get trained and qualified and all that.
Is it like this for marks and advancement? Is this pervasive within the mil? Within the govt? As a civilian, as someone whose career has so far largely been outside of the mil and government, I have never seen so much idea bombing by the good idea fairies. And then given the go-ahead.
They are clowning their feature creep, that's the final sentence.
the Constellation Class FFG programme is cut (no new ships after the first two) in favour of the new FF(X) based on the National Security Cutter (NSC)/Legend Class Cutter of the USCG. Despite of the official rationale being that it'll deliver faster (with the target given to be 2028), there's not much evidence to suggest that it's a feasible goal. What's certain is that this NSC-derivative is mostly as well armed as the Coast Guard's version (not that the deadline allowed much design changes to be made), so no SPY-6, no MK41, and probably no ASW suite. Just to remind you that this whole thing is supposed to be a replacement of the LCS on the basis that the LCS is too weak for US Navy's need.
I love how the USN keeps asking for ships that are cheaper and lighter than the Burke class but keeps rejecting them for having less firepower and capability than the Burke class
it's more like going from one extreme to another
when the Navy was doing with the Constellation, they insisted on all the changes to the baseline FREMM (which's already quite well-equipped) because they want the best, and suffered from various setback as a consequence.
now that the Constellation is troubled by delay, suddenly it's acceptable to replace it with a Coast Guard Cutter with no better (more likely, lesser) specification than a LCS just because of the alleged quicker delivery time and (even more dubious) more Americanized supply chain
Ajax 🤝 Constellation
Taking a functional, established design and fucking it beyond recognition.
Maybe the solution is to make a modular stealth hull out of Aluminium for the Ajax.
And make the turret more proprietary. If there's no ammo, then it won't be fielded to actual combat, which means fewer casualties from driving it around.
So a Zumwalt-LCS hybrid?
Wisconsin is obviously influenced by Canada. Too many people know Gordon Lightfoot lyrics so it’s a security risk.
Think I need to troll people with that one.
Alternative is Hegseth didn’t know the Great Lakes connected to the ocean and that’s the real reason for the cancellation.
Except the Changes has nothing to do with the cancellation. Its the delivery timeline that killed it (and the saudi got a kill assist).
The changes are what blew out the delivery timeline tho.
I will add that it wasnt really feature creep on the part of the Constellation. The ship was always going to have AEGIS, strike length VLS, IEP propulsion, and need revisions to hit USN damage control standards. Which I would say we're largely warranted as you dont want a class of ship that isn't compatible with the weapons and fire control systems of the rest of the fleet. Also the Connies were frigates but the quiet part about their procurement is that the Navy needs a minimally viable Burke replacement to stem the bleeding that is the imminent retirement of the flight I Burkes.
Now we get to repeat that process all over again with a different class, after completing all the needed design work on the connies to build two ships anyway.
What if we take a Burke, tie a load of Airships to it to make it lighter and use all the onboard computers to mine bitcoin so it partially pays for itself?
Too credible
I really don't understand the new frigate. Most navies use frigates for specialized roles (anti air, ASW). Getting both means you're building a Burke class destroyer equivalent. However, the new frigate doesn't have the Mk41 VLS to carry the surface to air missiles for fleet defense, the radar system to target/guide them, nor any kind of capable sonar system with rocket propelled torpedos to kill the subs.
At least when the NSC bid for FFG(X) it included integration of the radar, a small VLS pack , and some sonar arrays. It could have been an ASW frigate
Jury is still out, but I think this could be a significant step up from LCS. It's looks like the ship will have dedicated space for several containerized payloads that won't take up flight deck space. Reloading MK41 cells at sea is a tricky skill the Navy can just barely perform. Meanwhile, any commercial shipping company in the world can switch out MK70s in under an hour.
I have also seen speculation of an MK56 suite, though I have no idea if that's true.
8-12 ESSMS, 8-12 containerized vls, 16 NSM s, and RAM all while still being able to use your flight deck? That would be a tremendous upgrade from an LCS.
We will know more in a few weeks I guess
Wasn't the container theory the exact plan for the LCS and then they never succeeded in making any of the containers work so they canned it?
US is three for three on epic procurement fails on th Navy
Zumwalt LCS Constellation
I have very little faith it isn't about to be four for four by 2030.
From memory, they went into LCS without a set standard for the actual modules, ending up with an incompatible mess that barely existed.
I'd have to go and actually read shudder to see if they've matured the idea since then. Though, if they just wanna rotate the same kind of kit for reloads, it might be easier to pull off.
