Constellation class FFG(X)-US Future Frigate program

[Admiral John Byng]

You are right Timmy, it now says it is an error. I expect someone put the name on the draft as a temporary stop-gap and forgot to remove it.

[Roberto]

Considering the origin, how about USS Columbus, let's initiate a new tradition of naming ships after Navigators and explorers.
Twenty in the class, the first one to reflect the original designing nation.

[navydavesof]

Only a step up from LCS. Let's call it LCSv2.

It needs to be an ASW focused platform with a good AAW capability, an excellent PDF, and and reasonable deck gun. The best thing is ASuW missiles. They are deck mounted weapons that can be stacked easily. What is needed is the F-100 hull, which is the next technological step from the Perry-class. There we need a 64 cell VLS arrangement with 2 SeaRAM and 1 CIWS with a rotating radar like TRS-4D.

[Roberto]

Only a step up from LCS. Let's call it LCSv2.

It needs to be an ASW focused platform with a good AAW capability, an excellent PDF, and and reasonable deck gun. The best thing is ASuW missiles. They are deck mounted weapons that can be stacked easily. What is needed is the F-100 hull, which is the next technological step from the Perry-class. There we need a 64 cell VLS arrangement with 2 SeaRAM and 1 CIWS with a rotating radar like TRS-4D.

What you are describing is called Destroyer. Why 64 cells only, why not 96?
Unfortunately they are buying frigates.
Remember that the Spanish navy does not own destryers per se, so they had to make do with what they had and pumped it up to the max.
What is the complement of a F-100 compared to a FREMM, twice as many? That is something else the NAVY is walking away from.

[navydavesof]

Only a step up from LCS. Let's call it LCSv2.

It needs to be an ASW focused platform with a good AAW capability, an excellent PDF, and and reasonable deck gun. The best thing is ASuW missiles. They are deck mounted weapons that can be stacked easily. What is needed is the F-100 hull, which is the next technological step from the Perry-class. There we need a 64 cell VLS arrangement with 2 SeaRAM and 1 CIWS with a rotating radar like TRS-4D.

What you are describing is called Destroyer. Why 64 cells only, why not 96?
Unfortunately they are buying frigates.

Why? It is under the capability of the Perry FFGs.

Remember that the Spanish navy does not own destryers per se, so they had to make do with what they had and pumped it up to the max.
What is the complement of a F-100 compared to a FREMM, twice as many? That is something else the NAVY is walking away from.

What? What does that have to do with anything?

[maxim]

Only a step up from LCS. Let's call it LCSv2.

That is not fair. The issue with the LCS is their weird design concept with the weakly-built raceboat hull, everything sacrificed for speed.

The FFG(X) may be are OHPv2. That would be a fairer comparison. The OHP were cheap frigates, everything sacrificed for low cost and mass production: only one screw, a single launcher for both SM-1 and Harpoon, i.e. minimalistically armed. The FFG(X) is also designed to be cheap.

But there is a difference: the OHP was not designed with any update potential in mind. In USN service, there were no significant upgrades, they even served the last decade essentially as minimal-armed patrol vessels without any missile launchers, i.e. were downgraded from FFG to P (but someone to forgot to classify them accordingly). In Australian and Turkish service, the ships were modernized, getting a 8-cell VLS plus (Turkish ships only) a better radar. Not much...

Therefore the comparison with the Spruance class would fit much better. The Spruance class had originally only a very weak armament: 2x 12.7 cm guns, 1x8 Sea Sparrow, 1x8 ASROC, 1 Seasprite helicopter. But there was a lot of space for updates, some got the 64-cell VLS (for ASROC and Tomahawk), 2x4 Harpoon, 2 Phalanx, and an enlarged hangar for two Seahawk helicopters.

The FREMM hull has a lot of reserves left for upgrades, the Italian ships are more heavily armed. There is no significant difference to the F-100 hull.

Funny is your list of additional armament, but with only a third of the radar capacity. The reduced radar capacity would lower their AAW capability - and it would be easy to add to the current design additional VLS cells but difficult to change the radar from a rotating to one with a fixed panels with more capacity.

[maxim]

Yes, I had written that...

[Admiral John Byng]

The problem with LCS is that they are a small warship designed to perform some of the duties of a frigate in a very specific environment - littoral areas.

In order to increase flexibility they were to have containerized payloads but I think that has been shelved and so they are now expected to serve as light frigates for which they lack the range and equipment to be of much use.

The FFGX should be a vastly more capable platform - if they get the right weapons systems and sensors.

[Timmy C]

The first ship of class has just been named: Constellation.

https://news.usni.org/2020/10/07/secnav ... stellation

A decent name, but provides no common theme for ships of the rest of the class.

[maxim]

There would be a common theme: the names of the early USN frigates:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... tates_Navy

[Timmy C]

It'll be tricky to get enough for the numbers that they're building without stepping on names already used on other classes!

[Roberto]

Soo, after Constellation, Constitution (not to be used as the original is still in commission), Congress, Chesapeake, President and United States, what names should we expect.
Consternation?
Coronation?
Conservation?

[Haijun watcher]

Military.com

The Navy is Naming its Next New Frigate USS Congress
3 Dec 2020
Military.com | By Gina Harkins
Another Navy ship will be named in honor of George Washington's six original frigates.
The Navy's next frigate will be named the USS Congress, Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite told lawmakers on Wednesday. Braithwaite was testifying about Navy Department readiness along with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger.

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[gms]

Like the idea of using historic frigate names.

[maxim]

Yes, these are nice names!

