Digging through some old files, I came across a NAVSEA briefing from 1994 comparing a variety of frigate designs (both US and foreign). The purpose appears to have been a review the "state of the possible" for frigates in this timeframe, possibly with the intention to inform USN decisionmakers about a possible frigate procurement . It's not protectively marked and it is 25+ years old, so I'm comfortable posting it now. I'll probably hold back on the few "Proprietary" slides, though.
Most of the ships in the slides are familiar, everything from Sa'ar V and the various MEKOs to the NFR-90. But there are some oddities that I've never seen anywhere else. I'll post them over the next few days, as time permits.
Contingency and Limited Objectives Warfare (CALOW) was a fairly new buzzphrase for an old idea -- warfare below the level of peer conflict. IN this context, it seems to refer to the idea that this ship was designed to fight enemies other than the high-end Soviet (or by this point Russian) navy.
So, we see a bigger gun that recent USN frigates, a small self-defense SAM battery, heavy CIWS (they appear to be Goalkeeper), significant secondary guns (the description says 20mm, but the mounts behind the bridge wings look very large for 20mm). The inclusion of both heavyweight and lightweight torpedoes is unusual . [I wonder if the idea was actually to use the Mk 48s for ASuW as well, since the sonar suite is actually quite basic.] The all-diesel propulsion plant implies much more endurance but not much interest in quieting.
The radar situation is confusing. "Self-illuminating" is an unusual term -- I think it refers to the radar being able to do both search and fire-control illumination, but a 2D radar for fire control would be decidedly weird.
It's interesting that the helicopter shown is an AH-1, not a traditional Navy helicopter. Possibly hearkening back to Persian Gulf operations with Army/SOCOM AH-6s and later Marine AH-1s on Navy escort flight decks.
SPQ-9B doesn't have an illumination capability. Ships with SPQ-9B rely on other systems for ESSM fire control (Mark 9 TIS on non-AEGIS ships, SPG-62 on AEGIS ones)
Edit: The closest analogue I can think of would be something like a rotating SPY-3. But I don't see how you could do CWI from a rotating antenna unless it's actually two antennas back-to-back (like Sampson). I suspect the drawing here was a placeholder for a radar that didn't actually exist when they sketched this design.
Contingency and Limited Objectives Warfare (CALOW) was a fairly new buzzphrase for an old idea -- warfare below the level of peer conflict. IN this context, it seems to refer to the idea that this ship was designed to fight enemies other than the high-end Soviet (or by this point Russian) navy.
So, we see a bigger gun that recent USN frigates, a small self-defense SAM battery, heavy CIWS (they appear to be Goalkeeper), significant secondary guns (the description says 20mm, but the mounts behind the bridge wings look very large for 20mm). The inclusion of both heavyweight and lightweight torpedoes is unusual . [I wonder if the idea was actually to use the Mk 48s for ASuW as well, since the sonar suite is actually quite basic.] The all-diesel propulsion plant implies much more endurance but not much interest in quieting.
The radar situation is confusing. "Self-illuminating" is an unusual term -- I think it refers to the radar being able to do both search and fire-control illumination, but a 2D radar for fire control would be decidedly weird.
It's interesting that the helicopter shown is an AH-1, not a traditional Navy helicopter. Possibly hearkening back to Persian Gulf operations with Army/SOCOM AH-6s and later Marine AH-1s on Navy escort flight decks.
I disagree re: quieting on the diesels. Rafting and Prairie Masker often aren't mentioned in warship statistics and equipment lists at this stage. It could easily be present and desirable when facing non-peer adversaries who have submarines. Given the Proposed ASW fit, I think it would be warranted.
Contingency and Limited Objectives Warfare (CALOW) was a fairly new buzzphrase for an old idea -- warfare below the level of peer conflict. IN this context, it seems to refer to the idea that this ship was designed to fight enemies other than the high-end Soviet (or by this point Russian) navy.
