Haven’t found any mention of this news posted here as of yet
Now will NAVSEA finally adopt the USCG Legend Class National Security Cutter as the hull platform to build? These ships have been around since 2008 and are a proven design. I say enough with this nonsense…if the US wants a Navy ready for the upcoming war for Taiwan we don’t have any time left to waste on this!
Exactly what is the US interest in fighting China for Taiwan? The US already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined.If the US Navy can’t make do with what they have it is their own fault
Well I don’t know how to answer that other than to say one either is cool with China’s goal for hegemony over East Asia or one isn’t. I am in the latter camp.
Regarding our Navy…one either feels as you do and that we just need to use what we have or one believes that after the FFG-7 frigates were retired that our Navy should have a number of similar ships to replace them in the role of escorts they filled. Again, I am of the latter group. Yes, the USA spends too much on its military and just maybe this is a wakeup to not overspend on frigates after the LCS disaster? Our Navy should have a mix of warships including smaller combatants but they have got to be useful ships that can support multiple missions. Nothing wrong with that imo
“Man, the LCS program was an absolute farce. Let’s not make all those same mistakes again!”
Spoiler: they made all those same mistakes again.
NAVSEA bureaucracy has done a number on the fleet.
I am too but with the recent demise of USAID, VOA and other programs the Chinese are happily stepping in to fill that void in SE Asia. So a non-military approach to controlling China’s goal of hegemony in the region for the USA went out the window, leaving the US the much more expensive option of military spending. Meanwhile China will buy their way in with the acquiescence of the regions governments.
No, they didn’t. The FFG-62 list of systems and performance reads like a line-by-line update of the FFG-7 systems. Considerably downgraded AAW capability, but sufficient for local area air defense, decent ASW capability (actually slightly downgraded in that the aviation side consisted of 1 H-60 plus 1 MQ-8C, instead of two H-60, while the FFG-62 had no hull-mounted sonar).
Single-arm missile launcher with a 40-round magazine changes to 32 VLS cells. The Mk13 reportedly weighs in around 60LT, while a 32-cell Mk41 should weigh in at around 59LT, so that’s a wash. FFG-62 did add (16) cells for the Naval Strike Missile, while the FFG-7 carried Harpoon as part of the 40-missile capacity of the Mk13.
The Mk49 RAM represents an add, although the Perrys were backfitted with Phalanx, so not really.
SPS-49 rotator changed out for a 3-face, 9 RMA SPY-6(v)3. It’s unclear what the respective weights and volumes of the two systems are, but the DDG-51 Flight III uses the SPY-6(v)1 with 4 arrays & 37 RMA, so the FFG-62 radar represents a significantly reduced system compared to current DDG practice.
Surface search radar went from SPS-55 to SPS-73. That’s a wash.
Mk92 FCS changed out for COMBATSS-21 derivative of Aegis, which is also used by LCS.
FFG-62 doesn’t have a hull-mounted sonar, so that’s going austere compared to the FFG-7. TB-19 towed array vs. CAPTAS-4 sounds like a reasonable exchange.
76mm Mk75 OTO Melara & Mk110 Bofors 57mm are competitors in the same market. So that’s a functional equivalent.
2 SH-60 vs 1 MH-60 + 1 MQ-8C (the MQ-8C being later deleted by the Navy). In all, a wash or even a slight downgrade from the FFG-7.
Both carried the SLQ-32 system, (V)2 or (V)5 on the FFG-7s, (V)6 for the FFG-62.
Complement 214 for FFG-7 vs ~200 for FFG-62. I will say that modern habitability standards do take up more volume and mass than the 1970s practice, but it’s not 3000 tons worth of increase, and the delta between the 1970s and the present is less drastic than going from the 1940s 5-high pipe racks to the 3-high coffin racks.
FFG-62 does have 1500nm more range–but at the slower speed of 16kts–compared to the 4500nm @ 20kts of the FFG-7
There were also no changes anyone can point to where the Navy added requirements, post-DD&C award.
There were no developmental technologies, no radical change to rulesets (LCS was originally to be procured under ABS HSNC rules, later had ABS NVR implemented partway through build of the first ship), no high speed, no radical hullform, no new propulsors.
And, yet, everyone seems to be wrapped up in this idea that NAVSEA tried to goldplate things. But no one sees fit to question the contractor’s performance.
Doug
The entire planning and purchasing of systems by the military needs an extreme makeover.
More information on the Constellation class mess and the US Navy
Last installment of the US Navy and the military’s current situation. Doesn’t look like the US is getting its trillion dollars a year worth yet they seem currently to be alienating allies that could come in handy.
Anybody who’s entered Chinese ports has seen the constant flow of newbuilds
just launched and waiting to be launched.
All of these NYT opinions you posted are garbage.
This latest one fails to note that most of our erstwhile allies in Europe and Canada have been busier outsourcing to China than we have, and have resisted 30 years of encouragement from the US to start investing more in defense industrial capacity. When the threats started to mount, Europe (and Canada) has used it as an excuse to vilify the US.
Note that while the Europeans and Canadians are busy barring the US from competing for contracts, we’re signing deals to build icebreakers in Finland via Canada, outfitting our Italian-designed frigate with European sonar, Norwegian missiles, Norwegian guns procured from a UK defense giant (BAE), German generators (MTU), Spanish propulsion motors (Ingeteam), etc.
