FFG(X)

Ozair said:
That is right where the decision making needs to rest. While he won't be approving every specific change order, and I doubt that was what he was actually suggesting, it is a consistent message than the Constellation lacked the high level oversight required. In the CAVASSHIPS podcast on 4th December a specific question was asked about the creation of a Naval Czar who would oversee all programs, including the final buck stop for changeI th
Click to expand...
I think it's the wrong level, in the RN it historically would be 3rd Sea Lord/Controller (not sure if it still is), it's a technical post not a political one. But someone clearly needs to be doing it. it's particularly a problem with Phelan who lacks any technical background. (I'd note here that the US tends to politicise a lot of posts that would be professional in other countries, but even on that basis it should be one of the Assistant Secretaries).
 
Jimmo952 said:
I don't get the politics part of it.

Someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be in a position to say "no".

Someone has to be accountable for decisions made and the success or failure of a program.

Someone has to be providing oversight.

Call that politics if you will.
Click to expand...
None of that is what I'm calling politics. The decisions being made are about scoring political points with a niche segment of supporters and donors. Why and how they're being made are about attempting to achieve a specific political narrative at a time when the civilian leadership of the Branch, Department, and Admin are all desperate to draw attention from matters that are h politically hurting them.
 
Moose said:
None of that is what I'm calling politics. The decisions being made are about scoring political points with a niche segment of supporters and donors. Why and how they're being made are about attempting to achieve a specific political narrative at a time when the civilian leadership of the Branch, Department, and Admin are all desperate to draw attention from matters that are h politically hurting them.
Click to expand...

A lot of conjecture there. I'm not going to step into that nonsense.

This is the wrong forum for that.
 

More details on Navy’s decision to cancel Marinette ship project

ESCANABA — More details have emerged on future plans for the national fleet after the U.S. Navy announced it was canceling a major project at the shipyard in Marinette, Wis. A panel took place Dec. 6 during the Reagan National Defense Forum to discuss modernization of the military, offering...
www.dailypress.net www.dailypress.net
 
what_is_that said:
Click to expand...
Shockingly incompetent decision. No ASW capability. No AAW capability (beyond RAM for self-defense). The 2028 "in the water" timeline is a joke (the last NSC took >3.5 years to build, >4.5 years from contract signing. Not counting trials... these ships won't start commissioning until 2030).

Literally adds nothing of value to USN task forces in wartime. Will it free up DDGs any better than LCS, which the USN has been retiring at an accelerated rate? Doubtful.
 
Last edited:
H_K said:
No ASW capability. No AAW capability (beyond RAM for self-defense).

Literally adds nothing of value to USN task forces in wartime. Will it free up DDGs any better than LCS, which the USN has been retiring at an accelerated rate? Doubtful.
Click to expand...

It's a start.

The weapons deck will be useful. There has been a lot of experimentation with containerized missiles in the past decade. They want to leverage that.

The Navy has tested these containerized launchers with a variety of missiles and loitering munitions. SM-6, Tomahawk, ...

The stern looks redesigned and, in the released illustration, holds 16 NSM.

No...this ship is not the second coming of Yamato or Kirov but maybe it represents what we can actually build in a short time frame.

The article make reference to future developments adding ASW, ...

It's not a bad idea to build these in Blocks like the Virginias, increasing capability as you go.

It's a start.
 
Jimmo952 said:
Looks like they are going for fairly minimal changes in Flight I that still add some capabilities.

Hopefully we build a few while designing the Flight IIs.
Click to expand...

An absolutely worthless ship for USN missions, unless we decide that the USN should continue to be in the business of illegally blowing up drug boats that aren't even headed to the United States in a.zero threat environment.
 
TomS said:
An absolutely worthless ship for USN missions, unless we decide that the USN should continue to be in the business of illegally blowing up drug boats that aren't even headed to the United States in a.zero threat environment.
Click to expand...

The US will be engaged in South America for decades to come. We won't be able to park a carrier battlegroup there indefinitely.
 