So, we see a bigger gun that recent USN frigates, a small self-defense SAM battery, heavy CIWS (they appear to be Goalkeeper), significant secondary guns (the description says 20mm, but the mounts behind the bridge wings look very large for 20mm). The inclusion of both heavyweight and lightweight torpedoes is unusual . [I wonder if the idea was actually to use the Mk 48s for ASuW as well, since the sonar suite is actually quite basic.] The all-diesel propulsion plant implies much more endurance but not much interest in quieting.
The radar situation is confusing. "Self-illuminating" is an unusual term -- I think it refers to the radar being able to do both search and fire-control illumination, but a 2D radar for fire control would be decidedly weird.
It's interesting that the helicopter shown is an AH-1, not a traditional Navy helicopter. Possibly hearkening back to Persian Gulf operations with Army/SOCOM AH-6s and later Marine AH-1s on Navy escort flight decks.
I disagree re: quieting on the diesels. Rafting and Prairie Masker often aren't mentioned in warship statistics and equipment lists at this stage. It could easily be present and desirable even when facing a non-peer adversary who have submarines. Given the Proposed ASW fit, I think it would be warranted.
I'm pretty sure there is no connection whatever with LCS, which is a concept from the period after 9/11, and connected with 9/11 (I'll explain). I've seen this stuff before. I think it was a very early approach to the abortive NATO frigate, probably intended to show Navy policy-makers what was out there and what could be proposed. We didn't really want to buy frigates at that time, but we badly wanted NATO navies to modernize, and particularly to buy much better air defense. That rumbled on until about 1990 (I forget just when it died). You see echoes of it in things like FREMM and Horizon. The page you published is from a small looseleaf booklet of ships, which I think was supposed to inform senior Navy decision-makers unfamiliar with foreign designs and with sketches NAVSEA had already produced for various reasons.
On LCS, it came out of a Navy study produced in the wake of 9/11. The main point was that, unlike the past, it was no longer plausible that the United States would face no more than two simultaneous crises. One of the slides was called 'a bad day in 2003,' so you get a sense of when it was produced. The bottom line was that to deal with more crises, we needed a lot more Navy. But to get it quickly, the additions had to be mostly surface combatants. We had the eleven or so carriers to form the cores of carrier battle groups., to which were added Expeditionary Strike Groups built around large-deck amphibs, and also Surface Action Groups. The strike element of the ESG was the Marine air-ground task force embarked. All of this meant we badly needed a lot more surface ships -- I forget the figure, but it was substantial. So they had to be inexpensive. The initial requirement for the new ship, whcih was called LCS only because something with that name was being discussed, was that it cost a quarter as much as a DDG; it was a rubber ship. The only way to get low cost was to go modular, and initially people talked about the Danish ships. The modern LCS is conceived as a modular ship whose module is unmanned vehicles with the control and evaluation bits moved on board in containers. I am pretty sure that the high speed, which has been the problem, was brought up by someone on the naval staff, who could not be talked down. There are of course all sorts of other problems, but this thread is the wrong place to go on about them.
I disagree re: quieting on the diesels. Rafting and Prairie Masker often aren't mentioned in warship statistics and equipment lists at this stage. It could easily be present and desirable when facing non-peer adversaries who have submarines. Given the Proposed ASW fit, I think it would be warranted.
The ASW fit is pretty mediocre in my opinion (no mention of TACTAS or VDS, and SQS-56 is not SQS-26/53). The US preference was for rotating machinery (turbines) over reciprocating (diesels) for quieting.
I'm pretty sure there is no connection whatever with LCS, which is a concept from the period after 9/11, and connected with 9/11 (I'll explain). I've seen this stuff before. I think it was a very early approach to the abortive NATO frigate, probably intended to show Navy policy-makers what was out there and what could be proposed. We didn't really want to buy frigates at that time, but we badly wanted NATO navies to modernize, and particularly to buy much better air defense. That rumbled on until about 1990 (I forget just when it died). You see echoes of it in things like FREMM and Horizon. The page you published is from a small looseleaf booklet of ships, which I think was supposed to inform senior Navy decision-makers unfamiliar with foreign designs and with sketches NAVSEA had already produced for various reasons.
I think the CALOW design must have come after NFR90 (which is also in this briefing) -- the NATO frigate was the antithesis of a limited objective warfighting effort, being meant for a high-intensity peer conflict.
