FFG(X)

[EmoBirb]

It implies very different future actions should be taken.

In this case figure out the politics (seems like they realize they need to build ships) and the requirements (everyone seems to be aligned on fighting China). It clearly wasn't a technological failure, so we don't need to go to simple ships.

I wouldn't say the Zumwalt mission profile failure is meaningful. As you can just rip out the guns and stuff VLS cells in their place, as is being currently done. As mentioned before a slightly modified Zumwalt would fill all of the DDG(X) requirements.

That's entirely correct and I agree with you, but the point was that it's a failure nonetheless. One that has to be acknowledged and a failure that ultimately resulted in the program getting axed. In that sense it's entirely fair to list it among other failures, some more, some less severe. Be they political, technical or financial in nature.

I also agree that overly simplifying isn't necessary for the final design. But with focus on FF(X) here, I think we should wait and see how extensively they overhaul and redesign the donor design. I doubt a hypothetical Flight II or Flight III will be overly simplistic and lacking in capability. Although I'd like to mention that I still believe that sticking to the Constellation now and iterating upon that class step by step is the better option, sunk cost fallacy and all.

The CPS refit is taking place yes, but it's also time consuming and costly. And it shouldn't have been necessary in the first place if we're honest. It's fortunate that this "Plan B" has been worked out and is being implemented, but sticking to "Plan A" is always preferable. That "Plan A" in this instance simply wasn't viable is unfortunately just an inherent flaw of the mission for which the class was initially designed. But yes, the ships as platforms have merits, they're not bad ships by any means. But the program as a whole wasn't a master class in navy procurement, I think we can all agree on that.

 

[Desertfox]

Plan C... Build both designs and an LCS derivative as well...

 

[cccgong]

I don't think it really needs to be acknolwedged. Any large ship building program in that era would have been neutered due to the peace dividend and then the trip to the middle east. There was next to nothing that could have done programatically.

Refit to CPS would have always been necessary. Even in the early/mid 2000s all hypersonic or fast missile concepts were not nearly as big as CPS. Meaning that a refit somewhere would have been required. Even if I think CPS is a very bad hypersonic option and we should have went with a ASALM style missile in the larger MK 57 VLS. But hypersonics are programs mismanaged on the technical front.

I have no faith that the FF(X) will fit the bill even with multiple flights. There is insufficient growth margin if we simpily look at the proposal that HII gave for FFG(X). That was close to the best they could come up with, and it is still insufficient. We don't know how long it will take for the NSC redesign especially as it's only built to level 1 survivability standards.

The NCS is 1.03 billion inflation adjusted before any FF(X) modifications. The Constellation is ~1.2 billion. The MMCS (Freedom class with 8 VLS, 8 ASM, VDS, and different propulsion setup which maybe quieter for the Saudis that is currently being built) is 650 million. It makes 0 sense to redesign and build the FF(X). When the MMCS is more much more capable boat for cheaper.

Plan C... Build both designs and an LCS derivative as well...

That's a horrific waste of money for the reasons detailed above.

 

[EmoBirb]

When the MMCS is more much more capable boat for cheaper.

But those are constructed at the yard of Fincantieri Marinette Marine, no? And given the Constellation fiasco, it's not surprising they categorically reject that option. Unless a different yard could build the vessel, it's initially a Lockheed design if I recall correctly.

Either way, I think judging ships based on the earliest conceptual images and characteristics given is a bit premature. Ultimately there will be something to fill the role the USN needs to be filled.

 

[Jimmo952]

You are aware he is Trump's political appointee?

He is an Admiral with impeccable credentials.

He is from the same, extremely qualified type of people that gave us LCS and Zumwalt.

Those guys always think everything through, study how to deliver the best result and have cleared eyed views on the future of naval warfare.

 

[Desertfox]

Just buy some Benito Juarez frigates from Mexico, Built in [North] America? Check. Has VDS? Check. Has VLS? Check. Has torpedoes? Check. Costs $400M? Check. Bonus, takes up zero shipyard space in the US, so more space for Burkes.

 

[cccgong]

But those are constructed at the yard of Fincantieri Marinette Marine, no? And given the Constellation fiasco, it's not surprising they categorically reject that option. Unless a different yard could build the vessel, it's initially a Lockheed design if I recall correctly.

