Friday, April 5, 2024

Constellation Lies

How’s that Constellation frigate construction coming?  Time to check in.
 
 
Schedule
 
Here’s two statements:
 
  • In January of 2024, SecNav Del Toro reported that the Constellation might be delayed a year.[1]
  • In April of 2024, USNI News now reports that the Constellation may be delayed up to three years.[1]
 
What happened in three months to add an additional two year delay?
 
 
Design
 
Well, at least the Navy has learned from past shipbuilding mistakes related to concurrency and will never start another ship construction program again without a complete design … right?  Right????
 
Well … 
In August of 2022, when the Navy green lit Fincantieri to begin building the first frigate, Rear Adm. Casey Moton, then the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, said the detail design was just over 80 percent complete.[1]
So … the start of construction and another incomplete design.  I guess the Navy is incapable of learning a lesson.  But wait … it gets better.
 
That 80% design completion status as of Aug 2022 … 
… Naval Sea Systems Command chief Vice Adm. James Downey told reporters that the detail design for the frigate – which is based on Fincantieri Marinette Marine’s FREMM parent design that’s in service with the Italian and French navies – still isn’t complete. The goal is to finalize the detail design this year and the service and contractors are nearing 80 percent completion, Downey said.[1]
Now, two years after the design was reported to be 80% complete, the Navy is now reporting that the design is nearing 80%!!!!!  That’s right!  In two years the design has regressed from 80% to nearing 80%.  The design has actually gone backward!  Only in the Navy!
 
 
Commonality
 
Wasn’t the whole point of the ‘parent design’ to minimize changes, time, and cost by using an existing design?  Of course it was!  There must be … what would you guess … 95% commonality?  90%?  Maybe 85%, worst case?  Read this: 
While the design was based on a long-serving warship, design agent Gibbs & Cox heavily modified the FREMM design to meet NAVSEA requirements, like tougher survivability standards than those of European navies, Navy officials have told USNI News. 
At one point the Constellation design shared about 85 percent commonality with the original FREMM design, but the alterations have brought that commonality down to under 15 percent, a person familiar with the changes told USNI News.[1][emphasis added]
Less than 15% commonality?????  What was the point of the existing parent design requirement?
 
 
Conclusion
 
Let’s face it.  The Navy out and out lied about the parent design concept and used it as a transparent gambit to slip a new ship design by a skeptical Congress.
 
Now, as with any completely new ship design, we’re seeing cost increases, concurrency, and huge schedule delays. 



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29 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 5, 2024 at 5:55 PM

    That's how they slipped the F-18 E/F through. While it looks a like the A-Ds its essentially a new design. They new congress wouldn't go for a clean sheet design so they just 'upgraded' it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 5, 2024 at 6:34 PM

    In the article from USNI News there are m ore delays !
    "The program’s delay came to light as part of the 45-day shipbuilding review that Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro ordered earlier this year. In addition to the frigate delay, the Navy confirmed delays in delivering aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-80), the lead boat for the Columbia-class ballistic missile nuclear submarine, and the Virginia-class attack boats."
    "In a one-page summary of the review, the service cited lead ship problems like design maturation, supply chain issues, and difficulty finding skilled workers as factors in the program delays." ( My take: it looks like the Navy did not have the foresight that this would happen . ) Design maturation has been a problem ! Plus no CONOPS for the Constellation !

    ReplyDelete
  3. CDR ChipApril 5, 2024 at 6:53 PM

    Why not just build FREMMs? The original FREMM was basically a decent GP frigate, certainly better equipped for ASW--a critical USN shortfall--that the Constellation with no hull-mounted sonar. Of course, if you built FREMMs at Marinette, with their sonar domes they would draw too much water to go through the Welland Canal, and I don't think we have a crying need for ASW on the great lakes.

    Instead of a GP frigate, the USN is building a cheaper and less capable AEGIS platform than others currently in the fleet. I still think that somewhere in the deep recesses of the Navy, someone is trying to pass off Connies as viable numerical replacements for the Ticos. After all, they both have Aegis, don't they?