The anti mine module works wonderfully after some delay. The Independence Class are replacing the Avengers and doing a good job. I actually love the idea that my minesweeper can defend itself and also complete other missions. It took a while but they got that part right
They also just shot the bed with the LSM. The Navy spent 5 years designing a $125m commercial vessel, then at the last minute added $400m of bolt on systems to the final RFP. But it was too expensive at $500m per so they are building a short range cargo ship to project power from Hawaii to the Philippines.
The MK70 exists. There is nothing left to design except giving it a flat surface
The MK70 wastes so much space being stored sideways, though.
If it gets you 8-12 tomohawks or SM6s its not a waste at all. That's a shitload of power for a 5000t frigate.
I'm saying you could fit 2 or 3 times as many missiles in a proper VLS in the deck space that a MK70 takes.
You are only looking at deck space. Those modules go 25-28 feet deep into the deck and weigh over 32,000 pounds per 8-cell module. That below below deck space is critical. You lose tremendously more space and add tremendously more weight when looking at 3-dimensions.
That's not even including the electronics and tactical command space that you need to build into the ship for MK41 that is completely self-contained in the MK70.
You are 100% using less net space per missile with two MK70 compared to an 8-cell MK41 strike length
TBF, that bar is basically on the floor. A modified Legend probably will be better than an LCS, but I expect it to be worse than an unmodified FREMM.
Edit~ Honestly it's really a shame that the NAVSEA insisted on trying to Frankenstein a perfectly good frigate into a Burke. All it really needed was upgraded engine power for future upgrades (like laser point defense) and an upgraded flight deck to better support drone operations.
I'm gonna be real a tin can with an m80 strapped inside is gonna be better than the LCS, let alone this thing
The LCS has grown on me the last few years. The NSM and Nulca upgrades are legit. I wish they had more air defense, but they are taking on important deployments nowadays
Do note that in general large USCG cutters have space to be uparmed as a requirement should a major naval war breakout.
So they have space for ASW equipment, AsHM, and Maybe for a Mk.56 VLS.
The Legend class were very much built with a "designed for but not fitted with" wartime loadout, but I don't believe it's anywhere near what the Navy wants in a frigate.
With no VLS they literally might as well just keep building the LCS instead. In fact they'd be better off buying the MMSC version of the Freedom LCS because it actually has a VLS.
I don't believe there won't be a MK suite or an ASW suite in a new frigate
USN scraps constellation class frigate programme in favour of what are essentially slightly up-gunned coastguard cutters.
The burn in those tweets hints that the failure of the programme came from constant meddling and changing goalposts from the USN
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Mark my words, in three to six years they realize that the need another replacement for the burke, but this time, they try to purchase a cruiser with a gun and a lot of missiles. The gun is there to check the "Gun fire support role".
And to make it cheaper, it is basically a modernized Version of the Burke.
A few years ago, there was a South Korean navy proposal of taking a flight 3 Burke, make it slightly larger, delete the helo hanger, and fill all of the available deck spaces with VLS cells.
It would've had 2-3 times the VLS cells of a regular flight 3 Burke and the capability of replacing a pack of 4 cells with large missile cells for launching intermediate range ballistic missiles (at the PRC) or bunker busters (at North Korea when their elites would likely flee to mountain bunkers in a war).
Yes please, I'd like 37 of those by next Tuesday.
Best we can do is 1.8 hulls(total, at various stages of completion) in 10 years at $30 billion over budget.
I work with Fincantieri and it's hilarious that they're one of the best companies around to actually deliver warships.
How so? Only ever worked with T3 yards in the south.
It's a colossal super Italian bureaucratic shitshow where everything happens at a pace that would make glaciers appear rapid.
You could probably say the same about all the competition.
Maybe so. Shipyards aren't exactly known for being on the cutting edge.
I've worked with HII and GDEB and both refer to themselves as "modern-day blacksmiths".
Meanwhile Hyundai Heavy Industries top brass hallucinate about having a fully automated AI shipyard in ten years.
I’d love to see the GA of an AI designed ship, if some of the other architectural drawings are in indicator it’ll have heads in the VLS cells.
Look with global warming glaciers are starting to move faster than other gov programs. But if I can get European style benefits sign me up.
It's like that with all defense contractors. The good ones are good because everyone else is somehow even more shit, not because they themselves are any good.
I work for GDEB and we always joke about how we’re the best submarine builder…due to virtue of not being HII (sorry HII…). It really is staggering how much of a mess these companies can be. However, if you thought the gov contractors were bad you should see how the Public Gov Shipyards operate. Makes the contractors look like superheroes sometimes. At least we’re all one big dysfunctional family trying our best I guess?