Either way, I think judging ships based on the earliest conceptual images and characteristics given is a bit premature. Ultimately there will be something to fill the role the USN needs to be filled.

The first ship was launched last week, and it seems the programs has had not major issues. FFM's major problems seem to be on the design side primarly, and they have a mature hull design that they've built a dozen of already.

Also one should note that EVERY SINGLE weapons platform has its issues and is dragged through the dirt by the media during development/construction even ones that people find sucessful now. Off the top of my head this happened to the F4,F15, B1, M1 Abrams, M2, Nimitz, Burkes, Tico, V22, and H60. Having some issues that the media and political opposition blow out of proportion is business as usual.

He is an Admiral with impeccable credentials.

He is from the same, extremely qualified type of people that gave us LCS and Zumwalt.

Those guys always think everything through, study how to deliver the best result and have cleared eyed views on the future of naval warfare.

The LCS and Zumwalt were formulated in the aftermath of the cold war with a navy fumbling for relevance and a mission. It's understandable how those requirements came about. It is nearly incomprehensible how FF(X)'s requirements came to be espically with the FFG(X) as a existing program of record.

Trump is such a font of incompetence, malice, and corruption that any appointee should be seen is suspect.

 

[Ozair]

Just buy some Benito Juarez frigates from Mexico, Built in [North] America? Check. Has VDS? Check. Has VLS? Check. Has torpedoes? Check. Costs $400M? Check. Bonus, takes up zero shipyard space in the US, so more space for Burkes.

LOL, I bet NAVSea would be all over that...

 

[Rule of cool]

doubt there will be much if any civilian vessels going in and out of China regardless of how many American vessels serve as block enforcers.

If civilian traffic exists and there are no Chinese naval escorts for these ships you can use coast guard vessels or even cheaper war build ships with a single 57mm gun for blockade enforcement far away from the war zone. If there are Chinese escorts a FF(X) will not cut it.

Obviously overt shipping directly to China will more or less cease in a warm or hot war, which would make indirect delivery, shadow fleets and the like vastly more important. IIUC there's an oil pipeline from Myanmar to China for example that would have to monitored. A lot of small surface combatants like LCS and FF(X) will try to police these alternate supply routes and sources.

 

[MihoshiK]

View attachment 796014
Some visuals on subject matter...

That raised deck in front of the bridge looks like a great place for a mushroom farm. USN, CAMM when?

 

[Ainen]

That raised deck in front of the bridge looks like a great place for a mushroom farm. USN, CAMM when?

I doubt it's meant for weapons at all, likely just internal space. At most a 150kW laser(it's rather light and compact), but even with cut superstructure, its field of fire will be subpar.

Path they seem to take is containers. I'd personally prefer hot-tracking a couple of BAE ADLs and adding a small 3D set (hendsolt 4D/Saab giraffe) as a reasonable path ahead for the second batch.

First can work with Sea RAM - ready ammo is a rather subpar, but it can be reloaded at sea. It also has ~ok reach in current version.

 

[yasotay]

battleship, smattlestick. Go big or go home.

 

[joshjosh]

From the Cavasships December 5th podcast.

Retired Rear Admiral and former Fincantieri executive Chuck Goddard:

People forget that we had 16 months of concept design with the Navy [early in the Constellation program] to refine those to meet the requirements that the Navy had.

At the same time, we had the high level requirements where we had threshold and objective values. There were ten of those, everything from range to the number of VLS cells. And then we had at that time about 2500 pages of design specifications from NAVSEA that were continued to be modified and adjusted as as the designs matured.

During that period all the teams we went through to 2 design reviews with the Navy... identified all the risks... we addressed those, did another design spiral, had a final design review in the June time frame of 2019, and then the RFP was released.

As part of that whole RFP process, we had our weaknesses identified as part of the design, as part of that formal process. There were over 100 design artifacts that were put in with that.

So that was everything from the structural design, the midships sections, the scantlings... so how thick are the plates, how thick are the stiffeners, what's the size of those... detailed weight estimates, general arrangements, topside design in terms of where all the antennas were located, machinery arrangement drawings... the one line diagrams for all of the major fluid systems--so water, cooling, firefighting systems... electrical one line diagrams, load analysis...

So very, very extensive. What we would call contract design package. So enough to well-define the ship that you knew essentially what you were going to go build and then how to go cost that.