I'm surprised to know that someone else has seen this brief -- I thought I might have the only surviving copy. It was done by SEA 03D and is described as a CNO brief, so I think you're dead right on the intended audience. In my scans, I'm cropping off the names and phone numbers of the officers who authored it, for their privacy. (The office phone numbers have undoubtedly been reassigned anyway).
The thinking that led to LCS was from Art Cebrowski and Wayne Hughes (and a bunch of other folks with them), articulated in "Rebalancing the Fleet" from Proceedings in 1999. But the Navy as an institution wasn't really buying and Cebrowski had (IIRC) been shuffled off the Naval Postgraduate School TSSE program, where he could have students work on blue-sky ideas that would exercise their design skills but not actually mess up real Navy procurement programs.
Then the Bush admin arrived in January 2001 and Rumsfeld revamped the Quadrennial Defense Review to favor "transformational" (read, "money saving") warfighting ideas. And there was Cebrowski with the "Economy B" force of swarming small platforms and modular systems that looked like it would a cheaper and very different way to crowbar the fleet into an enemy littoral. And Rumsfeld was always happy to piss off the conventional wisdom, so Cebrowski got an office in the Pentagon, DD(X) got kneecapped, and we got the "Focused Mission Combatant" requirement that eventually grew into LCS.
(Wow, sorry, a bit of a tangent there for sure, but I've been thinking about this a bit anyway.)
Wondering if NAVSEA thinking of relaxing their SLA, sea life allowance standard at that time, Weight and Stability Limits for Naval Surface Ships, which specified 10% for weight growth and 12" for vertical center of gravity for new design and new flights of USN surface combatants. Understand the goal posts had to moved and the 9096 standard drastically lowered due to weight growth in both LCS classes which were only able to achieve ~1.5% for future weight growth .
PS Ships inevitably get heavier throughout their 25 to 35 year lives and become less stable, as new equipment and systems are added above the center of gravity.
Second design, a Mobilization Frigate. This is a very austere ship designed to show what could be done to build an ASW escort very quickly without a sophisticated combat system or other equipment. Precise timeframe is unclear, but I'd guess mid-to-late 1980s (maybe just before the fall of the Soviet Union).
The choice of diesel-electric propulsion is unsurprising in a design that was explicitly calling back to WW2 DE concepts. The HP listed lines up very closely with contemporary diesel-electric locomotive plants; I would not be surprised if that was intentional, so they could use existing production lines for those engines.
Nothing shocking in terms of combat systems (other than how basic it all is). "SY-2" should be SYS-2, a track manager/integrator. Sea Sparrow isn't obvious in the drawing, but I'd guess it would be some form of Mk 48 VLS or possibly even an old NSSM launcher. Basically everything on this ship could have been recycled or procured very quickly from existing production lines.
Whoever drew this had limited graphics resources; note the Mk 45 gun mount scaled down in lieu of an actual Mk 75 76mm gun, for example. There are no antennas shown, but the SPS-49 would presumably have gone on the lower platform with SPS-55 at the masthead. Phalanx likely at the aft end of the hangar roof (a la FFG-7) with the Sea Sparrow somewhere forward of that, either at the front of the hangar roof if NSSM or in the break between the hangar and bridge superstructure if VLS.
An odd design, but very interesting.
The omission of ASW torpedoes seems an interesting move for a ship that is identified as an ASW escort. You could make the case for ditching the Harpoons for a couple of triple tubes.
The SQS-56 looks quite far forward, not sure that would be an ideal position, especially in heavy seas.
I would concur on Sea Sparrow choices, as NSSM atop the hangar or there might be space for an 8 or 16-cell VLS between the Mk 75 and Harpoons. Another option could be single-cells along the hangar like the Karel Doormans.
The omission of ASW torpedoes seems an interesting move for a ship that is identified as an ASW escort. You could make the case for ditching the Harpoons for a couple of triple tubes.
SQS-56 is at about the same place in the FFG-7 as well. Thankfully, it's not the primary ASW search sensor in either design. As long as you can keep the tail streamed and straight, that's job #1.
That said, this ship is most likely going to be pure misery in heavy weather anyway, with the hard chines, a lot of flat-plate construction, and no stabilizers.