    This is just a gigantic foul-up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ComNavOpsApril 5, 2024 at 6:58 PM

      "Why not just build FREMMs?"

      Part of the answer is that, apparently, the FREMM doesn't even come close to meeting the USN's current, watered down, survivability standards. That's a pretty damning indictment of the FREMM.

      Delete
    2. ComNavOpsApril 6, 2024 at 7:14 AM

      "Of course, if you built FREMMs at Marinette, with their sonar domes they would draw too much water"

      The simple solution would have been for Fincantieri Marinette Marine to build a facility on one of the coasts or purchase/lease an abandoned shipyard (we seem to have plenty of those) on the coast.

      We didn't skimp on a hull mounted sonar because the ships were to be built inland. We skimped because the Navy, in its infinite stupidity, didn't want a hull mounted sonar.

      Delete
    3. CDR ChipApril 6, 2024 at 6:36 PM

      "Part of the answer is that, apparently, the FREMM doesn't even come close to meeting the USN's current, watered down, survivability standards. That's a pretty damning indictment of the FREMM."

      But that can be handled without a multi-year complete redesign of the ship. From boarding various foreign naval vessels over the years, I've always gotten the impression that they were not designed to as strict damage control requirements as US Navy ships. But there were always obvious places where watertight integrity and damage control capability could have been enhanced.

      You're not going to convince me that improved survivability standards were the major reason for the delays (and likely cost increases) that the Connies are having to endure, when the ship's major combat systems were so heavily changed as to completely redefine the ship's primary purpose.

      The USN changed virtually everything about the ship, and as a result went off with a half-baked plan. Classic case of ready, fire, aim.

      Delete
    4. CDR ChipApril 6, 2024 at 6:39 PM

      "We didn't skimp on a hull mounted sonar because the ships were to be built inland. We skimped because the Navy, in its infinite stupidity, didn't want a hull mounted sonar."

      Of course. But it was eliminating a hull mounted sonar--at a point in time when the USN's ASW capability is woefully inadequate--thar allowed the ships to be built inland.

      The Connies are better than the LCSs--but not better than much else.

      Delete
    5. PhilApril 7, 2024 at 11:48 AM

      I'm trying to understand the terminology. I once thought a hull-mounted sonar was installed somewhere in the hull and a bow-mounted sonar is installed in a dome at the bow. I've also seen pictures of a sonar installed in a rounded cylinder protruding from the hull, located somewhere between the bow and stern. I don't know what that was called.

      Now, it seems a hull-mounted sonar is in the hull, and the term distinguishes it from a towed-array sonar or variable-depth sonar (VDS). All bow-mounted sonars are hull-mounted sonars, but not all hull-mounted sonars are bow-mounted sonars.

      Is that right?

      Delete
  4. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 1:25 AM

    You designed a car. Every part has been done except its break. You have completed 90%+ in design. You have most parts except one supplier cannot make cooling system according to your design, actually, none of these which you have access can.

    You can boast ......... but ........

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 3:28 AM

    Apparently we can no longer design warships.
    But we face the prospect - or more accurately the likelihood - of a maritime conflict with China in the foreseeable future, so we don’t exactly have the luxury of unlimited time, and we certainly can’t rebuild a naval shipbuilding industry in the time that’s likely available to us.
    What then should we do?
    Buying a warship design off the shelf from the Italians clearly doesn’t work, owing to ‘survivability’ and other issues (genuine or not).
    Is there something else out there that would work? Japanese? Korean? British?
    Do we build more Burkes, and maybe keep the basic hull form but somehow re-engineer and update the rest of the ship? Is that even possible?
    I mean, we’ve clearly got a crisis on our hands here; what’s the best short term ‘solution’, and where to from there?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ComNavOpsApril 6, 2024 at 7:08 AM

      "Is there something else out there that would work? Japanese? Korean? British?"

      The short answer is, probably not.

      The UK has as many, or more, shipbuilding problems as we do. Germany can't build good ships. You couldn't pay me to take a French ship. I'm suspicious of Korean ships although I don't have concrete evidence of problems. The Japanese might be the best warship builders but we have no information, good or bad, to support or refute that.