And so they had identified weaknesses. We addressed most of those. We had about a dozen weaknesses left, minor weaknesses. We had 22 strengths.

So going into when we were awarded the contract, we thought that we had a fairly stable design, and unfortunately that the Navy took another path and continued then to try to conform to about then 3000 pages of specifications with which often contradict each other.

And unfortunately the Navy lost really control of the design and the weight of the design and it eventually ended up being almost 1000 tons over weight because of all of the changes that NAVSEA wanted to see to the design

1000 tons over [on a 7,000 ton ship].

We went into detailed design with about 250 tons of design margin, and we thought that was plenty, and historically that that should have been plenty.

I call these big requirements, big-R requirements and little-R requirements, and big-Rs are the things that are operational requirements. How far does the ship have to go before it gets refueled, what's the speed of the ship, how many VLS cells, the type of radar on it--those kinds of things to me are all hard requirements that the operator needs to get the mission capability.

When it comes to how much redundancy do you have to have in a cooling system, how much redundancy you have to have in a firefighting system, how much separation you need, how many isolation valves...

Those are all NAVSEA little-R requirements. And those are the things that essentially sunk the ship. They're taking the US design standards, really from a destroyer not from a frigate, because they hadn't done a frigate for a long time.

So it shouldn't be a surprise. Unfortunately, the ship grew almost 1000 tons as a result of all these things that got piled on to make it more like a destroyer. And we kind of lost the focus on what the ship is for and how critical the mission that it provides to, to, to the nation.

...

And we started to see the changes then [one year or less into Fincantieri's contract award] that were being imposed on the frigate and Admiral Hunt and I were pushing back at those. Everything from the increased structure to redundancy requirements. For example, the number of motor operated valves on board ship went from 150 to 300. It tells you how many more valves were added, how much more pipe was added for, for redundancy and separation purposes. What happened is nobody ended up owning the design and nobody was was held accountable.

...

The individual tech warrant holders were were allowed to run rampant and basically perfect each of their areas of the ship, whether it was an auxiliary system or propulsion system or electrical system. And they insisted that their specifications were the requirements, and the requirements were the requirements.

So at first some of these would not appear as changes to people because how NAVSEA O-5 would have characterized those are: 'these are changes that are necessary to conform to the specification, the 3000 pages specification, so therefore they're not a change'.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Adding 1000 tons on a 7000 ton ship?

someone take NAVSEA out behind the woodshed for some "education" please.

 

[EmoBirb]

So basically what most of us have been alluding to for quite a while. NAVSEA doesn't know what they want, they don't know what a modern Frigate is and does (unlike basically the entire rest of the developed world), their standards are untenable and that one should starve before doing business with the damned Navy (a classic).

 

[totoro]

And now, suddenly, 90% of those requirement aren't needed anymore for the Legend class cutter based design. (slight hyperbole) Suddenly, the only thing that matters is a ship, any ship, put in the water as fast as possible, and built by US shipyards.

 

[Rule of cool]

And now, suddenly, 90% of those requirement aren't needed anymore for the Legend class cutter based design. (slight hyperbole) Suddenly, the only thing that matters is a ship, any ship, put in the water as fast as possible, and built by US shipyards.

Yep, it looks like the USN has painted itself or been painted into that corner.

 

[Rule of cool]

Does anyone know how much a factor differences between US standards and the original were driving charges? Each country has its own standards covering all sorts of things, from the height of a step or thickness of a pipe to what to do with toilet water. Were the original designs pretty close to US requirements, or were there thousands of little changes covering every little thing all the way to nuts and bolts?

 

[Scott Kenny]

Does anyone know how much a factor differences between US standards and the original were driving charges? Each country has its own standards covering all sorts of things, from the height of a step or thickness of a pipe to what to do with toilet water. Were the original designs pretty close to US requirements, or were there thousands of little changes covering every little thing all the way to nuts and bolts?

It sounds like thousands of little changes.

 

[CordyB]

Does anyone know how much a factor differences between US standards and the original were driving charges? Each country has its own standards covering all sorts of things, from the height of a step or thickness of a pipe to what to do with toilet water. Were the original designs pretty close to US requirements, or were there thousands of little changes covering every little thing all the way to nuts and bolts?