Not hopeful as the HII track record on the 11th NSC abysmal, construction began May '21and due for delivery '24 but reported only 15% complete when USCG cancelled June '25, “Huntington Ingalls owed us this cutter over a year ago,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem

maritime-executive.com

Homeland Security Dept. Cancels Order for Incomplete USCG Cutter

The Department of Homeland Security is reporting that it canceled the order for the eleventh Legend-class national security cutter which was to be nam...
maritime-executive.com maritime-executive.com
 
Cordy said:
Not hopeful as the HII track record on the 11th NSC abysmal, construction began May '21and due for delivery '24 but reported only 15% complete when USCG cancelled June '25, “Huntington Ingalls owed us this cutter over a year ago,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem

maritime-executive.com

Homeland Security Dept. Cancels Order for Incomplete USCG Cutter

The Department of Homeland Security is reporting that it canceled the order for the eleventh Legend-class national security cutter which was to be nam...
maritime-executive.com maritime-executive.com
Click to expand...

Maybe this is a "cunning" plan to reuse the 15% assembled for that NSC to jumpstart the FF production? And likely get paid twice for the same steel.

How much did HII pay Phelan for this deal, anyway?
 
TomS said:
But if someone decides to start shooting back, we'll need something with actual sensors and weapons to escort these "frigates."
Click to expand...
I think your expectation for the navy is too high.

I give you two routes - either the navy starts building something while adding and changing the design as it gets built, or it starts building a flight while it designs the next one, and introduces capability by each flight.

Option one led to disaster already. After reading through 49 pages of this thread, it's still not clear to my why FFG(X) got cancelled. If the design was already finish and the navy was happy with it, it makes no sense to build two ships and stop. Clearly - there had to be multiple reasons beyond simply "politics" that results in the cancellation - either the cost is too high, or upgrading it is a pain in the ass, or the modifications made have resulted in either of the first two reasons or, and god damn it to hell, the navy wasn't done modifying it yet.

With option two, you still are building as you design, but at the very least you are putting hulls in the water, systems to the test, and experience being accumulated. In the meantime, your cost and production isn't constantly being kneecapped by having to put in stuff and rip it back out again to accommodate new upgrades.

You have to learn to walk again before you can run. China didn't build 055's on day one either did they? We might not be on day 1 here, but we certainly have regressed backwards enough to learn to walk again - and the earlier we all face that reality the faster we move on from it. I don't have high expectations for FFG(X) in the near term, but I'd rather they screw this one up than DDG(X). It could be that this NSC based design is an interim solution too.
 
Last edited:
TomS said:
Maybe this is a "cunning" plan to reuse the 15% assembled for that NSC to jumpstart the FF production? And likely get paid twice for the same steel.

How much did HII pay Phelan for this deal, anyway?
Click to expand...

Here come the dingbat conspiracy theories.

Maybe, just maybe, they failed twice trying to build a small surface combatant and now have to except a more practical, austere but buildable approach.
 
LightningFan1959 said:
It makes the Knox class look like a capable frontline combatant.
Click to expand...
it seems like it's basically just an LCS replacement that won't cost so much to run and maintain, which isn't an awful idea but leaves the requirement for a high end FFG wide open. If you ask me they should be lighting a fire under Caderock to get cooking on a clean sheet FFG with off the shelf systems, weapons and sensors but with a reasonably generous margin to work it over later. Try and keep the integration costs down and get it out the door with decent capability and growth potential.
 
This maybe worse the the LCS as at least those had thought you multi mission spaces designed in at the beginning. These hulls likely also have no silencing making them too loud for ASW even if they managed to fit on a towed away or VDS somehow.
 
whatismoo said:
it seems like it's basically just an LCS replacement that won't cost so much to run and maintain, which isn't an awful idea but leaves the requirement for a high end FFG wide open.
Click to expand...
Fun fact, the Legend class was built to level 1 survivability standards, the LCS 1+, and the OHP level 2. Iirc.