I wouldn't disagree but they were de rigueur at that time and there's nothing wrong with a close-range last ditch if you are escorting a high-value convoy/carrier.
SQS-56 is at about the same place in the FFG-7 as well. Thankfully, it's not the primary ASW search sensor in either design. As long as you can keep the tail streamed and straight, that's job #1.
That said, this ship is most likely going to be pure misery in heavy weather anyway, with the hard chines, a lot of flat-plate construction, and no stabilizers.
Yes I guess it is pretty much in the same place - always looks too far forward to my eye but then I'm not a hydrodynamicist!
I've seen pictures of Type 81s and Leanders with their sonars nearly visible during seakeeping trials with heavy slamming and the Leanders were quite good seaboats.
North Atlantic ops would be interesting I agree! Though the chine might have reduced spray affecting the upper decks.
The 20mm gun mount on the CALOW design indeed weird it looks like quite a large gunhouse and by 1994 an older looking one, closer to the twin 40mm Bofors fully enclosed mounts of the 1970's like the OTO-Breda Fast Forty or Compact! Which adds another question as to why use two kinds of CIWS weaponry on a single ship?
I wouldn't disagree but they were de rigueur at that time and there's nothing wrong with a close-range last ditch if you are escorting a high-value convoy/carrier.
True, in that timefrrame, it's really unlikely you'd leave them out entirely (unless they designers discovered that there was a chokepoint in manufacturing Mk 32s?). If fitted, they could probably sit right at the forward end of the flight deck without interfering with anything.
The 20mm gun mount on the CALOW design indeed weird it looks like quite a large gunhouse and by 1994 an older looking one, closer to the twin 40mm Bofors fully enclosed mounts of the 1970's like the OTO-Breda Fast Forty or Compact! Which adds another question as to why use two kinds of CIWS weaponry on a single ship?
I wonder if it might have been something based on a 20mm Vulcan. Both Japan and Korea have such mounts for "policing" type duties, which would line up with the CALOW mission space. Neither matches this mount in detail, but the concept could be similar.
ROKN Sea Vulcan
JMSDF JM61-RSF
As to why have both, the Goalkeepers would have still been largely dedicated anti-missile systems, while a 20mm gun like this would be mainly for small-boat targets. The notion of adding surface mode to CIWS was just starting to emerge at this point (fielded in 1999 in Phalanx, and later than that in Goalkeeper, I think).
The Mobilization Frigate reminds me of the thinking behind the very successful WWII 2,500t Fletcher class of destroyer escorts, in just 2 years 175 built by 11 shipyards before they moved on to the new gen Sumner/Gearings, when fighting a war the number of ships is of critical importance and to achieve that the Navy needed the Fletchers to be of the practical minimum in size and for shipyards minimum build time, someting totally forgotten today.
The Mobilization Frigate reminds me of the thinking behind the very successful WWII 2,500t Fletcher class of destroyer escorts, in just 2 years 175 built by 11 shipyards before they moved on to the new gen Sumner/Gearings, when fighting a war the number of ships is of critical importance and to achieve that the Navy needed the Fletchers to be of the practical minimum in size and for shipyards minimum build time, someting totally forgotten today.
Uh... the Fletchers were among the largest and most sophisticated destroyers of their time. The thinking was not a low-cost mobilization ship, but to add ballistic protection and restore stability margins to the basic destroyer layout they'd been refining since the Farraguts.
The mobilization ships were the actual DEs (the Fletchers are full-up DDs), as shown by their lighter armament, basic sensor fit, and, often, propulsion systems that did not need reduction gears.
As for your second point, the threat environment has changed since WW2. In particular, navies are even more "come as you are" than ever. Basic mobilization ships like the one outlined are increasingly not useful in high-threat naval warfare and wouldn't come online in time anyway.
On topic, while I don't have much to say about the mobilization frigate, it's interesting that the CALOW frigate maps pretty closely onto the German MEKO 200. Which makes sense since by 1994 the MEKO 200 platform was pretty firmly establishing itself as the mid-end export frigate of choice.
