Thursday, January 13, 2022

Fletcher Program Lessons

The Fletcher class destroyers were numerous and highly successful.  We’ve noted various ship design elements that contributed to their success, such as the prevalence of their armor and density of their firepower.  Beyond that, however, there are additional, more general, lessons to be derived from their production and it’s those that we’ll look at today.

 

There is no better introduction to these lessons than the opening statement from the General Board about the Fletcher destroyer program,

 

The Board asked all concerned to think in terms of keeping displacement, and thus size, to ‘the practicable minimum in order that they may present minimum targets and that ratio of cost to number may be as great as possible.’ [1, p.80]

 

Right there … the very first statement from the Board sets a design philosophy that is the very antithesis of today’s programs.  The Board recognized that when prosecuting a war, numbers of ships were of critical importance and the way to achieve that was to keep size to the practical minimum. 

 

Consider the size of the Fletcher versus our current ‘small’ warship, the Constellation frigate:

 

 

 

Fletcher

Constellation

Lenth, ft

376

496

Displacement, ton full load

2500

7300

 

 

We instantly see that the Constellation is 32% longer and 192% heavier for a ship, a frigate, that is supposedly smaller than a destroyer!  We built 175 Fletchers and are planning to build 20 Constellations.  That discrepancy in production numbers totally encapsulates the General Board’s concern about cost and numbers and we are violating the Board’s wisdom every time we begin a new shipbuilding program.  As a result, we are witnessing a non-stop decline in the number of ships in the fleet.

 

One could not ask for a more graphic example of the General Board’s concern.

 

If you’re going to fight a war, you need numbers.  The General Board knew this.  We’ve forgotten this most basic of requirements.

 

Now let’s look at other lessons offered by the Fletcher program.

 

 

Shipyards – Consider the following list of companies that built Fletchers during the war:


Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Kearny, New Jersey
Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine
Boston Navy Yard
Charleston Navy Yard
Consolidated Steel Corporation, Orange, Texas
Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, Chickasaw, Alabama
Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Staten Island, New York
Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, San Francisco, California
Bethlehem Steel Company, San Pedro, California, Terminal Island
Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, Seattle, Washington
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard

 

The lesson is blindingly obvious.  We don’t have enough shipyards.  During war, shipyards will not only have to provide new construction but will be overwhelmed with battle damage repair efforts.  We don’t have enough shipyards to do either task, let alone both simultaneously.

 

Destroyers Under Construction At Tacoma Yard


Standardized Design – The reason why we could have eleven shipyards all build Fletchers was because we had a standardized design.  With that, it was just a matter of distributing construction drawings to the yards.  Today, we keep changing the basic designs, non-stop, in an effort to insert a constant stream of new technology.  There’s nothing wrong with periodically inserting new technology but not on a continuous basis.  Save up changes and then occasionally do a technology insert.  Honestly, I doubt there’s even a reason to do a technology insert.  A much better approach is to occasionally design a new ship that can incorporate the backlog of new technologies.

 

 

Short Production Run – The reason we didn’t need radical new technology inserts during the Fletcher production run is that the run was short.  The entire production run lasted only two years!  You just can’t get too out of date in just two years.  Contrast that with the Burke production run which began in 1988, has lasted 34 years, and shows no sign of stopping!  The Navy trumpets that fact proudly when, in reality, it’s an embarrassment and indictment of our entire naval design and production system.

 

At the end of the Fletcher production run, we began the Sumner/Gearing programs which incorporated the lessons of the war.  The Fletcher’s short production run gave us the flexibility to design new destroyers that better met our needs.  Contrast that with the latest Burkes.  Because we’re unwilling to terminate the obsolete Burke design, we’re being forced to settle for sub-optimal radar outfits and performance in the new Flt III Burkes.  The WWII ship designers dealt with sub-optimal situations by designing a new class of ship.  Today, we accept and embrace sub-optimal because we’re too frightened (and incompetent!) to start a new class with a new design.  Even the concept art that has been floated showing the next generation destroyer shows what is, essentially, a Burke with a few tweaks.

 

 

Cost – We are far too focused on construction costs, today, and with good reason.  Our construction costs have ballooned because we’ve ignored all the lessons of wise and proper ship design.  This has led to runaway costs which then become the primary driver of ship design.  We should be designing to combat-requirements but, instead, we’re designing to business cases, cost constraints, and fear-induced conservatism.

 

WWII Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Harold Start, had this to say about the Fletcher ship costs,

 

He did not think individual ship costs were critical: ‘the best possible vessel should be designed without consideration of this relationship.’ [1, p.80]

 

 

Combat Performance – The Fletcher achieved armor, speed, firepower, and range all in a single design.  Today, we seem to believe that none of those are achievable individually, let alone as a group in a single design.  At best, we treat those criteria as a ‘pick one’ type of design limitation.  We’ve forgotten what we once routinely accomplished in ship design.  If we wanted, we could design a destroyer with 10,000 nm range, 35+ kt speed, multiple inches of armor, and more firepower than anything we have today and all in a Fletcher size ship.  We’ve just forgotten how.

 

 

 

Summary

 

The General Board of WWII knew exactly what they were doing when it came to warship design.  They didn’t hide this knowledge; it’s readily available for our enlightenment if only we’ll accept it and avail ourselves of it .. but, we steadfastly refuse.

 

Arguably, the most important of the various lessons is that of short production runs.  From that flows all manner of good program characteristics.  A two year production run does not allow for any significant obsolescence and, therefore, does not require that we build in a single iota of ‘future proofing’ or modular updating which are all the rage today.  Short production runs encourage (nay, demand!) continuous new classes of ships that can then incorporate technological upgrades – there’s your future-proofing!  With no need to overbuild for future considerations, costs and size are kept to a minimum.

 

We need to return to the wisdom of the General Board, acknowledge the lessons they offer, and put them into practice.  A 40 some year run of Burkes is an abomination and an acknowledgement that we don’t know our ship designs from a hole in the ground and that we have no clue how to run a successful ship program.

 

 

 

_________________________________________

 

[1]Reilly, Jr., John C., United States Navy Destroyers of World War II, Blandford Press, Dorset, UK, 1983, ISBN 0 7137 1026 8

 

45 comments:

  1. The Fletcher class could better deal with the UAV and anti-ship threat of today. With six 40mm and seven 20mm autocannons it could fire lots of lead quickly.

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    1. With UAVs, MAYBE- and only if they fly low and slow. All those guns are USELESS if they can't hit their targets, and they can't hit their targets if the latter can't be detected and then tracked.

      You neglected to mention updating the Fletcher class with modern radar, infrared and other sensors, and long-range SAMs to intercept incoming antiship missiles. Installing modern sensors will likely make the ship's displacement balloon, but if it must be done, it must be done.

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    2. "With UAVs, MAYBE- and only if they fly low and slow."

      That's what modern, tactical drones are - low and slow. There are no supersonic tactical UAVs. The vast majority are not much more than commercially available adaptations.

      "can't hit their targets if the latter can't be detected and then tracked."

      Current UAVs have to get very close to their target to do anything. They're easy to spot with the Mk1 eyeball. It doesn't require any sophisticated sensor set to see a simple UAV.

      Yes, a Fletcher could easily deal with a tactical UAV.

      "You neglected to mention updating the Fletcher class with modern"

      No one but you suggested updating an actual Fletcher. That would be silly and I trust you're not silly. Now, a modern conceptual Fletcher would be very useful but that's another topic.

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    3. "That's what modern, tactical drones are - low and slow. There are no supersonic tactical UAVs."

      "Current UAVs have to get very close to their target to do anything. They're easy to spot with the Mk1 eyeball."

      I doubt our adversaries are limiting themselves to low and slow tactical UAVs. What about Iran's reverse-engineered RQ-170 stealth UAVs, or China's WZ-7 counterpart to our own RQ-4 Global Hawk?