There are significant number of these sailing frigates - for sure, some of the names are used for other classes already. But there would be still sloops and perhaps some other historic ships from the 18/19th centuries.

[Haijun watcher]

Defense News

Citing littoral combat ship failures, Congress pushes the US Navy to get FFG(X) right
By: David B. Larter ? 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON � The U.S. Navy will have to set up a land-based testing site for the engineering plant destined for its new Constellation-class frigate program, according to a provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on President Trump�s desk.
The frigate program, lately known as FFG(X), includes a propulsion system that hasn�t been used before in the Navy, which Congressional authorizers see as a risk to be mitigated by a testing facility. The ship is being adapted from Fincantieri�s FREMM design, which was a strategy to reduce overall risk in the program by using an existing design.
�While recognizing an existing parent design can reduce design, technical, and integration risks,� an explanatory statement for the NDAA notes, �the conferees are concerned that significant risks remain in the FFG-62 program, including: cost realism; shifting to predominantly U.S. component suppliers instead of the mainly foreign suppliers used in the parent vessel design; and a complex Combined Diesel Electric and Gas Hull, Mechanical and Electrical (HM&E) drive train that has not previously been used on U.S. Navy ships.�
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[InchHigh]

Congress is using the LCS as an example of a failed design yet we continue to build them.

[Haijun watcher]

Naval News

U.S. Navy Constellation-Class Frigates To Be Powered By GE LM2500+G4 Gas Turbines
GE Marine announced a contract to provide Fincantieri Marinette Marine with a GE LM2500+G4 aeroderivative marine gas turbine to power the United States Navy's Constellation class (FFG 62) frigate. GE also will provide the gas turbine auxiliary skids (electric start, fuel forwarding and water wash systems) and the gas turbine control system.
Naval News Staff 16 Dec 2020

The new U.S. Navy Constellation class is based on Fincantieri�s proven FREMM design already in operation onboard the Italian Navy Carlos Bergamini class frigates (10-ship program). The U.S. Navy frigates will feature the same power dense GE LM2500+G4 gas turbine in a COmbined Diesel eLectric And Gas turbine (CODLAG) propulsion system.

�The FFG 62 marks the initial U.S. Navy use of the LM2500+G4 engine. To date, 37 LM2500+G4 gas turbines have been chosen for surface combatants and two for commercial marine ships, as well as more than 1,100 of these engines operating worldwide in industrial settings. The U.S. Navy will benefit from Fincantieri�s low-risk, proven ship design powered by GE�s reliable LM2500+G4 gas turbine.�

The LM2500+G4 gas turbine for the new class of frigate is certified to a U.S. Navy rating of 30.3 MW (U.S. Navy standard day). GE will ensure the gas turbine and all associated auxiliary equipment is to specification compliance and fully integrated with the propulsion plant.

The LM2500+G4 will be supplied in GE�s state-of-the-art composite gas turbine module. One of the most important design features of this new module is that it provides a safer environment and improved access for sailors. By using lightweight composites versus the steel enclosure predecessor, wall temperatures are 25oF to 50oF degrees cooler so there is less heat rejected into the engine room. GE also offers water mist fire suppression capability to the composite enclosure. The LM2500+G4 engine will be made in the U.S.A. at GE�s manufacturing facility in Evendale, Ohio.

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[Haijun watcher]

Thread title changed.

Defense News

Here�s the latest on the US Navy�s new Constellation-class frigate
By: David B. Larter ? 1 hour ago
Correction: The follow-on ships in the Constellation class will cost between $850 million and $950 million in constant-year 2018 dollars.
WASHINGTON � The U.S. Navy�s next-generation frigate, the Constellation class, is a do-or-die effort for the service and a critical test of its return to building ships around existing technologies rather than designing them around technologies in development.
In a roundtable with reporters Friday, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said the Constellation class will be the model for how the Navy designs and builds the next class of destroyer, the so-called DDG Next. And for that reason, the Navy has to get it right.
�I can�t afford for FFG(X) to be anything but coming off a world-class production line that produces a ship that we can count on,� Gilday told reporters in comments ahead of the annual Surface Navy Association symposium, using an acronym for the service�s future frigate. �That will also inform how we�re going to design and build DDG Next. Those have to be world-class efforts that deliver on time, on budget, with the right capacity, with the right capabilities that we need.�

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[Haijun watcher]

EDR Magazine

SNA 2021: Updates on FFG Constellation-class frigate programme
14/01/2021 Constellation, FFG 62, Fincantieri Marinette Marine, FMM, US Navy
By Luca Peruzzi
During the Surface Navy Association (SNA) 2021 virtual symposium, the US Navy�s programme manager for the Constellation Class Frigate (PMS 515) gave an update on the latest programme developments since the detailed design and construction (DD&C) contract was awarded on last April to Fincantieri Marinette Marine (FMM).
Speaking about the two phase acquisition approach of the programme, where the FFG 62 Conceptual Design Phase I saw the full and open competition of five competitors based on the matured industry parent design adapted to meet the FFG 62 requirements, and the follow-on Phase II, which was launched three months in advance on last April with the FFG 62 DD&C contract award to Fincantieri Marinette Marine, the PM Captain Kevin Smith explained that �the programme is today in the latter phase intended to design, construct and delivery the FFG 62 lead frigate, with options for additional nine hulls in full and open competition�. The US Navy plans to build 20 frigates with the first 10 being funded one each in fiscal year (FY) 2020-2022; two each in 2023-2024; three in 2025; and two each in 2026-2030.

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