Kongsberg introducing a budget warship

Kongsberg Groupe, which now includes both the former Rolls Royce Marine’s design divisions (UT and NVC) and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, their weapon development and production division, has introduced their multi-purpose, “jack of all trades” warship that can be built anywhere and at a low budget:
https://www.kongsberg.com/news-and-media/news-archive/2019/kongsberg-unveils-vanguard--a-game-changer-in-naval-operations/.
Something for the US Navy and/or USCG??

This sounds like a Norwegian LCS. Why would anyone repeat that?

** Easily interchangeable mission modules and extensive use of unmanned vehicles enables quick change of operational roles.*
** highly adaptable*
** combined with flexible military mission packs*

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen those exact words in an LCS ppt somewhere.

For SAR, harbour ops, that kind of stuff, it could be great.

I would not want to be on anything built to commercial specs that was ever threatened by any sort of modern weaponry. To paraphrase Sean Connery, civilian equipment ‘does not react well with bullets’

I don’t know if modern warships are built any stronger than the modern offshore vessels (at least those built to operate in harsh environment). I was of the impression that armour plating was a thing of the past. (??)

The 12" armour plating is a thing of the past, but there’s a lot more to warship construction than that. Redundant equipment, separating that redundant equipment, the internal bulkheads used and other (expensive) things go into warship design. Armour plating is also used to protect some equipment.

On big decks, like tankers, there is a good amount of steel required simply for structural integrity. On smaller hulls, it’s not there.

Some COTS equipment is pretty good, but in general it’s not as rugged as it’s MILSPEC equivalent.

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From the way you write and use typical militatry terns and abrevations I’m sure you know a lot about warships, past and present.
Not so sure if you know much about the construction of modern Offshore vessels designed and built to operate safely in turbulent waters around the world.
Nor that you know much about the Kongsberg Group and their background from construction and development of both military and civilian vessels and equipment.
I don’t think they present an "off the shelf " vessel as a new and innovative warship.

Here is GA-plan for a fairly typical PSV of Norwegian design:


This one built in South Korea 2014.

No doubt modern OSV are built strong with redundant systems. I imagine there are systems on one class of ship that would need hardening or redundancy that the other would not. For example, a warship needs to shield critical systems from electromagnetic pulse caused by an upper atmosphere nuclear burst.

The last two “fender benders” the US Navy had with commercial ships resulted in extensive damage the the military vessels, but mostly appear to be a few dents on the commercial ships. A colleague that is former navy said the warships are built light and fast.

Again, I don’t think Kongsberg is proposing just copying offshore vessel design and try to sell them as multi-purpose naval vessels.
Kongsberg is a major supplier of weapons and other equipment to the wold’s navies (incl. the US Navy) as well as high tech equipment to the shipping and offshore oil and gas industries.
They only got into the design of vessels when they took over RRM, but the two main designs that was included there have roots that goes back to Ulstein Trading (UT) and Norvest Consult (NVC) that have been designing vessels for fishery, offshore, ocean research, fishery patrol and coast guard and other specialized vessels for decades.
The first offshore vessel design, the UT 704, was an adaption of what had been learnt from building factory trawlers and other large fishing vessel for North Atlantic and Arctic operation and what they had learnt from building offshore vessels for Tidewater. That became the “gold standard” for future offshore vessels built around the world.

for one thing i think military stuff has to be class C ice? not too sure of that but they can certainly be tasked for a mission into the ice zones.
as for hull thickness, it’s been a while but i recall the Missouri has an incredible 4 ft. of steel at the likely elevation for torpedo attack? maybe it’s only 3 ft.? someone her surely knows. I know when i was told of it (on board) i was stupified it still floated!

Offshore vessels are also called to operate in ice zones and not only in the Baltic, off Labrador and in Cook Inlet but in Russian waters in the Arctic and offshore Sakhalin.

But AGAIN, they are NOT proposing to just copy an existing offshore vessel design. They are designing a new concept, but taking aspects from such vessels, as well as Coast Guard vessels, Research vessel for Arctic and Antarctic operations and many other types of vessels for special purposes. (RRS Sir David Attenborough and R/V Kronprins Håkon are NVC designed)

Other branches in Kongsberg Group have knowledge of weaponry and electronic equipment for warship, both as developers and suppliers:
https://www.kongsberg.com/kda/products.

I don’t think you need to worry that they lack the knowledge and ability to deliver what the promis in terms of quality, technology or usability, nor meeting military requirements and specifications by any navy.