I wonder if it might have been something based on a 20mm Vulcan. Both Japan and Korea have such mounts for "policing" type duties, which would line up with the CALOW mission space. Neither matches this mount in detail, but the concept could be similar.
Quite possible, on closer inspection of the drawing. There is at least one other design in this brief that lists "20mm guns" under ASUW when the drawing clearly shows something else. It might have been a quirk in the author's dataset or something.
Very similar to the La Fayette class in terms of size, mission set and timing.
Diesel propulsion wouldn’t be a deal breaker for ASW, as the La Fayettes showed that you could have good acoustics with proper rafting and insulation. However the apparent lack of stealth would have made this proposal obsolete before it even hit the water, especially for littoral contingency ops (e.g. Persian Gulf). Surprising that there is no mention of stealth…
On topic, while I don't have much to say about the mobilization frigate, it's interesting that the CALOW frigate maps pretty closely onto the German MEKO 200. Which makes sense since by 1994 the MEKO 200 platform was pretty firmly establishing itself as the mid-end export frigate of choice.
Very similar to the La Fayette class in terms of size, mission set and timing.
Diesel propulsion wouldn’t be a deal breaker for ASW, as the La Fayettes showed that you could have good acoustics with proper rafting and insulation. However the apparent lack of stealth would have made this proposal obsolete before it even hit the water, especially for littoral contingency ops (e.g. Persian Gulf). Surprising that there is no mention of stealth…
The CALOW design was more of an ASW boat that the Lafayettes, which notoriously were completed without sonar. It's true that rafting the diesels did make the Lafayettes rather quiet, but the USN preference was clearly for turbines (the ship-service diesel generators on the FFG-7s were regarded as a step back on quieting from the SSGTs on the Spruances, for instance.
The CALOW design looks to have some modest RCS shaping, similar to the Burkes. Enough to improve CM performance, not enough to seriously impact overall detectability.
Very similar to the La Fayette class in terms of size, mission set and timing.
Diesel propulsion wouldn’t be a deal breaker for ASW, as the La Fayettes showed that you could have good acoustics with proper rafting and insulation. However the apparent lack of stealth would have made this proposal obsolete before it even hit the water, especially for littoral contingency ops (e.g. Persian Gulf). Surprising that there is no mention of stealth…
Stealth requirements depend somewhat on the concept of operations (ConOps). For fleet or independent work, yes it's a big plus. For escort work, it's value is much diminished: being stealthy doesn't help nearly as much when you're sailing next to a container ship, or a large amphibious warfare craft, or a fleet oiler, which are the main target for attack anyway, and anti-radar stealth isn't a factor for ASW work.
Stealth always has some value, I'm just saying the cost/effort to benefit ratio for anti-radar stealth is substantially different for an escort than for a fleet or independent combatant.
The Taiwanese La Fayettes were very much ASW focused, and the French ones had provisions for towed sonar, so my understanding is that ASW was part of the core design requirement (much more so than for the Mekos) even if in the end the French ships didn’t have that mission. Hence why I was making the parallel La Fayette - CALOW.
Stealth requirements depend somewhat on the concept of operations (ConOps). For fleet or independent work, yes it's a big plus. For escort work, it's value is much diminished: being stealthy doesn't help nearly as much when you're sailing next to a container ship
Yet somehow stealth was considered an important requirement by the French Navy for escort work in the Persian Gulf, based on experience from the tanker wars. (Probably because it greatly increases the effectiveness of decoys and/or the likelihood that attacking missiles will pick another target)
Mid-90s NAVSEA designs for export frigates, essentially a 1990s Perry. It remakes on how much the ships have grown compared to the Perry design. Also there’s the FFX concepts, FF-21, DDM, and the Sa’ar V for Israel. I have also attached another frigate called the PXM, and it’s related text. Also a bit more on CALOW.
The Sa'ar V is a special case in that they evolved from a series of Fast Attack Craft (Missile) designs, similar to the way in which 'Destroyers' evolved from Torpedo Boats rather than the process used to create most 1990s Frigate designs, the main sign of this being the very heavy Harpoon battery.