A colleague of mine once described Fincantieri as "An Italian government employment office"
still mad about RDM
Damn, that’s quite a burn
I don’t understand how we’ve arrived at the point where shipyard Twitter accounts are acting like Wendy’s and firing shots at NAVSEA. How has it come to this?
Credibly, what is the point of building the CG cutter for the Navy? Is it really just so Trump can say we’re building ships and number go up? Because I don’t see where you can stick VLS cells on it and it doesn’t have the power Gen capacity for beefy radars and lasers. I’ve seen the “modularity” show before and am convinced Big Navy has no idea how to make it work; it’s reeks of “someone else will figure this out later”.
The only CG I like in my navy is Cruiser, Guided Missile.
Edit: FFGN pls. Stick an SMR or two in that bitch and use electric drive propulsion.
Lack of respect and professionalism among Government Officials causing a downward spiral. When people see the President and most of Congress, who are among the most powerful people in the world, acting like children their own standards fall through the floor. The bar for basic dignity now lies somewhere in hell, thereabout.
Mostly, though there may or may not have also been some bribery and corruption involved along the way and/or some guy just told Trump it was a good idea once and no one stopped him. The US Secretary of Navy officially claims that the Constellation was taking too long and that they were switching to this to build ships at a faster rate.
…and I realize as I’m writing this that the Secretary of Navy owns a private investment company. I’d look up their investments, but I feel like I know the answer.
To your latter point: yep.
To the former: This is what the original scale model for the Frigate looked like. From what I’ve read, planned model only has ~16 VLS with a displacement similar to that of the Oliver Hazard Perry-class. Not familiar enough with naval design to know if it’ll enough good enough power for the better radars/lasers.
Right but the OHP’s faced a radically different threat environment. I wonder if frigates just don’t make sense for navies which can afford carriers, cruisers, and destroyers anymore. My theory for why the Constellation’s requirements creep happened is that a non-attritable asset really does need all of those things to survive these days and in the future.
I can’t picture a conflict right now where losing a frigate (or more) would be considered an acceptable loss for Americans. Maybe unmanned arsenal ships are the answer to beef up a CSG’s combat power while reducing the load on Burkes. Trends seem to indicate the USN desperately needs a replacement for the Ticos.
Edit: Also, when are we getting Elder Scrolls 6?
I would argue there very much is for them, especially for a navy such as America. ~70% of the Chinese navy has been launched since 2010 and being able to have a cheap, spammable patrol ship would help massively to offset this (especially if China is successfully able to get a foothold in the Pacific). Quantity is a quality all of its own after all and more ships = more spread + deployment opportunities.
As well, even if the end result is worse in a more direct peer to peer conflict compared just more Burkes, they would be a useful asset in putting down conflicts with weaker navies, patrols, and anti-piracy operations across the world (thus freeing up the “good” ships for a conflict with China).
Lastly, it could also be adapted for export to potential US allies with weaker navies.
I addressed the first point earlier, but I’ll reiterate just in case: the point isn’t to have “destroyer but weaker” to act like a meat shield, the point is that it can run more menial operations to free up much larger ships for combat (at least imo).
For the second point: maybe tbh, but at that point I think you’d likely be seeing something much closer to a drone carrier (where drones can effectively act as cheap, long range missiles + disposable scouts) or a destroyer/cruiser outfitted with hypersonics (to hit a ship before the missiles can be easily intercepted).
Note that F-35s are planned to be receiving Loyal Wingmen drones as well, which should (in theory) allow them to get much closer and spam anti-ship missiles.
When naval based on Bannerlord’s gets added. Trust.
I’m going to push on this, not because I think you’re wrong, but it seems to be an under-discussed topic in naval strategy. What are these missions?
Anti-piracy, minesweeping, coastal patrol?
I think some of these could be replaced by aviation and/or drones. With others (eg Minesweeping) I wonder if we’d ever be doing them outside of a major theater operation anyway? Add to this with the US retreating from global guarantor of security and allies rediscovering their need to maintain credible militaries, are these lower-level functions something we should push onto regional partners (ie I don’t think the USN will need to de-mine the Gulf of Mexico anytime soon, but the Saudis should be extremely interested in being able to de-mine the Straight of Hormuz or Singapore the Straight of Malacca)?
This is mostly food for thought. It’s not like the LCS (comparable to the CG cutters in capability) have featured heavily in anti-piracy operations where they kind of should work (to my knowledge). Maybe that’s combatant commanders asking for the Cadillac option every time, but I wonder if these lower-intensity missions are a place policy-makers are failing to think outside the box and have Frigate get-there-itis.
For the record, I’m a Silicon Valley/drones are the future skeptic.
why would the coast guard need a cutter dredger?