      Regardless, I doubt anyone has excess naval construction capacity that could provide additional ships in any relevant time frame.

      The best approach is for us to stop designing large, complex, do-everything ships and revert to smaller, simpler, single-function ships. That would allow us to employ more yards and provide quicker builds.

      The other thing we have to do is drastically scale back our software requirements. We've seen that software has become the largest impediment to weapon acquisition.

      And, it goes without saying, we need to stop retiring perfectly good ships and subs early.

      Note: Before any foreign readers get upset, I don't want US warships either. They're poor quality, overly complex, unmaintainable, and poor value for the money.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 3:49 PM

      When you say we need to scale back software requirements are you referring to Aegis, or to the software suite that keeps the ship operating? Is this a sort of fly by wire thing? If we cut back heavily on software would that mean more ‘hands on’ sailing? Sorry if that’s a stupid question but you clearly know a lot more than I do about software.

      Delete
    3. ComNavOpsApril 6, 2024 at 5:02 PM

      "When you say we need to scale back software requirements are you referring to Aegis,"

      I'm referring to every piece of software on any and every piece of equipment. We've made our software almost non-functionally complex with no gain in actual combat performance.

      For example, our navigation systems have become so complex and unintelligible that the crews can't even successfully operate them. This led directly to at least one of the destroyer collisions. The nav system shouldn't need to do anything except implement course and speed. All the other functions are garbage-added instead of value-added.

      For example, our missiles now have to be able to take mid-course guidance from any source, maintain an enemy asset image library, choose which rivet to use as an aim point, and so on. A zillion lines of code. All a missile really needs is a target coordinate and a basic flight profile. It doesn't need to be able to match images. Who cares what you hit? Anything you hit will hurt the enemy.

      For example, the F-35 ALIS software nearly grounded the F-35 because it was totally unworkable and ground crews had to perform mechanical workarounds just to fool the software into letting the aircraft fly. We still haven't fixed ALIS.

      And so on.

      We need to cut our software requirements by 90%. NONE of the garbage-added features will ever be used in combat. They're technology for the sake of technology.

      Delete
  6. John DallmanApril 6, 2024 at 3:56 AM

    Somebody's trying to do engineering the software way. That doesn't work with hardware because the precise sizes and weights of things you've designed and started making are crucial for compatibility with the parts you haven't designed yet. And if you can't make the last-designed parts compatible, your design is broken.

    Software is usually more flexible. The amount of money being made in software misleads managers into trying to do other kinds of design the same way, almost as a cargo cult.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ComNavOpsApril 6, 2024 at 6:57 AM

      "the software way. ... Software is usually more flexible."

      I've done a LOT of software programming and I'm not sure what you mean by this. What is the 'software way'? How is it more flexible than physical construction?

      In my experience, unless you're programming with non-specific 'classes' or subroutines, the software is extremely inflexible and much of programming becomes a case of trying to program around fixed inflexibilities that have been rendered useless or limited by changing requirements (and they ALWAYS change).

      You may be on to something, here, but you need to explain it a bit more.

      Delete
  7. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 6:00 AM

    Understood with RN Type 26 a very costly software detailed designed ship and at the last minute they had to increase the beam by nearly a meter as presuming the software had not taken into account the overall weight distribution and its effect on the ships stability. It was repeated again when Type 26 won the contract for the Australian Hunter class frigate and they have had to increase the beam by an additional 0.8 meter to accommodate the additional top weight of its heavier radars, no mention was made of increase weight/displacement and beam when they originally won the contract, no doubt the redesign contributing to years delay.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 7, 2024 at 1:19 PM

      UK's type 26 is another joke. It also takes ultra long time. The first one will take more than 5 years from launch (2022) to commission (expected 2028). Just look at the two carriers UK made recently, type 26 could be worse than the Constellation program.

