The replacement for the 40-year old destroyer will also fill the role the Ticonderogas used to occupy. While the ship that's the topic here is intended to eventually grow into a proper Frigate at a later point in it's development after the initial ships are of a more conservative capability.
You’re right - DDG(X) is supposed to replace both Ticonderogas & Burkes, but recent history tells me that the DDG(X) as a single ‘large surface combatant‘
savior will be Zumwalt-sized & priced, meaning a greater-than-we-hope chance of cost-overrun, truncated production, & program failure. Even if the DDG(X) succeeds, its cost will box-out complementary designs and leave too few hulls in the water, so anything the Navy does going forward must add serious value to the fleet. No more mismanaged vanity projects. And no more warships that can’t fight because they lack the gear, the seakeeping, or the
presence (because they don’t exist).
With funds for surface warships so tight, this FF(X) feels like money thrown into a hull that won’t be able to help the Navy fight China, be it as a direct combatant or one that ‘frees-up Burkes.’ What non-USCG mission does the FF(X) do that ‘frees-up Burkes?’ Doesn’t help the CVSGs or the ARGs in
any way (semi-inexpensive unmanned decoy USVs to soak-up Chinese missiles might be $ better-spent) and unless they quiet the design, FF(X) can’t do ASW to escort ESBs or merchant convoys.
Some might say that this ship can be a FAC. Putting NSMs on a ship
as its primary purpose for existence is folly (nothing against NSMs at all, perhaps a great weapon of
opportunity). Steaming a 25-kt ship out there to take a 100-nm shot at an adversary warship is just going to call the world in on our ASuW shooter, which will be unable to outrun or shoot down the ballistic missiles, AShCMs, aircraft, drones, and even helicopters sent to sink it. Ship-to-ship shooting feels to be a rare event in a hot war after the first couple days (all manned surface ships will be all-ahead-full to get away from other ships and get under aerial protection). Aircraft (w/speed to run away after shooting), missiles/drones (suicide machinery), & submarines (stealth) are better equipped to sink ships. Streetfighter was a fun idea when there were no serious peer competitors…
Even a plan to deploy these ‘FFs’ as far-blockade ‘privateers’ scooping-up Chinese freighters & tankers in the Indian Ocean with prize crews at-the-ready at the beginning of a hot-war has holes. What does this ship do if a PLAAF patrol plane shows up with air-launched AShCMs that out-range your RAM, with no VLS/ESSM to threaten or destroy enemy aircraft? What if the PLAN deploys a submarine to counter our piracy? Even ‘Indian Ocean privateer’ is a multi-mission frigate’s purview (what Constellation was supposed to be).
Multi-mission ships (CG, DDG, FFG that can protect themselves and other ships from both air and submarine threats) are the only manned surface warships we can send inside the second island chain in a hot war. Single-mission ships can fill gaps where mission gear doesn’t fit on multi-mission ships (like MCM gear), or where the hull needs different architecture (like a minesweeper needing less steel, not more), or where the navy needs a lot of ASW sonars in water only contested by Chinese submarines (and the US Navy can’t afford the cost of hunting subs in SLOCs using solely multi-mission warships).
This FF(X) doesn’t fill any gaps adequately until they can sufficiently quieten a flight II, add a tail, and add a credible 25-nm AAW capability. And even with sacrificing it’s tremendous range, I worry that the NSC hull is just too small to fit the needed gear.
Better to overhaul NAVSEA, lay out the missions & the ships needed to fulfill them, clean-sheet design the ships, build a flight zero for each, kick the tires, adjust the design to fix the problems, and then build flight I for 20 years while redesigning flight II for the next 20. With the Zumwalt & LCS sagas, the sourcing & design effort that eventually became FFG-62, and now the FF(X) decision, we’ve frantically gotten nowhere for 20+ years.
The US Navy fought the first 2 years of WW2 with ships designed & built in the 1930s, and fought the latter 2 years of WW2 by adding ships based on designs
ready before Pearl Harbor. Today, minus the 40-year-old Burke & it’s redesigns, the US Navy has no record of surface warship design success in over 3 decades, and no (effective) designs ready to lay down if the hot war starts tonight.
The FF(X) appears to illuminate that the US Navy has no discernible, sensible, or achievable surface warship procurement plan. Maybe we should ask, does the USN even have a naval strategy?
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