While I wish the US Navy could rely solely on our domestic shipbuilding industry for all the ship it needs, reality shows our allies such as the ROK can provide the USN with better ships at lower cost in a reasonable timeframe and in the numbers needed so I applaud this decision.
Now to axe the FF(X) nonsense and acquire foreign designed and built frigates.
May as well crew them with Koreans, they work cheaper and are easier to feed. The regime seems to believe only thing an American is good for these days is to shovel tax money into the system
They tried that but the folks in the pentagon just couldn’t help themselves. It started with a tweak here and a tweak there until it was no longer the original design.
I can understand the Navy turning to South Korea for auxiliary vessels but I do not understand why they are asking for destroyers because we have a very successful destroyer already and capacity to build them although at a high cost. What the Navy doesn’t have is an effective frigate and their pathetic attempt to use the Coast Guard NSC hull just doesn’t make sense because they just cannot carry enough weaponry or sensors to make them effective combatants in the fleet. The ROK however has the CHUNGNAM class which would work just fine for the USN and could be delivered in quantity provided NAVSEA simply accept them as they are designed. This can be a pure win-win scenario if the Navy brass just accept a foreign designed vessel which I highly doubt they are willing to do.
