Parent Design

What’s the Navy’s latest fad in shipbuilding?  Yeah … parent designs. 
 
The concept is that an existing, well established, “parent” design is used in a new shipbuilding program to avoid all the problems associated with new designs.  Being already in existence and thoroughly “wrung out”, the new shipbuilding program will have no problems since it will just use the parent design.  Sounds good.  Sounds logical.  Right?
 
The concept was the foundation of the successful disastrous FREMM/Constellation frigate program.  Of course, the Navy instantly abandoned the parent design as soon as the program became official and, in a shock to no one except the Navy, costs ballooned and schedules crashed.
 
The concept has also been applied to the Burke class although not by name.  When the Navy wanted the next generation surface combatant they didn’t even consider any option other than modifying the Burke parent design.  This eventually became the Burke Flt III despite the severe limitations the parent design imposed on the desired radar equipment and capabilities, stealth signature, weight margins, and so forth.
 
The concept is now being applied to the Constellation’s replacement, the National Security Cutter frigate (NSC-FF).  The new frigate is going to be based on the NSC parent design.  Of course, as we’ve seen, the Navy has already begun implementing fairly significant changes and the parent design is beginning to fade into the rear view mirror even as the program works to become official.
 
So, yes, the Navy has butchered the parent design concept in execution but what if they didn’t?  For the sake of discussion, let’s pretend that the Navy could flawlessly execute the parent design concept, meaning, no change orders, predictable costs, and schedules that can be met thanks to the absence of continuous change orders.  Would that produce a useful product?  Would the parent design result in an affordable, timely, combat-effective ship?
 
At first glance, how could a successful parent design approach not produce a successful, useful product?  By definition, the parent design exists and was, presumably, successful and useful so the “child” design has to be, as well, right?
 
Let’s take a look at some of the issues with a parent design approach.
 
Obsolescence – By definition, a parent design is obsolete.  Consider the timelines for the Navy’s parent design attempts.  The FREMM design dates back to somewhere around 2005 making the design 20 years old.  Would any sane ship designer really want to begin a new program with a 20 yr old design?  The Burke design dates back to the mid 1970’s, making it now a 55 yr old design.  The NSC design dates back to around 2000, making it a 25 yr old design. 
 
Do we really want to be basing our newest ship designs on 2-5 decade old designs?
 
While some characteristics and features can be updated from the parent, such as weapons, software, and sensors, others cannot, such as stealth.  For example, the Burke hull/superstructure stealth is obsolete and no longer effective but there is nothing that can be done about it.  The stealth signature is largely fixed by the hull/superstructure design.  Survivability is also largely fixed by the original design.  The FREMM, for example, was inherently unable to meet Navy survivability and damage control requirements, necessitating a major redesign resulting in the Constellation having less than 15% commonality with the parent design.  The Navy had to abandon the parent design in order to meet survivability standards.  Similarly, acoustic signatures, infrared signatures, etc. that are determined by the hull/superstructure shape, materials, and construction cannot be significantly altered or improved.  They are what they are.
 
Changed Requirements – Every ship design is determined by the operational and tactical requirements of its time and those change over time, especially over several decades.  The design, however, once established, is fixed and cannot be changed without abandoning the parent concept.  Thus, using a design that was intended to meet specific requirements that are decades old, and may no longer be valid, is unwise, to put it mildly.  The Burke, for example, was never designed for today’s electromagnetic environment and advanced stealth requirements and there is very little that can be done about it.
 
Design Limitations – Many design characteristics are inherent to the original design to a very large degree.  Things such as weight margins, stability, metacentric height, fuel capacity, structural strength, armor (or the complete absence thereof), speed, endurance, etc. are largely fixed by the original design barring a major redesign in which case it’s no longer the parent design.
 
 
Conclusion
 
The conclusion is painfully obvious.  The parent design concept has so many inherent flaws and limitations that it is simply not a valid, useful approach even if it were executed flawlessly.
 
This makes one wonder why the Navy even began attempting the parent approach?  Well, the answer is obvious.  The Navy has had so many failed, disastrous shipbuilding programs that the priority changed from a useful, lethal, modern combatant to simply getting hulls in the water without controversy and failure.  It no longer matters to the Navy whether the ship is useful.  They just desperately want a shipbuilding program to “succeed”, meaning, hulls in the water, on time and on budget … effectiveness be damned.
 
I completely understand the Navy’s mental state, at the moment.  They’re gun shy in the extreme and terrified of yet another failure.  Congress is incensed at their ineptitude and has begun inserting more and more restrictive oversight and conditions on budget allocations (as they should!) and the Navy is adamantly opposed to oversight.  The only way the Navy can get Congress off their back is to produce a “successful” program, no matter how ineffective it is.  The NSC-FF is barely one step beyond combat canoes but it serves the Navy’s purpose.
 
We should be producing beyond-Visby corvettes and, instead, we’re producing decades old NSC cutters as our “new” frigate.