Now that it looks like Uncle Sam wants to open the wallet for shipbuilding, everyone’s lining up to get more of those sweet greenbacks to ship back to their home country. The Aussies were an early adopter, setting up Austal USA in 2004. Then Fincantieri jumped in to buy Marinette Marine Corp from Manitowoc in 2009 to get a piece of the Navy budget–consistently under-delivering and being out-produced by Austal, I might add.
Aker teamed up with Pennsylvania to screw over NASSCo (who has been teamed up with DSME for decades).
Now we’ve got Hanwha buying Aker Philly (and looking to snap up Austal) to figure out how to most effectively bypass Build America to send even more work overseas, because they’d rather scavenge the US than pull back market share from China.
Meanwhile Hyundai HD is sniffing around to see if they can join in the largesse.
We need to start giving a damn about Americans, first.
Doug
In another forum, an industry insider stated that the amount of rework needed on American yard products is a big part of our problem.
The US and European nations together with Australia and New Zealand are similar people in our view of the world and working together with Japan and India we can offer a 1000 ship navy with which no other group can compete.
If you are involved in a conflict you never start with the kit you need or fight the way you did it last time. We all live in democracies and the trouble with our form of government is politicians take the easy route to please and get reelected. There are think tanks out there that are offering the right advise if only politicians would listen to them. People like Rear Admiral (Rtd) Chris Parry RN. PhD, fluent in Russian, veteran Falklands War.
From my perspective, New Zealand with a population of some American cities has a very small navy stuffed full of US equipment including missiles and helicopters that we have to sell a hell of a lot of lamb racks and beef to buy.
Australia under a defense agreement is lining up to spend billions on US nuclear subs.
This guy makes excellent informative videos focused mostly on defense economics. He’d put out a video a year ago about how the LCS and Zumwalt had failed and the Constellation was going the same way, but when I went to find it to share just now, turns out he’s put out another video about the Constellation specifically. I haven’t watched it yet (limited data on ship, sad face) but maybe y’all can tell me what I’m missing.
Finally, the USN just maybe making the right decision.
SECNAV: New Frigate will be Based on National Security Cutter
this new frigate appears to lack a VLS which will be a mistake imo…is there any reason that a VLS could not be fitted beneath the helipad? yes, operational constraints but these new frigates need to have weapons to be useful to the fleet
I’m a big fan of Perun’s work, in general, but he missed the tree for the forest on his assessment of the Constellation program in this video. The analysis in the video is based on the surface level review of the popular press and he didn’t dig into the available data to understand what went wrong and why there are unique aspects to the failure beyond the standard mantra “USN/NAVSEA goldplated the design and kept changing things.”
He failed to understand the difference between the DDG weapon/sensor fit and the planned equipment for FFG-62. He did not research the DDG-51 history sufficiently to understand the capabilities and limitations of that platform, which led to him making critical errors in his analysis of the programs. And he did not adequately research the FFG program timeline and development. All of this means the video is not as informative as the combination of the 2024 GAO report, the 2025 Seapower Committee hearing transcript, and studying the various reporting to pull the nuggets of truth out of a lot of chaff.
Doug
I was a big proponent of the Navy adopting the Legend class cutters to be the basis of their new frigates based on the simple fact that the hull form and engineering are proven which would accelerate developing then to the fleet with much less risk but after spending a lot of time yesterday reading on this news I am left with quite a few troubling questions such as:
Speed: how does the Navy intend to get the FF(x) ships to reach 33kts or higher without considerable reengineering of their propulsion plants? If they are stuck with the single LM2500 gas turbine what higher HP diesels are available and can the existing gearboxes work with those engines?
Length: the existing hulls appear too short to add more weapons systems so is the USN planning to make the FF(x) longer?
Weapons: the rendering presented only shows the gun forward and canister launched missiles aft which gives these vessels little in the way of war fighting capability. If there is no VLS planned, what AAW weapons will they have? Any?
When compared with the PLAN Design 054B frigates, these new ships appears to be coming up very short of offering a peer match. I hope what we see right now is not what the Navy actually intends for Ingalls to build?
The CG’s Legend class cutters are what the Navy’s LCS program should have been based on, not the twin classes of garbage that actually happened.
A frigate is a convoy escort vessel. It needs an ASW suite to make it effective. Thats something it needs to be built around, not added on later. A frigate also needs to have effective self-defense systems since it may not be operating with a battle group, just another frigate or 2.
I still think a modernized Perry hull with modern systems and sensors can be made to work, but what do I know?
The biggest reason I have been a proponent of the NSC hulls to be the Navy’s next frigates stems from the fact that the engineering required is basically done and that Ingalls has shown themselves as being able to produce ships without the drama of Marinette or Austal so the risk is lower as a result. I just hope these hulls can be made to fit the Navy’s requirements without doubling the cost or making them a ridiculous number of years before being delivered?
Regarding the FFG-7s, they were good ships of which the Navy had many and were retired too soon yet they had many drawbacks which I see made them unattractive to invest in giving life extensions to. I never liked them being single screw which made them an easy kill in combat plus they just didn’t have much in the way to expand their armament. Basically just an ASW ship which fit the fleet’s needs in the 80’s when the Cold war still existed however today a ship is needed with multi mission abilities.
The post mortem of the LCSs has shown how the Navy can easily delude themselves regarding the concept of using mission packages on a common ship. They really needs to be fitted from the outset for the role it will play.