Given that survivability was a big concern with the Constellation the only aspect in which the Legend+ will be superior is that if all hands go down with it it's lower crew count will mean less dead sailors overall.
 
Martes said:
It's a relatively large hull the industry knows how to build now. The weapon systems are pretty modular these days, and there is enough place for them, so the most problematic would probably be radar integration, but it's still possible. Not ideal, but it could work.
Click to expand...
Pity they didn’t do just that with the FREMM hull. No major structural changes, just fit US radar and weapons and end up with something similar to FREMM EVO.

That might in fact still be a better option, as inserting real combattant capabilities into an NSC Fight II is going to be at least as hard as building a FREMM EVO at Marinette with minimal customization.
 
I guess we see the return of the FF4923 design... Tho it makes me wonder what could have been with the F100 as design base
 
H_K said:
No ASW capability. No AAW capability (beyond RAM for self-defense).
Click to expand...
I think a light anti-air armament can be forgiven if the ship is primarily meant as a sub hunter, perhaps as part of larger or smaller USN or coalition task forces (think, being attached to mostly European naval task forces in the Baltic, North Sea, Mediterranean for example) which will provide necessary air cover.

But having neither is...certainly a choice.
 
EmoBirb said:
I think a light anti-air armament can be forgiven if the ship is primarily meant as a sub hunter, perhaps as part of larger or smaller USN or coalition task forces (think, being attached to mostly European naval task forces in the Baltic, North Sea, Mediterranean for example) which will provide necessary air cover.

But having neither is...certainly a choice.
Click to expand...
Unless the AAW munition depth comes from attached unmanned assets... Obviously early on and light on details but could assume this new design may host an SPY-6 and would have sufficient coverage for self defence but just require additional munitions to operate semi independently. ASW is obviously going that direction as well.
 
Ozair said:
Unless the AAW munition depth comes from attached unmanned assets... Obviously early on and light on details but could assume this new design may host an SPY-6 and would have sufficient coverage for self defence but just require additional munitions to operate semi independently. ASW is obviously going that direction as well.
Click to expand...

They are building to the USCG design, which means no SPY-6 and no AAW but RAM.
 
kqcke for you said:
I guess we see the return of the FF4923 design... Tho it makes me wonder what could have been with the F100 as
Click to expand...

EmoBirb said:
I think a light anti-air armament can be forgiven if the ship is primarily meant as a sub hunter, perhaps as part of larger or smaller USN or coalition task forces (think, being attached to mostly European naval task forces in the Baltic, North Sea, Mediterranean for example) which will provide necessary air cover.

But having neither is...certainly a choice.
Click to expand...

It will have provisions for containerized missiles. There has been a lot of development put into containerized missiles and they look to be leveraging that.

The Navy is alluding to plans to improve the radar and add ASW on later ships.

That sounds like what they are thinking anyway.
 
Jimmo952 said:
It will have provisions for containerized missiles. There has been a lot of development put into containerized missiles and they look to be leveraging that.
Click to expand...
Yes somewhere in the back even for big Typhoon stuff.
Jimmo952 said:
The Navy is alluding to plans to improve the radar and add ASW on later ships.
Click to expand...
But shouldn't ASW come as soon as possible? Afterall thats the (primary) point of the frigate programm
 
Jimmo952 said:
It will have provisions for containerized missiles. There has been a lot of development put into containerized missiles and they look to be leveraging that.

The Navy is alluding to plans to improve the radar and add ASW on later ships.