OpNavInst 9070.1, issued by the CNO’s office 1988 with specified Level 1,2 & 3 survivability standards.

The Admirals were seriously embarrassed by Congress when it came to light the LCS classes did not meet the very basic Level 1 standard and if ship hit policy was for the crew to abandoned ship.

As the Admirals were unable to meet Level 1 standard with LCS they changed the standard and replaced it by OpNavInst 9070.1A which was issued by CNO Greenert 2012, no more concrete requirements, everything is fluid, survivability can be anything you want it to be, in a pick and mix complex matrix of factors. It's now whatever NAVSEA feel like on the day when specifying that particular class.

 

[whatismoo]

It sounds like thousands of little changes.

The impression I have is that NAVSEA wanted a ship to US requirements and specifications, and they had more political will to make that happen as an institution / within intra-navy politics than anyone on the other side. The fumble, IMO, is pretty clearly on requiring a parent design. It really seems like an insane false economy based on a failure on the part of leadership obsessed with the imagined efficiency of parent designs to understand what it would take to modify those design to meet the detailed level requirements. But it's not shocking that the Navy's leadership glossed over the details when the boss had a good idea.

What baffles me is that there is no implication from any source that the requirements were impossible to meet, just that FREMM-IT could not meet them without modifications such compromised the design stability and growth margin.

Also I think the weight thing is so spurious. Nobody complains that T26 is 8500 short tons Light displacement or River/CSC is 8000 standard (with meaningfully less capability)! But when FFG-62 is ±8000 it's hell on earth.

It seems to me that the problem has been shackling the design to the inheritance issues of a legacy parent ship when NAVSEA has a huge amount of specific requirements which would dictate the layout, subsystems, redundancies, compartmentalizatuon, etc. With a clean sheet they could design to spec and not suffer the penalties inherent to rearranging a ship that already is designed.

And they talk about 3000 pages of documentation like it's insane, but the Haynes for a mid-2000s F-150 is over 300 pages and an FFG is obviously more than 10x more complicated than a pickup truck.

 

[Rule of cool]

At the very least FF(X) should avoid the need for thousands of changes to minuscule items because they're baked in as a US design.

I had a look at the building schedule of the Legend class cutters, they were built pretty quickly with the first ones in 3 years and the last ones in 2. I think there's a hull and a set of long lead items for an 11th and 12th cutter that the Navy might be able to use.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Also I think the weight thing is so spurious. Nobody complains that T26 is 8500 short tons Light displacement or River/CSC is 8000 standard (with meaningfully less capability)! But when FFG-62 is ±8000 it's hell on earth.

No, when a ship suddenly gains 14% of its planned weight it's an issue.

 

[whatismoo]

No, when a ship suddenly gains 14% of its planned weight it's an issue.

I know you understand that and thought it was clear my comment was in reference to the people calling it a destroyer, nearly the displacement of a Burke etc etc.

 

[SecretSailor]

In the US ship size decides whether a ship is a frigate or destroyer. Here in the UK (still) it is what it does decides that it is called: frigates' primary (not only) role is ASW and destroyers' primary (not only) role is AAW. So an 8000 ton Spurance ASW for the US was destroyer, but for us here in the UK an 8000 ton ASW is a frigate. There is no universal fixed term for these ships. Always surprised that NATO didn't push a classification. But then again if it had done that back in the day for the most part Europe's naval power would have been built around a zoo of frigate types.

 

[Hood]

If we take Goddard's statements at face value then its hard to see how the two Constellations can be completed.
It sounds like they are already 750 tons over the board margin and they haven't even really begun construction yet. That is going to take a lot of control during the build process to make sure the weight is kept under control and perhaps finding ways to save weight as they build.

It's clear the ships will have no future growth margin for their service lives. It's possible they may be completed minus some equipment or armament to save weight. Either way it seems a waste of resources to build two sub-optimal ships if the weight issue cannot be solved or compensated for.

Flogging them for export might be one option but these are certainly maligned ships now and any purchaser would need a long barge pole and hefty discounting to buy them I would think.

 

[timmymagic]

In the US ship size decides whether a ship is a frigate or destroyer. Here in the UK (still) it is what it does decides that it is called: frigates' primary (not only) role is ASW and destroyers' primary (not only) role is AAW.