To take on all the USACE’s waterway maintenance roles of course. Get a multimission cutter that can dredge, deploy ATON’s and intercept narco subs that plague the inland waterways. You require less men to do all the same missions at 10x the cost and half the original capabilities. Add modular and I’m sure there’s a DC pitch deck right there.
American military shipbuilding and cancelled projects/contracts. Name a better duo.
I assume the 0.6% was the French-made sonar ? Any info on what that contract becomes ?
Take a shot everytime the US navy ends up with a cancelled ship class.
So who going to tell FMM that US Warship survivability standards are the Most important requirements?
because you'd rather have a coast guard cutter (which isn't 100% navy standard either) than a actual AEGIS-equipped frigate with somewhat less-than-perfect standard?
Can we do both?
It’s probably a dog shit idea for any form of credible actual strategy, but it would give us more cool ship designs to look at.
Would I?
What functions is the CG cutter supposed to perform and what functions are USN frigates supposed to perform? Does the coast guard do anti-submarine warfare, convoy escort duty, and mine clearing across long ranges or do they operate near CONUS, interdict drug runners, and perform rescue operations.
IMO those are really different missions with different requirements. I’d rather buy a Japanese or Korean frigate as-is (designed to be Aegis capable) or no frigate at all! Sinking money into floating liabilities which will incur costs for decades is the worst possible outcome. Maybe HII will figure it out and field something useful, I’m skeptical.
Feels like actually having a ship should be the most important requirement.
You see
comradepatriot, can't sink ship if there is no ship! Perfect survivability!Layer 0 of the survivability onion: don't exist.
Exactly
Someone should have looked at the original design to determine if they actually needed it.
And then when they changed 80% of it, it should have been treated as designing a new ship instead of using an off-the-shelf design.
And the changes should have been completed before they started building the hull.
Easy to build when every blueprint has 10 pages of CCRs amended to it telling you the drawing is now completely different so ignore every dimension for a new one, except they don’t actually update the drawing itself you just have to make your own updates for internal drawings to keep track or read every CCR and memorize them.
what is a CCR ?
Customer change request. And they usually come as additional documents telling you what changed on the original design drawing. They don’t do complete design updates because it takes too long, too many resources and too many vendors to update. So you just get a list of changes to keep track of which makes it 10 times more complicated.
For example we had a new machinist drill a bunch of holes on a Virginia class submarine part, except the CCR said a section of those holes are no longer in the design, still on original print though so he just put them in. Had to weld plugs into them after to fix it.
this sounds like a nightmare for people afraid of development debt only this time the debt is analogue instead of digital.
Honestly as some who has worked in defense contracting I actually think companies like Anduril and Hadrian and other technology first defense startups are positioned to easily leapfrog the primes simply by having a hard reset on manufacturing systems and software development. It’s a nightmare right now dealing between primes using 20 different types of software or 20 year old systems to keep manufacturing going.
funnily enough just recently someone tried to tell me that all these new start ups are all just grifts with no real substance. ( the person was specifically angry about anduril but didn't explain why, and i still have no idea.) I just think that CCAs are a cool concept that'd like to see in reality at least once.
Andruil clearly has innovative demos and tech, but that is to get them a seat in the room for when the DoD solicits bids on a next gen ship, MPC, aircraft, etc. Lockheed will bid based on a facility that hasn’t been updated in 30 years with the same equipment they used to produce the last gen. Andruil has no choice but to be modern and they cut cost by being passionate and having a ton of people working 80 hours on 40 hour salaries because they are young and want to win.
First time they get a major contract, if they can deliver on time and on budget they will have officially hit the reset button.
It's also incredibly stupid that they canceled it now. The issues were in modifying the existing design to fit what the navy wanted, and that's basically done now. They have the design, and because getting that design was such a hassle they've decided that they're only gonna build two of them now that they have it? That makes no sense
Makes sense. If there are no ships at sea, then of course sailors cannot possibly die at sea. Which means 100% survival rate.
Carry on not building ships US Navy.
The LCS begs to differ.
Honestly #Navseadidnothingwrong
FFM offered a concept for the FFG(X) program that was significantly divorced from the FREMM.
Yet clearly sold the timeline and cost as if they were building a standard FREMM. I suspect all the other competitors either offered a less accommodating design or a more realistic time and cost.
TLDR, navsea should have known better then to trust a Euro defence manufacturer
Pretty much everyone in defense does price to win proposals and contract capture. Basically means they do market research to guess what their competitors will bid for cost and timeline and they attempt to bid slightly lower cost and time to win the contract. This works because 50% through usually you just ask for you contract modification for more time and money and keep going. The important part is just getting awarded the contract and figure out the rest as you go.
Navsea constantly does everything wrong