I thought I'd checked Friedman for these but I guess not. I'm pretty sure he got a copy of the same slides I have now. I know we pulled a lot of our archive files for his research when he was revising US Destroyers.
I thought I'd checked Friedman for these but I guess not. I'm pretty sure he got a copy of the same slides I have now. I know we pulled a lot of our archive files for his research when he was revising US Destroyers.
Mid-90s NAVSEA designs for export frigates, essentially a 1990s Perry. It remakes on how much the ships have grown compared to the Perry design. Also there’s the FFX concepts, FF-21, DDM, and the Sa’ar V for Israel. I have also attached another frigate called the PXM, and it’s related text. Also a bit more on CALOW.
So, as it happens, those export studies were next up. (PXM turns out to be a rabbit hole -- Friedman and this brief only referenced one of about a dozen configurations that were done under PXM around 1985-86, with multiple different hull technologies and equipment standards. That's probably going to be a separate thread at some point, when I get to the bottom of it.)
The FMS export frigate studies were done by Gibbs & Cox for a Royal Saudi Naval Force (RSNF) frigate requirement that was eventually fulfilled by the Al Riyadh class (a Lafayette AAW variant). Combat Fleets 1995 reports that the Saudis were looking specifically at the AEGIS version. As of September 1992 other candidates being considered were a modified Halifax-class frigate with Sea Sparrow, or FF-21. Which certainly covers the full range of capability, consistent with Saudi's usual acquisition strategy.
So, the interesting thing is that there are three versions that differ only in their radar and weapon control systems -- FFG-61 CORT, New Threat Upgrade (NTU), and the AEGIS Combat System (ACS). The actual armament was fixed across the three baselines: 32 Mk 41 VLS, 8 Harpoon, 1 Mk 45 gun, 2 CIWS, Mk 32 torpedo tubes, and 2 LAMPS III size helos. Same for the EW suite, which was SLQ-32(V)5 with Sidekick and the usual SRBOC launchers plus Nixie. ASW seems to be limited to the hull sonar (SQS-56, despite the typo across all three slides) and LAMPS III helos, with no mention of towed array or VDS.
So, displacement starts at 5183 tons for basically duplicating FFG-61 (~4100 tons) with reset service life margins, a second shaft and auxiliary diesel engines, a steel and composite superstructure with some stealth shaping, and updated armament.
Swap out the FFG-61 combat system for a version of NTU and the displacement jumps up to 5640 tons. And you add about 20 crewmembers.
Jump to ACS with ANPAR (SPY-1F) and displacement rises again, to 5723 tons. (Something weird happens with beam here; the heavier ACS version manages to be narrower than the NTU version, despite being longer and appearing to have more weight high. Not sure how that happened, but stability calcs can be weird. Or it could be another typo.)
The Taiwanese La Fayettes were very much ASW focused, and the French ones had provisions for towed sonar, so my understanding is that ASW was part of the core design requirement (much more so than for the Mekos) even if in the end the French ships didn’t have that mission. Hence why I was making the parallel La Fayette - CALOW.
The Mobilization Frigate reminds me of the thinking behind the very successful WWII 2,500t Fletcher class of destroyer escorts, in just 2 years 175 built by 11 shipyards before they moved on to the new gen Sumner/Gearings, when fighting a war the number of ships is of critical importance and to achieve that the Navy needed the Fletchers to be of the practical minimum in size and for shipyards minimum build time, someting totally forgotten today.
Uh... the Fletchers were among the largest and most sophisticated destroyers of their time. The thinking was not a low-cost mobilization ship, but to add ballistic protection and restore stability margins to the basic destroyer layout they'd been refining since the Farraguts.
The mobilization ships were the actual DEs (the Fletchers are full-up DDs), as shown by their lighter armament, basic sensor fit, and, often, propulsion systems that did not need reduction gears.
As for your second point, the threat environment has changed since WW2. In particular, navies are even more "come as you are" than ever. Basic mobilization ships like the one outlined are increasingly not useful in high-threat naval warfare and wouldn't come online in time anyway.
On topic, while I don't have much to say about the mobilization frigate, it's interesting that the CALOW frigate maps pretty closely onto the German MEKO 200. Which makes sense since by 1994 the MEKO 200 platform was pretty firmly establishing itself as the mid-end export frigate of choice.