But even in the UK it gets blurred in practice. Destroyers like T45 were to have Land Attack alongside AAW...with a 155mm CMF and Mk.41 with Tomahawk...but those were cancelled and FFBNW. Now T26 gets the highly automated 5 inch gun and Mk.41 for Stratus LO....and the ship that you might feasibly risk inshore for NGFS, Type 31, gets a 57mm....

 

[whatismoo]

In the US ship size decides whether a ship is a frigate or destroyer. Here in the UK (still) it is what it does decides that it is called: frigates' primary (not only) role is ASW and destroyers' primary (not only) role is AAW. So an 8000 ton Spurance ASW for the US was destroyer, but for us here in the UK an 8000 ton ASW is a frigate. There is no universal fixed term for these ships. Always surprised that NATO didn't push a classification. But then again if it had done that back in the day for the most part Europe's naval power would have been built around a zoo of frigate types.

This isn't really correct. The FFG-7 was comparable to or larger than previous USN Mk.13 DDG (Sherman and Adams class)! And keep in mind that until 1975 "Frigate" was spelled DLG(N) and referred to larger-than-destroyer combatants for task force escort (mostly conversions and Long Beach). Also the bifurcation between Task Force ships (Cruisers, Frigates, Destroyers) and escort ships (DE/DEG)!

The real spanner in the works is that the advent of Mk.41 as a universal VLS (which would also have happened with Mk.26 as a universal twin arm had it been introduced at greater scale) is that the distinction between AAW/ASW/ASuW/Strike combatants shifts away from armament towards sensors and processing systems. This takes a bit more nuance to understand, of course, and the implementation of things like CEC (and to a lesser extent Link-16/22) complicates the situation, since it allows task forces to fuse raw sensor data in real time and become greater than the sum of their parts.

 

[Felocie]

From the Cavasships December 5th podcast.

Retired Rear Admiral and former Fincantieri executive Chuck Goddard:

(Reposted from FF(X) thread)
I honestly don't think this says what you think it does.

"So going into when we were awarded the contract, we thought that we had a fairly stable design, and unfortunately that the Navy took another path and continued then to try to conform to about then 3000 pages of specifications with which often contradict each other."

This is him seemingly describing the process from conceptual design to detailed design. I don't understand what the Navy did that was atypical? 3000 pages of fine print is what is required in the detailed design phase. He also provides no examples for contradictory requirements. He then claims this led to the design being 1000 tons overweight. The problems is this is what is needed to make the design work. You can't present your conceptual design as the final product, it needs serious changes along the way and this should be accounted for.

"They're taking the US design standards, really from a destroyer not from a frigate, because they hadn't done a frigate for a long time."

This is, in my opinion, most indicative of the inherent problems with the FMM mentality going into the detailed design phase. FFG(X) was, from the very beginning, to be built to standards for large surface combatants (we see this in the requirement to meet level II survivability standards). That's the design standard for ships in the CSG, this was an initial requirement that should've been accounted for. This isn't exactly an impossible thing to meet, after all F100 (from which BIW derived their design) was already built to this standard and aiui Perry was built to the same standard.
It seems that FMM thought they were designing a ship to level I survivability standards (like LCS) whereas FFG(X) (and Burke and even Perry aiui) are level II survivability standard designs. Why they thought this I cannot say, perhaps they expected a waiver?
This further reinforces my understanding that the majority of the FMM team only had experience working on LCS and not large surface combatants and that they vastly underestimated, or failed to recognize, just how much change was required to the base FREMM hull.

This is not a NAVSEA problem, this is FMM failing to meet what they were contracted to do. NAVSEA failed to identify that FMM couldn't meet the requirement and should be criticized as such but should not be held responsible for maintaining the standards they set.

"The individual tech warrant holders were were allowed to run rampant and basically perfect each of their areas of the ship, whether it was an auxiliary system or propulsion system or electrical system. And they insisted that their specifications were the requirements, and the requirements were the requirements .So at first some of these would not appear as changes to people because how NAVSEA O-5 would have characterized those are: 'these are changes that are necessary to conform to the specification, the 3000 pages specification, so therefore they're not a change'."

