New Swedish Frigate

ComNavOps has long considered the Swedish Visby class corvette as the gold standard of modern, total stealth warship design (not perfect ... just the best out there).  That makes the conceptual design for the next Swedish frigate, a larger vessel than the Visby, seemingly obvious:  simply upsize the Visby and add a few more weapons.  However, that seems not to be the case.  The candidates for the next Swedish frigate appear to be the existing (parent??) designs listed below:
 

• Saab/Babcock - Arrowhead 120 (variant of the Arrowhead 140)
• Naval Group (France) - FDI frigate
• Navantia (Spain) - Alfa 4000 light frigate

 
As a quick reminder, Visby is 238 ft and 840 tons.  For comparison, the Arrowhead 120 is 406 ft and 4,650 tons.
 
None of the candidates exhibit anything approaching the maximum stealth and total signature reduction the modern naval battlefield requires and all would seem to be a significant step back from the Visby in that regard.  Honestly, the parallels between this and the US Navy’s failed Constellation program which attempted to build a “new”, 20+ year old, already obsolete frigate from a parent design, are eerie.
 
Sweden is looking to acquire four frigates from one of the companies listed above.  The contract for four ships is estimated to be between $4.5B -$6.7B(USD) which would be $1.1B - $1.7B(USD) per ship and, of course, no estimate ever comes in on budget so the real cost would likely be pushing $2B or more which seems excessive for relatively simple, dated frigates.
 
I assumed Sweden would simply scale up the Visby design for frigtes/destroyers.  That would be eminently logical and, indeed, that was the original idea for the Visby Generation 2 design.
 

Initially in 2021, FMV [Swedish Defence Materiel Administration] awarded Saab Kockums a contract for the product definition phase of the Visby Generation 2 corvettes, a new class based on the existing Visby-class stealth vessels … [1]
 
However, the program was canceled in 2023 amid Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Sweden’s push toward NATO membership (finalized in 2024), leading to Saab teaming up with Babcock for a new, larger design.[1]

Somehow, in moving from the world’s stealthiest corvette to a “new” dated frigate, Sweden lost sight of what’s important for survival and combat-effectiveness on the modern naval battlefield.  Did some US admirals join the Swedish navy?
 

Arrowhead 120

I fully support the idea of a larger ship than the Visby but why go for a less capable and less survivable one?  Surely, the Visby could be scaled up from a corvette to a frigate without violating any “laws” of shipbuilding.
 
I guess it’s not just the US Navy that engages in perplexing behavior.
 
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense website, “Saab, Babcock bank on Arrowhead 120 design for Sweden’s next frigate”, Jonas Olsson, 13-Feb-2026,
https://breakingdefense.com/2026/02/saab-babcock-bank-on-arrowhead-120-design-for-swedens-next-frigate/