      Delete
  8. JjabatieApril 6, 2024 at 7:24 AM

    This is where Congressional oversight should apply. Someone should be asking them why the idea they pitched about quickly building a pre-existing design has produced a 15% pre-existing ship. Why aren't they building the Aegis FREMM design? What, there isnt one? Hmm, why do we need one?And what's the CONOP for this ship again? Why are we building a ship without a complete set of plans? We need some folks in Congress to give the Navy the "why?" treatment and start forcing some answers about things and exposing why the Navys shipbuilding has been such a clown show. And then...turn the screws down and force some change. Its not gonna happen on its own. Clearly. Navy leadership has more than used all the rope to hang themselves, its past time for someone to pull the lever!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 12:10 PM

    A little off-topic (or maybe not), an article about how important it is to have a dedicated ASW ship. The assessment of the Constellation at the end seems overly optimistic, but it's still has some good points:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/04/us-navy-royal-rn-frigate-destroyer-submarine-russia-nato/

    Quotes:

    "...about 10 years ago I was the captain of a Royal Navy Type 23 frigate working with a US carrier strike group during an exercise in the Gulf of Oman. The ‘enemy’ of the day was a Royal Navy Trafalgar class nuclear hunter-killer submarine and, as you would expect, she was a handful."

    "A frigate excels at ASW because that is the day job. It’s in the DNA of the team onboard. A destroyer ‘that does a bit of ASW’, or even an aircraft carrier with ASW helicopters embarked will not allocate the same effort or focus to it – they will be busy doing their core tasks – and ASW is not something you can half-do. For the submarines you are up against, it is their life. It needs to be yours as well if you are to stand a chance."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PhilApril 6, 2024 at 12:13 PM

      To explain the first sentence in the second quoted paragraph, the author says historically, in the Royal Navy, a frigate specialized in ASW and a destroyer specialized in AAW. But over time, the lines have blurred a little.

      Delete
  10. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 12:17 PM

    If we wanted commonality we should have started with a ship using more U.S. content like the Spanish F100. The Japanese and Koreans also come close. Some of their own domestic gear is very close to size and placement for how we would do a ship. We were on the wrong path the second we picked a rotating air search radar ship for a fixed face array. Power, cooling, and weight distribution would be shot immediately.

    My guess is we will end up with a good ship, but too few, too late, and for too much. Plus it will be to "General purpose."

    ReplyDelete
  11. G2milApril 6, 2024 at 12:48 PM

    An odd problem with a Danish frigate. AI took over. I'm shocked they don't have a manual kill switch.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/4/denmark-missile-launcher-fault-closes-busy-shipping-strait

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 1:43 PM

    How about asking China for help? Their 054B's look great and China might actually sell them to us if we want to buy them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousApril 6, 2024 at 1:45 PM

      Just so no one takes it seriously, it's a self-parody.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousApril 7, 2024 at 1:21 PM

      054B's rotational dual band AESA radar is quite interesting. Let's wait more information is released.

      Delete
  13. AnonymousApril 7, 2024 at 3:29 AM

    Doesn't help that Fincanteri's yard is also busy with the last three Freedoms and the MMSC frigates for Saudi Arabia. Total tonnage under construction at that one yard is 32 thousand tons.

    Meanwhile in Japan right now they're building 4 Mogami frigates, 20,000 tons of construction, spread out at multiple yards.

    Plus worker shortages at the yard... I'd say they've definitely bitten off more than they can chew.

    ReplyDelete
  14. John GaltApril 8, 2024 at 4:36 AM

    Reduce Adm Mortin in rank, along with the other members of the PM Team, for making false offical statements and neglegence (like the Navy did to Rep Randy Jackson for running the WH Pharmacy). Only blatant incompetence (or political motivations) can explain how 80% can be reported and 2 years later it is just being approached. BTW reduce Adm Downey also because the new PM came in and either a) didn't report the design not being at 80% or b) Downey was aware and did nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Big BillApril 8, 2024 at 6:37 PM

    Several years ago, I read the US Navy said the FREMM had to be respec'd for imperial from metric. I knew right then this was going to be a shit show.

    ReplyDelete

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