Actually read this for a sec, this is damning. What he's complaining about is just meeting the standards. The TWHs are doing their job and making sure FMM is following the law. If they say they aren't up to spec that means that FMM failed to meet what was laid out by NAVSEA, not that NAVSEA was asking too much. He then EXPECTS THE NAVY TO LOWER THE STANDARDS TO THEIR WHIMS. That is not how any well run program works, indeed if it were then the contractors should set their own requirements and cut out the middleman. The role of the TWH is in large part to hold the contractors to account and that's what they did. The alternative is that contractors do not meet design requirements.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I know you understand that and thought it was clear my comment was in reference to the people calling it a destroyer, nearly the displacement of a Burke etc etc.

Except it's ~3000 tons lighter than a Burke!

Every generation of ship gets bigger. Crud, Destroyers went from ~600 tons to 3500 tons between 1900 and 1940. They went from 600 tons to 1500 tons between 1900 and 1918 alone, then from 1500 to 3500 between 1920 and 1940.

Today, the minimum fit required to compete is 2x helos and Aegis.

Yes, I was making comments about how that is a big jump in displacement from the FFG7s to the Constellations. But as was explained at the time, Aegis was the primary size driver. The radars needed a certain level of stability that meant ~7000 tons. You can fit a pair of SH60s on 3500-4000 tons.

 

[CordyB]

(Reposted from FF(X) thread)
I honestly don't think this says what you think it does.

"So going into when we were awarded the contract, we thought that we had a fairly stable design, and unfortunately that the Navy took another path and continued then to try to conform to about then 3000 pages of specifications with which often contradict each other."

This is him seemingly describing the process from conceptual design to detailed design. I don't understand what the Navy did that was atypical? 3000 pages of fine print is what is required in the detailed design phase. He also provides no examples for contradictory requirements. He then claims this led to the design being 1000 tons overweight. The problems is this is what is needed to make the design work. You can't present your conceptual design as the final product, it needs serious changes along the way and this should be accounted for.

"They're taking the US design standards, really from a destroyer not from a frigate, because they hadn't done a frigate for a long time."

This is, in my opinion, most indicative of the inherent problems with the FMM mentality going into the detailed design phase. FFG(X) was, from the very beginning, to be built to standards for large surface combatants (we see this in the requirement to meet level II survivability standards). That's the design standard for ships in the CSG, this was an initial requirement that should've been accounted for. This isn't exactly an impossible thing to meet, after all F100 (from which BIW derived their design) was already built to this standard and aiui Perry was built to the same standard.
It seems that FMM thought they were designing a ship to level I survivability standards (like LCS) whereas FFG(X) (and Burke and even Perry aiui) are level II survivability standard designs. Why they thought this I cannot say, perhaps they expected a waiver?
This further reinforces my understanding that the majority of the FMM team only had experience working on LCS and not large surface combatants and that they vastly underestimated, or failed to recognize, just how much change was required to the base FREMM hull.

This is not a NAVSEA problem, this is FMM failing to meet what they were contracted to do. NAVSEA failed to identify that FMM couldn't meet the requirement and should be criticized as such but should not be held responsible for maintaining the standards they set.

"The individual tech warrant holders were were allowed to run rampant and basically perfect each of their areas of the ship, whether it was an auxiliary system or propulsion system or electrical system. And they insisted that their specifications were the requirements, and the requirements were the requirements .So at first some of these would not appear as changes to people because how NAVSEA O-5 would have characterized those are: 'these are changes that are necessary to conform to the specification, the 3000 pages specification, so therefore they're not a change'."

Actually read this for a sec, this is damning. What he's complaining about is just meeting the standards. The TWHs are doing their job and making sure FMM is following the law. If they say they aren't up to spec that means that FMM failed to meet what was laid out by NAVSEA, not that NAVSEA was asking too much. He then EXPECTS THE NAVY TO LOWER THE STANDARDS TO THEIR WHIMS. That is not how any well run program works, indeed if it were then the contractors should set their own requirements and cut out the middleman. The role of the TWH is in large part to hold the contractors to account and that's what they did. The alternative is that contractors do not meet design requirements.

Take totally the opposite viewpoint as Navy selected a Italian ASW FREMM frigate specifically so as speed build of USN frigates in water as fast as possible and to accept any compromises required in standards. After Contract award NAVSEA would not accept any compromises to their way of thinking and doomed it to failure as they insisted it met US standards and compatibility dropped from 85% to less than 15% plus, near 1,000t overweight and 3 years plus late in delivery .

If USN had wanted a USN frigate to built to NAVSEA standards they should designed it in the States from get go to USN standards otherwise what was the point of going down the route of a foreign frigate design?

We see same with the RAN who picked the RN Type 26 and then modified it to their specific requirements with bigger hull to support Australian Navy CMA radars and CMS in the fleet etc, costs ballooned, so they cut the buy from 9 to 6 and have ordered 11 of the 2nd tier Japanese Mogami Mk II off the shelf, Australian Admirals have accepted the compromise of totally Japanese systems with net zero changes with no compatibility to current fleet so as to enable them to control the costs and get numbers/speed up frigates in water.

 

[Jimmo952]

It's implausible to think FMM, Gibbs&Cox and the Navy didn't realize the Franco-Italian FREMM was built to very different standards than a US warship.

That was probably true down to the shower-curtain rings.

The initial estimate was FREMM would need to change 15%.

The last estimate was only 15% FREMM remained and the ship was not completely designed yet.

If the original intent was to use a foriegn design to get a ship in the water quickly and cost effectively, the program was run poorly because those objectives were not met. Not even close.

Instead those objectives was sacrificed on the alter of bureaucracy.

The bureaucracy and process failed to produce the desired result.

 

[zen]

No, bureaucracy succeeded.

It employed bureaucrats, who did a lot of abstract things for a great deal of money. Much emails, files, standards and bureaucratic processes was done successfully.
Many bureaucrats were paid a good wage to achieve this.

This literally is the ultimate objective for a Managerial State. Operations in abstract sucking finances dry before anything in the real can be achieved.
Because reality is irrelevant.
The spreadsheet said so.

 

[Jimmo952]

No, bureaucracy succeeded.

It employed bureaucrats, who did a lot of abstract things for a great deal of money. Much emails, files, standards and bureaucratic processes was done successfully.
Many bureaucrats were paid a good wage to achieve this.

This literally is the ultimate objective for a Managerial State. Operations in abstract sucking finances dry before anything in the real can be achieved.
Because reality is irrelevant.
The spreadsheet said so.

Spot on. I suspect most of the bureaucrats involved feel they did a good job because they filled out their spreadsheet on time.

 

[Rule of cool]

No, bureaucracy succeeded.

It employed bureaucrats, who did a lot of abstract things for a great deal of money. Much emails, files, standards and bureaucratic processes was done successfully.
Many bureaucrats were paid a good wage to achieve this.

This literally is the ultimate objective for a Managerial State. Operations in abstract sucking finances dry before anything in the real can be achieved.
Because reality is irrelevant.
The spreadsheet said so.

This is true, the requirement to meet standards such as the height of a step outweighed the requirement to provide a fighting ship to the Navy.

That said, if for whatever reason something bad happened that might be traced to the height of a step or whatever other tiny regulatory standard that might have been overlooked in the interest of getting the ship to the Navy the person who ok'd that would be pursued to the point of losing their livelihood and ultimately home. All the protests that said $#!t-kicker was doing their job of getting the ship to the Navy wouldn't be accepted, and the great and powerful people would throw them under the bus so fast it would set a world record.

The bureaucratic/Managerial State starts at the very top with gutless managers all to ready to scapegoat subordinates.

If USN had wanted a USN frigate to built to NAVSEA standards they should designed it in the States from get go to USN standards......

Yep, which is why I'm a bit more optimistic about the Legend class FF(X). At the very least all the tiny specs will be US specs.

 

[whatismoo]

This is true, the requirement to meet standards such as the height of a step outweighed the requirement to provide a fighting ship to the Navy.

Hatch and passageway dimensions exist because you have to get things through them. If the Navy's equipment is sized around a certain hatch width or (gasp) angle of ladder, and the ship suddenly uses different dimensions and you can't get portable firefighting pumps / hoses through, or shoring for damage control, or casualties on a stretcher, or even just move electronics equipment for maintenance/refits that's a pretty major fuck up.

But no, it's the bureaucrats' fault for enforcing the regulations everyone already agreed to meet. This kind of shit is why I think a clean sheet from the start was always the best choice.