That sounds like what they are thinking anyway.
Click to expand...
With what SLA???
I can't understate how shortsighted and poor a decision this is, meanwhile there are still Constellation class FFGs on order which means the design still has to be finalized and the cash still has to be spent. The Navy will not get one of these by 2028 and they will be less capable than LCS (and that's really saying something)
kqcke for you said:
Yes somewhere in the back even for big Typhoon stuff.
Click to expand...
Do you mean Typhon, the containerized Mk41 system? If so this is worse than useless. Typhon is explicitly designed for strike weapons yet that is not the point of a frigate. Mk70 Mod 1 PDS can carry Patriot PAC 3 missiles but that is such a marginal capability gain over RAM.
whatismoo said:
Again, they're probably a fine LCS replacement if the USN actually works on a new FFG. At this point I have no confidence they'll do that until '28 at best, but who knows.
Click to expand...
They can't do MCM which is the major role for LCS in 2025, nor can they support large numbers of UxVs which is the most important feature for futureproofing MCM and ASW designs.
 
Last edited:
Felocie said:
Do you mean Typhon, the containerized Mk41 system? If so this is worse than useless. Typhon is explicitly designed for strike weapons yet that is not the point of a frigate. Mk70 Mod 1 PDS can carry Patriot PAC 3 missiles but that is such a marginal capability gain over RAM.
Click to expand...
Typhon uses the Mk.70 and PAC-3 MSE is more then just a marginal capability gain. But thats not even important because it could carry all munitions that the Mk.41 has with little integration time tho atleast SM-6 is already shot from the system so atleast that would have a short time for integration.....
 
Felocie said:
With what SLA???
I can't understate how shortsighted and poor a decision this is, meanwhile there are still Constellation class FFGs on order which means the design still has to be finalized and the cash still has to be spent. The Navy will not get one of these by 2028 and they will be less capable than LCS (and that's really saying something)

Do you mean Typhon, the containerized Mk41 system? If so this is worse than useless. Typhon is explicitly designed for strike weapons yet that is not the point of a frigate. Mk70 Mod 1 PDS can carry Patriot PAC 3 missiles but that is such a marginal capability gain over RAM.

They can't do MCM which is the major role for LCS in 2025, nor can they support large numbers of UxVs which is the most important feature for futureproofing MCM and ASW designs.
Click to expand...

Yeah ...those Constellations should be in the water any day now, and for a good price.
 
kqcke for you said:
Typhon uses the Mk.70 and PAC-3 MSE is more then just a marginal capability gain. But thats not even important because it could carry all munitions that the Mk.41 has with little integration time tho atleast SM-6 is already shot from the system so atleast that would have a short time for integration.....
Click to expand...

Yes. It can handle more than strike weapons. As you said, SM-6 has already been tested.
 
kqcke for you said:
Typhon uses the Mk.70 and PAC-3 MSE is more then just a marginal capability gain.
Click to expand...
It is when that sacrifices NSM and/or an ASW payload. Actually if we're being real it would cut into the flight deck too given the size of a 40 footer. so you're losing your helicopter and UAS capability too. All that for what?
kqcke for you said:
But thats not even important because it could carry all munitions that the Mk.41 has with little integration time tho atleast SM-6 is already shot from the system so atleast that would have a short time for integration.....
Click to expand...
It could carry at most 8 of them, maybe more if they are quadpacked. All that at the expense of aforementioned capability that is much more pertinent to an FFG
Jimmo952 said:
Yeah ...those Constellations should be in the water any day now, and for a good price.
Click to expand...
There will be an NSC derived FF in the water no sooner than a Connie based upon simple logic. First the line has to be reestablished (it was retooled months ago and NSC is no longer in production). As the Flt IIA restart proved, this is a complex, costly, and lengthy process. Meanwhile the ship has to undergo certain redesigns, further complicated by the topdown structure of the program. I would wager this will take more than half a year. Then they have to build the ship which takes more than a year as per the NSC timelines. These will cost more than 3/4 of a Connie for less capability than an LCS.

Justify that?
Jimmo952 said:
Yes. It can handle more than strike weapons. As you said, SM-6 has already been tested.
Click to expand...
SM-6 isn't a strike weapon, SM-6 is also fairly illogical considering NSC cannot handle Aegis and associated ASMD AESA or even PESA arrays. Strike weapons are essentially a waste of space on a patrol frigate, especially because it comes at the cost of actual ASW, ASuW, or patrol capabilities
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom