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.

 

 

 

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