Navy- LCS Lesson Learned?
Constellation Class Frigate
US Navy nixes Constellation frigate program after two ships half-built
By Tom Kington
ROME — The US Navy is cancelling its Constellation frigate program following months of cost overruns and delays but plans to keep two vessels that are already being built in Wisconsin.
“We’re reshaping how we build and field the Fleet, working with industry to deliver warfighting advantage, beginning with a strategic shift away from the Constellation-class frigate program,” Navy Secretary John C. Phelan said in a post on X.
Phelan said that four ships under contract but yet to be built by Fincantieri would now be cancelled.
“The navy and our industry partners have reached a comprehensive framework that terminates for the Navy’s convenience the last four ships of the class which have not begun construction,” he said.
“We greatly value the shipbuilders of Michigan and Wisconsin. While work continues on the first two ships those ships remain under review as we work through this strategic shift. Keeping this critical workforce employed and the yard viable for future navy shipbuilding is of foremost concern,” he added.
Italian shipyard Fincantieri won the contract to build the frigates in 2020 at its Marinette Marine yard in Wisconsin, with the US Navy eyeing an eventual order of 20 ships.
The baseline design was Fincantieri’s FREMM frigate, which is already in service with the French and Italian navies among others. The U.S. Navy originally reported “basic and functional designs” were 88% complete.
But a March report by the United States Government Accountability Office claimed the U.S. Navy proceeded to order numerous design changes, meaning that five years on, the program was only 70% complete and three years late.
“As a result of these changes, in part, the frigate now bears little resemblance to the parent design that the Navy touted as a built-in, risk reduction measure for the program in 2020,” the report stated.
Someone beat NAVSEA over the head with the pitfalls of Requirements Creep? Shades of LCS! Good first step, stop the bleeding. Now fire the entire Program Office and start over- pour encourager les autres, bay-bee.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Big Navy
Pentagon Wars are a real thing.
I went through a mid-career intel course in Dam Neck, VA years ago and hands down the most interesting and entertaining was the budget guy who regaled us with tales of blood sport that is the DoD budget wars.
I guess the wrong palms weren’t greased.
So, the Navy is finally saying “frig it”.
Oh be quiet! You knew someone was gonna say it!!!!
Given that SECNAV Phelan didn’t announce the program termination simultaneous with a couple of dozen FO retirements and NAVSEA civvy reassignments – no lessons learned. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Someone stuff these with vertical launch systems packed with the latest in surface to surface missiles and line the railings with a mix of 20mm, .50 cal., and 7.62mm machine guns and re-designate them as Cartel Control Ships. Station in racetrack orbits in the south Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
I am told we lack a reliable way to reload most VLS underway. Takes a major port with special ammo handling gear.
What the actual Frigate?
We’re going to fight China with ships that have to reload in Pearl Harbor? Drug test those idiots.
We went from reloading Polaris/Poseidon missiles missiles from a ship (albeit, more than likely, just to say we were physically able to do it at sea) during the Cold War to not able to reload VLS at sea (because we didn’t feel like it) in more recent years. That was bad. Now rectified:
https://news.usni.org/2024/10/15/navy-conducts-first-successful-tests-reloading-missiles-and-rearming-warships-at-sea
In my last year of service, I was in a classified brief about the VLS at sea rearming efforts. Seems they made it work but still very dependent on sea state conditions. It is complex and dangerous, and the possibility of damage and even losing both ships is high. The sea gives, and the sea takes away.
Former employee of Peterson Builders and Bay Shipbuilding here. We knew how to build ships, wooden and otherwise. The design was the problem in a lot of cases. We had to put soooo many change requests in it wasn’t funny. The drawings never meshed, with pipes going where pipes were supposed to go. The Equipment received had different specs than called for, etc, ad infinitem. Those change orders cost big money.
The way I see it, just replace any vessel smaller than a carrier with a bunch of cutters full of army engineers and some snipes to keep the screw turning. Equip them with enough booze and demo to make them all happy and we’ll never lose control of the seas.
The steel-hull equivalent of fire ships.
I don’t know how effective that would be, but it for damn sure sounds like a good time!
Why do I get the impression a bunch of Chiefs from the appropriate fields could have steered the design folks right.
So, the Swedes have a new modular submarine with top notch technology, but we cannot figure out a frigate. Got it.
I can hear the ghost of Eisenhower saying, “I warned you guys…”
In other naval news, the Japanese have secured a multi-billion-dollar contract w/ Australia to supply the ADF navy w/ Mogami class frigates.
Why So Many Countries Want Japan’s Mogami Class Frigates
Mogami-class frigate – Wikipedia