Thanks for pointing out my basic error in classifying the Fletchers destroyer escorts and not destroyers. Don't understand your comment on my second point that when fighting a war the number of ships is of critical importance and to achieve that ships should be of practical minimum in size so shipyards can build in minimum time, someting totally forgotten today, eg Burkes ~ 4 1/2 years in build, seen mention some Virginia subs 71 months in build, likely war will be long over before replacements available to cover any operational war losses.
Thanks for pointing out my basic error in classifying the Fletchers destroyer escorts and not destroyers. Don't understand your comment on my second point that when fighting a war the number of ships is of critical importance and to achieve that ships should be of practical minimum in size so shipyards can build in minimum time, someting totally forgotten today, eg Burkes ~ 4 1/2 years in build, seen mention some Virginia subs 71 months in build, likely war will be long over before replacements available to cover any operational war losses.
Based on estimates I've seen of how fast naval wars are expected to go these days, I think the war will be over long before any replacements are available, mobilization ships or not. We're talking on the order of a few months at best. Even WW2 DEs didn't come online fast enough to cover operational losses that fast.
And in any case the slowing of construction speed has little to do with the size of modern ships. Back in the 1960s DLGs the size of Burkes were being built in three years, and early in the Burke run they were building them in three years, too. The current stretched build times are deliberately stretched because the Navy needs only so many ships, can only afford to buy so many ships, and needs to keep the yards open.
Further, even back in WW2 construction speed was not correlated with size. During WW2 it took about as long to build a Casablanca as it did a Fletcher. Size doesn't correlate with construction speed; sophistication does. It's why mobilization ships cut high-tech features, it's because those are not only the most expensive items but also the ones that slow down construction. Which is a problem because the modern threat environment is increasingly unkind to unsophisticated warships. See: the rough experience the Type 21 frigate had at the Falklands.
The FMS export frigate studies were done by Gibbs & Cox for a Royal Saudi Naval Force (RSNF) frigate requirement that was eventually fulfilled by the Al Riyadh class (a Lafayette AAW variant).
So, the interesting thing is that there are three versions that differ only in their radar and weapon control systems -- FFG-61 CORT, New Threat Upgrade (NTU), and the AEGIS Combat System (ACS).
Thanks, very interesting. Sounds like what the Saudis got in the end with the Al Riyadhs was an intermediate capability closer to NTU than AEGIS (DRBV-26 + Arabel + Aster 15).
The FMS export frigate studies were done by Gibbs & Cox for a Royal Saudi Naval Force (RSNF) frigate requirement that was eventually fulfilled by the Al Riyadh class (a Lafayette AAW variant).
So, the interesting thing is that there are three versions that differ only in their radar and weapon control systems -- FFG-61 CORT, New Threat Upgrade (NTU), and the AEGIS Combat System (ACS).
Thanks, very interesting. Sounds like what the Saudis got in the end with the Al Riyadhs was an intermediate capability closer to NTU than AEGIS (DRBV-26 + Arabel + Aster 15).
I think it's really hard to compare, but Arabel supposedly can support 16 simultaneous engagements, which is more like AEGIS than NTU. The fact that ASTER doesn't require terminal illumination makes it a lot easier to do simultaneous engagements, of course.
Second design, a Mobilization Frigate. This is a very austere ship designed to show what could be done to build an ASW escort very quickly without a sophisticated combat system or other equipment. Precise timeframe is unclear, but I'd guess mid-to-late 1980s (maybe just before the fall of the Soviet Union)...
Second design, a Mobilization Frigate. This is a very austere ship designed to show what could be done to build an ASW escort very quickly without a sophisticated combat system or other equipment. Precise timeframe is unclear, but I'd guess mid-to-late 1980s (maybe just before the fall of the Soviet Union)...
No idea. DEs took between 6 months to a year of active construction time during WW2 (some spent longer, waiting for workforce or materials availability). These would probably be similar, but would likely run into the same kinds of supply bottlenecks that the DEs hit -- availability of engines, production of weapon systems, manpower shortfalls, etc.
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