      "No one but you suggested updating an actual Fletcher."

      I thought that was what G2mil was proposing when he wrote, "The Fletcher class could better deal with the UAV and anti-ship threat of today."

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    4. "China's WZ-7 counterpart to our own RQ-4 Global Hawk?"

      Those are not tactical UAVs. Those are strategic surveillance assets. The concern for individual ships are the small, low, slow UAVs. As G2mil aptly noted, a Fletcher would make short work of tactical drones - an astute observation about the lack of effective modern naval weaponry.

      While this was not the point of the post, a Fletcher would not be out of place in today's world and navy. It could serve many useful purposes and it's unique weapon set and armor could come in very handy in dealing with various enemies in various scenarios … if we had the fortitude to use them.

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    5. "No one but you suggested updating an actual Fletcher. That would be silly and I trust you're not silly. Now, a modern conceptual Fletcher would be very useful but that's another topic."

      Taking a 80yr ship and upgrading it would be silly, but...

      If we were to take the basic design of a Fletcher, and use modern technologies with that template and do new production, what would that look like and would it be viable?

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    6. "If we were to take the basic design of a Fletcher, and use modern technologies with that template and do new production, what would that look like and would it be viable?"

      That's what a 'modern conceptual Fletcher' would be, as I stated. I've done a post on an exact Fletcher with modern weapons in place of what it had and that would be awesome. Now what do you think a truly modern conceptual Fletcher would be? Go ahead and answer your own question! Hint: it would look and spec like nothing afloat today!

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    7. "Current UAVs have to get very close to their target to do anything. They're easy to spot with the Mk1 eyeball. It doesn't require any sophisticated sensor set to see a simple UAV."

      Current UAV can also attack at night and fire missiles miles away before they can be engaged by a ship's guns. They could also attack at dawn or dusk using the Sun to mask their approach.

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    8. "They could also attack at dawn or dusk using the Sun to mask their approach."

      I doubt this will be easy for a UCAV or UAV pilot, as their field of view is limited, limiting their ability to tell where the sun is relative to their vehicle and the enemy ship's positions. But attacking at night, and using long-range missiles, should be easily done.

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    9. "Current UAV can also attack at night and fire missiles miles away"

      You do know that this thread was premised on a simple and general statement about the density and usefulness of a Fletcher's weapons, right? So I trust you're not just being pedantic and obtuse, right?

      You also know that even WWII Fletchers had radar as well as optical sensors, right?

      You know that the 5"/38 had range out to around 10 miles, right?

      You understand that a small UAV has very limited sensor capability and would be hard pressed to find a ship without itself being in the ship's sensor and weapon range, right?

      You do understand that the type of small tactical UAV we're discussing - the kind routinely used by Iran, for example - can't actually carry long range missiles, right?

      You understand what a waste of time this is, right?

      Come on, offer some useful and productive comments.

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    10. "The Fletcher class could better deal with the UAV and anti-ship threat of today."

      A great point. The RN had a need to escort friendly shipping against the threat of Iranian boat or UAV attack recently, which means the USN might well have a similar need in the near future. And I wonder how tested Phalanx is when used around friendly cargo ships. It is fascinating to consider that a Fletcher-class with WW2 era-equipment might actually be better for that role than a modern frigate, although of course a modern version of the Fletcher would be preferable. Or we could go wild and use a Gearing-class!

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  2. "Contrast that with the Burke production run which began in 1988, has lasted 34 years, and shows no sign of stopping!"

    Considering what we've done for the surface Navy since the Burkes--the LCSs and the Zumwalts--maybe 34 years of building Burkes is not the worst thing in the world.

    Not disagreeing with your point, ComNavOps, just noting that it's a mistake occurring inside a massive disaster.

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    1. "maybe 34 years of building Burkes is not the worst thing in the world."

      So you're suggesting the Navy's motto should be, not the worst in the world?

      I guess I aim just a bit higher than not the worst in the world.

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  3. And if you looked at pre WW1 designs you find ships classified as cruisers in the Royal Navy 100 feet shorter than a Fletcher class with the same displacement. (can't really use the USN as cruisers were ignored due to budget limitations)

    Ships have always gotten bigger from destroyers to battleships.

    You wouldn't have wanted to build repeats of the South Carolina class instead of Iowa's!


    The Fletcher received the huge production run it did because war was inevitable and even if it didn't happen they could lend lease Fletcher's to Britain, commonwealth navies and maybe Russia etc.

    Before WW2 started in Europe the US built 70 or so destroyers across 8 classes averaging around 10 ships per class (4 Gridley to 18 Mahan) with numbers increasing with the Benson class as treaties ended and the fighting started.


    Ship size isn't even the real issue as you have said it's time to design, time to build and when they finally do they are vastly under armed and armoured.

    So apart from sacking all those at the top and telling those under them to look at how ships were built for WW2 for new ship designs while also using some of the infrastructure budget to get more shipyards built what can anyone do?

    Actually has anyone said anything about building new and modernising existing shipyards as a way to use the infrastructure budget and if not why not? are the US Admirals asleep at the wheel again?

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    1. " what can anyone do?"

      This entire blog has been a treatise on what we can do!

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    2. "Ships have always gotten bigger from destroyers to battleships."

      And, correspondingly, our fleet has gotten steadily smaller. The two are inextricably linked. The constant trend towards bigger ships FOR WHAT SHOULD BE THE NUMEROUS, WORKADAY SHIPS OF THE FLEET guarantees small fleet sizes. Numbers matter just as much today as ever and yet we're willingly and knowingly embarked on a path of larger ships and shrinking fleets. Eventually, our entire fleet will be a single gargantuan ship. A fleet of one.

      The Constellation frigate is bigger than the Perry frigate and we went from 50 some Perrys to 20 Constellations. The link between size and reduced numbers is quite clear and quite detrimental.

      We must reverse this trend.

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  4. Ok then, let's look at a modernized Fletcher design and see if we can design in modern equipment and capabilities into the same 376 ft by 2500 ton hull, more or less.

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  5. "
    Arguably, the most important of the various lessons is that of short production runs. From that flows all manner of good program characteristics. A two year production run does not allow for any significant obsolescence and, therefore, does not require that we build in a single iota of ‘future proofing’ or modular updating which are all the rage today. Short production runs encourage (nay, demand!) continuous new classes of ships that can then incorporate technological upgrades – there’s your future-proofing! With no need to overbuild for future considerations, costs and size are kept to a minimum."

    This seems, to at least some extent, to be the philosophy that the Japanese Navy (excuse me, Maritime Self-Defense Force) has been following. They have built successive classes of destroyers, each presumably an improvement on its predecessor in some way or ways, as follows:

    Asagiri (1986-89) 8 ships
    Kongo (1990-1998) 4 ships
    Murasame (1993-2000) 9 ships
    Takanami (2000-2004) 5 ships
    Atago (2004-2008) 4 ships
    Akizuki (2009-2012) 4 ships
    Asahi (2015-2019) 2 ships
    Maya (2017-2021) 2 ships

    I am not sure that a 2-ship production run would ever make sense for the USN, given its greater size, but building them in blocks of 5-10 would seem to have some usefulness.

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    1. "I am not sure that a 2-ship production run would ever make sense for the USN"

      Why not? We used to do this routinely. Remember this post: "USS Albacore and Submarine Development"

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    2. Albacore was always intended to be a development platform. I am not sure about one-offs for combat ships. Although I must concede that we would have been better off making the Ford a one-off test bed that flunked and therefore was not followed on immediately by three more.

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    3. You made the statement so I repeat, why not?

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    4. Your example of Albacore was never intended to be anything but a one-off test platform. When you're trying to build a combat fleet, you need numbers. A 2-ship production run would probably require so much R&D cost as to be totally non-sensical financially or economically. The only justification I could see for stopping a run at 2 would be findings that the ship is useless--like the Fords, or LCSs, or Zumwalts, but that's another issue.

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    5. "Your example of Albacore "

      Did you read that post? The example was not the Albacore, it was the SSN development process that graphically demonstrated how to use very small production runs to achieve success.

      "A 2-ship production run would probably require so much R&D cost as to be totally non-sensical financially or economically."

      No one is suggesting an endless series of 2-ship runs but there is no reason why very short runs (one or two ships) wouldn't be beneficial when trying out new concepts. The entire SSN development program was a series of very short runs and that worked out brilliantly.

      There is no reason why a 2-ship run would be prohibitively expensive. Assuming we aren't trying to create a non-existent ship - like the LCS or Zumwalt - , short runs build on existing ships and technologies and should not require ANY development cost.

      Consider the WWII examples. There were no specific ship R&D costs. There were development costs for various pieces of equipment such as radars or guns but those items were then applied to many ships across the fleet and the cost was spread across the fleet. New classes of ship were built from the foundation of previous ones. Maybe armor was added or a new AA gun was installed or the weapons were arranged differently but none of that resulted in prohibitive costs.

      Why do you think (correctly!) that the R&D costs for a new ship, today, are prohibitive? It's because we insist on trying to include non-existent technology in the production. The Constellation has no new technology and the basic ship already exists. It's just an exercise in repackaging. There should be NO R&D costs, just some architectural design costs.

      We've lived with a broken ship design and acquisition system for so long that we think it's normal. It's not!

      By the way, your mini list of failed ships provides more than adequate justification for one or two ship runs. In fact, one or two ship runs should be the norm and then when a ship is found to be a success, the run can be repeated with higher numbers. You have it backwards. One or two ships should not be the reason to stop a run. Stopping should be the default and only on proven success should the run be extended!

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    6. Consider if one or two ship production runs were the default and could only be extended on proven success. We'd only have two LCS, two Zumwalt, two Fords, two AFSB, and so on. The fleet would be much better off. Of course, we'd probably just keep on producing short run failures but, sooner or later, we'd accidentally produce a good ship and could then extend it.

      Of course, there's always the problem that the Navy believes all those ships ARE successes so ...

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    7. Two of class,Bronstein class, Bronstein and Mc.Cloy. direct quote from Ships an Aircraft of the US Fleet, 9 th edition 1973, Naval Institute Press. (Pioneer class for a new breed of DE's, these ships influenced design of Knox/Brooke/Garcia classes.

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    8. "A 2-ship production run would probably require so much R&D cost as to be totally non-sensical financially or economically."

      It makes more sense than ordering dozens of "all new, all different" ships with "all new, all different" systems BEFORE building prototypes and then testing the hell out of them, to ensure they'll work. Hell, the Chinese Navy ordered Type 052 class destroyers in two-ship blocks, eack block incorporating new systems to test in service, until they had a winner in the Type 052D. Where are the US and Chinese Navies now? We're saddled with a bunch of useless LCSs- worse, tho opportunity costs of getting those useless ships have deprived us of God knows how many useful Arleigh Burke class destroyers- while China has dozens of useful Type 052D class destroyers to use against its enemies.

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    9. "Consider if one or two ship production runs were the default and could only be extended on proven success. We'd only have two LCS, two Zumwalt, two Fords, two AFSB, and so on."

      If the USN ordered the Gerald R. Ford class carriers the way China ordered its Type 052 class destroyers, the first in class would've been in service for at least five years- with fewer experimental systems installed, there would be far fewer things that could go wrong, allowing the crew to focus their attention on troubleshooting the experimental systems installed. We would've saved time, money, and other resources we could then use on anything else, e.g., recruitment and retention programs so the USN could man the ships it needs, instead of wasting more time, money, and other resources on unmanned vessels- with PREMATURE technology that'll likely require decades of troubleshooting before it can be useful, even as a target- because it didn't have enough people in uniform.

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    10. " In fact, one or two ship runs should be the norm and then when a ship is found to be a success, the run can be repeated with higher numbers."

      Isn't that what prototyping is?

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    11. "Isn't that what prototyping is?"

      You got it!

      Delete
  6. I'm a big fan of buying ships by flight with plannned evolutionary change each time. Virginia seems to follow this model. Burke less so as they have invented by necessity. First from Gulf War feedback, then from CGX cancellation and the short Zumwalt run. We seem to neglect exercising the engineering muscle with the surface fleet. With Subs, it seems Electric Boat gets called in as the expert for others who have had their skills atrophy, Spain/UK.

    As for small and many. Korea has different goals than I think our small combatant would have, but their frigate evolution has produced some solid stuff. I could see borrwing their flight II/III frigates, possibly with a little less AAW focus and more ASW. I really don't know what we are really doing with our FFG. It clearly looks more like an ASW ASuW ship than ASW.

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  7. I just would like to know how you manage to do enough quieting of the platform for ASW with something as small as a Fletcher. As far as I know quieting is basically a question of mass or decouplings and you need space or materials to do this. There are active systems for prop aircraft (ATR42, Q400 maybe) and cars (the new 2022 Range Rover being an example) but I don't know of any example in shipbuilding. The nearest ASW platform in size are the British type 23 which is 436ft and getting old and the new French FDI (400ft) who is possibly okay but with some flaws (no active ECM gear on the French version).

    D614-D623

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    1. "how you manage to do enough quieting of the platform for ASW with something as small as a Fletcher"

      I'm not aware of any size limitation for quieting. It's just a matter of engineering. Things like Prairie/Masker have no size limitation that I'm aware of. Acoustic isolation (rafting) has no size limitation that I'm aware of. And so on.

      There are many small vessels that are 'quieted', like the Perry class FFG, the Indian Kamorta class corvette, and every SSK.

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    2. Just a general guess ANON D614 but if you keep it as a ASM ship with quieting and not load it up with AEGIS and associated systems, just 32 cell and regular gas turbines,etc I would bet you could keep the weight down to what we had with OHP.

      The problem is USN just can't do it, they need AEGIS everywhere and all the other systems and voila, you get a 8000 tonnes frigate!

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  8. Think an example of CNO design philosophy showing what might be possible combat performance wise in firepower is the Israeli Sa'ar 6 class, 295' / 1,900t, with 16 Gabriel AShM, 1x76mm and 2x25 mm guns,32 Barak-8 AA missiles (three variants, MRAD 35 km/ LRAD 70 km/ ER 150 km), 40 Tamir short range AA missiles (C-Dome navy variant of Iron Dome) and two triple LWT torpedo launchers.

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  9. "No one is suggesting an endless series of 2-ship runs but there is no reason why very short runs (one or two ships) wouldn't be beneficial when trying out new concepts.”

    I am absolutely onboard with that approach, and never intended to state or imply anything otherwise. My only point was that 2-ship runs might make for a navy the size of the JMSDF, but for the USN, the R&D and supply chain costs would eat you alive.

    Build 1 or 2 to test. If they work, expand to 20 or 40 or 60 or 80, depending on needs. Maybe better, build a flight of 10 or so at a time, incorporating improvements as we go. If they don't work, stop at 1 or 2 and go another direction. That would have saved a bunch of money on the Fords, LCSs, and Zumwalts. Don’t ever build the 3rd of any ship type until you have proved the concept with 2.

    I like copying designs from other navies, because 1) our R&D costs are reduced by going with existing designs, and 2) by absorbing some of allies' R&D costs over longer production runs, we potentially free them to build more ships or to get over the FBNW (for but not with) hurdle. Another problem is that we have this huge military/industrial design complex that eats money and produces very little in the way of useful ships. A return to the old BuShips model where the Navy took more control of the process would be useful.

    I still think the idea behind redesigning the FREMMs to be AEGIS/AMDR ships, without enough Mk41s to be viable AAW ships, is for them to become much less capable numerical replacements for the Ticos, which makes no sense. The FFG(X) is clearly not an existing design, which was supposedly the way to save money. I think the FREMM, as is, or for a few bucks more the Horizons, or the Dutch Zeven Provinciens or German Sachsens, could be a pretty useful GP frigate—conceptual successors to the WWII destroyers that were jacks of all trades and became masters of most. I’d give them more armored bulkheads internally (for damage control and to offset some high weight), and trade some (but not all) habitability spaces for more weapons/sensors, but those are things that do not require redesigns to the extent that the USN is doing with the FFG(X). Build 1 or 2 to prove concept, then build 60 at a target price of $1B each.

    We also need a pure ASW ship. The Fletchers might be too small to fit modern electronics and weaponry, so maybe start with a Knox or Perry, or best of both. I'd want 2 shafts, and also CODLOG/IEP for quiet running while actually chasing subs, but both designs probably have room for that. I prefer the two helicopters of the Perrys, and the bow sonars from the Knoxes. I’d trick them out with pretty much the same sensor/weapons array as ComNavOps has on the ASW escort in his proposed fleet. I like the RBU-ish rocket depth charge launchers, and I really like the Virginia-style passive arrays if they work (one reason for doing a test run of 1 or 2). I would make a few changes: Instead of the ASROC box, I’d have 32 Mk41cells with 12 ASROCs, 32 quad-packed ESSMs, and 12 NSMs, for self-defense against surface and air opponents. The Mk32 triple torpedo launchers permit only lightweight torpedoes and cannot really be reloaded in combat, so I would prefer the Knox layout of two sets of fixed torpedo tubes, with a submarine-type torpedo room with reloading equipment to facilitate reloads in combat. I’d make the tubes an over-under with a 12.75”/324mm on top and a 21”/533mm on bottom. With homing torpedoes, you don’t really need to train them on target to launch, and the bigger torpedoes give you a much greater range and capability than the lightweights. I would add TRS-3D/4D radar and some CIWSs—SeaRAM, Phalanx, or a mix. After proof of concept, build 80 with a target price of $500MM each.

    Build 20 real cruisers on a De Moines hull (with 8” guns and more Mk41 cells) to replace the Ticos, and keep the Burkes. A fleet of 20 cruisers, 40 AAW Burkes, 60 GP FREMMs, and 80 ASW frigates would be a pretty stout surface force.

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    1. Chip, some of your comments are still ending up in the blog spam folder. It's not a problem other than resulting in a delay getting posted. Are you posting from different platforms, maybe, causing some to go to spam and some not? I'd love to be able to correct this but I have no control over what goes where. All I can do is monitor the spam folder as often as possible and correct it after the fact.

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    2. I have no idea, and I apologize for any trouble it is causing you. I am posting from two different home computers (one Apple, one Windows), and occasionally a third (Windows) at the office, but going through Google all the time on all three, so not sure where the problem could be.

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    3. It's no trouble. It's happening to several other people, as well. I check the spam regularly so it's no big deal but I'd like to know what the common thread is so I could offer people some guidance. As you comment, see if maybe one particular platform or operating system causes the problem and let me know if you see a pattern.

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  10. How about the MEKO A-200 as an example of a smaller ship for the frigate role? USN weapons and some foreign sensors like TRS-4D radar, CAPTAS-4 towed VDS, hull sonar, five inch gun or 57mm gun, 16-32 VLS with ESSM and ASROC, NSM for antiship work, torpedo tubes, MH-60R pair of helos and some mods for the bigger hangar required, etc. Additional quieting measures on the diesels. Displace over 4000 tons. Cost below Constellation to be worthwhile producing in numbers greater than FFG.

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  11. Codag warp nixes the VDS idea. Close to the right size though. French FTI basically does what you describe as planned.

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  12. According to article I printed out, a VDS or towed array is possible, at least in diesel/propeller mode. A don't know about the waterjet but there is space on either side for things like VDS/towed array.

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    1. MFTA and Nixie, sure. You will need about 18' x 46' for a Captas-4 compact or DART.

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