 

[Rule of cool]

Hatch and passageway dimensions exist because you have to get things through them. If the Navy's equipment is sized around a certain hatch width or (gasp) angle of ladder, and the ship suddenly uses different dimensions and you can't get portable firefighting pumps / hoses through, or shoring for damage control, or casualties on a stretcher, or even just move electronics equipment for maintenance/refits that's a pretty major fuck up.

But no, it's the bureaucrats' fault for enforcing the regulations everyone already agreed to meet. This kind of shit is why I think a clean sheet from the start was always the best choice.

Hatch sizes and ladder angles aren't handed down on stone tablets from on high. They're committee compromise decisions based around conflicting requirements such as getting fire pumps through hatches and how US sailors might be taller than European or Japanese sailors etc etc etc. That European standards are different to the US doesn't mean they're wrong, just that they're different, so if buying from Europe is the answer then it needs to be the whole answer and the USN needs to buy compatible equipment rather than redesign the ship around the smallest details.

I agree that the US should be able to design it's own warships, using it's own specs and standards. I think the problem is design and project discipline rather than a lack of talent, if the US said they wanted X, Y & Z weapons systems, certain performance parameters and a growth margin I think it could be designed and built readily enough. But scope creep and a lack of discipline is a major problem.

 

[Yellow Palace]

That European standards are different to the US doesn't mean they're wrong, just that they're different, so if buying from Europe is the answer then it needs to be the whole answer and the USN needs to buy compatible equipment rather than redesign the ship around the smallest details.

This is a key point. The standards are as much part of the design as the specification. Anyone – at whatever organisation – who thought that building an Italian (or Japanese, or Dutch, or any other serious country) design to USN standards would be 'off the shelf' was deluding themselves.

If the Italian Navy were to try to build an existing USN design, but adapted to meet Italian standards, it would also probably be a procurement fiasco. We'd be hearing about how USN accommodation standards are totally unacceptable and how the Italian Navy would be unable to recruit and retain sailors unless the entire berthing space was totally redesigned.

Even with broadly equivalent standards this kind of thing crops up. I worked with one piece of equipment fitted to three closely related classes of ship for three countries. It was supposed to be identical for all three classes. That meant it needed to meet all three countries sets of standards – and that was a real pain to demonstrate. One of the three was willing to accept another's standards as equivalent. The third wasn't, and required a full set of evidence to be produced.

I don't know the ins and outs of OPNAV 9070, as I've not worked to that standard set. I've used USN standards once – and it was an old enough standard that it may have predated NAVSEA – for a particular area where there wasn't an applicable national standard. My experience was that they were incredibly prescriptive and inflexible. Which is fine, as far as it goes, for a clean sheet design. But adapting an existing design to that kind of standard basically requires total redesign, as there's no scope for 'equivalent standard'.

It's entirely possible that the level of work associated with that redesign was grossly underestimated. Alternatively, it's entirely possible that acceptance of an equivalent standard didn't prove feasible. Which could be a Fincantieri issue, and could be a NAVSEA issue. There can be a big divide on the customer side between the standards owner and the specifications owner, and when that happens the designer and yard don't really have any option except to try and ride it out, and to document the change orders in hopes of pinning the overspend and delays on someone else.

 

[DWG]

Yep, which is why I'm a bit more optimistic about the Legend class FF(X). At the very least all the tiny specs will be US specs.

The problem is a ship design isn't just built to a set of standards, it's built to a set of standards and a set of operational requirements, and the operational requirements result from a process of operational analyses. A ship can meet every standard required of it, and be operationally useless because it didn't meet requirements, or the requirements were wrong. My worry is that FF(X) is, like LCS before it, headed for another analytical virgin birth (to borrow Ronald O'Rourke's incisive phrase).

 

[whatismoo]

Hatch sizes and ladder angles aren't handed down on stone tablets from on high. They're committee compromise decisions based around conflicting requirements such as getting fire pumps through hatches and how US sailors might be taller than European or Japanese sailors etc etc etc. That European standards are different to the US doesn't mean they're wrong, just that they're different, so if buying from Europe is the answer then it needs to be the whole answer and the USN needs to buy compatible equipment rather than redesign the ship around the smallest details.

The idea that the USN would procure an entire new set of equipment supply chain is insane. The core issue is that the USN left the idea of a clean sheet design for FFG(X) on the table theorizing that it would be cheaper and faster to modify an existing design. It wasn't as cheap or fast as they thought and produced a deeply compromised design.