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Usn Frigate Program


Ol Paint

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Yeah, fair one. They really should open it up to foreign production to force US Yards to be competitive.

 

US yards aren't supposed to be competitive, they're supposed to employ union voters.

 

Its moronic. We are going to have a gap in orders for submarines at Barrow in Furness, and you are going to have a shortage of yards to build Virginia's. So, why not use the capacity?

 

 

Shortage of yards to build Virginias? You have EB and Newport News (or whatever they're calling it this week) each building one VA a year. EB will start building the Columbia class soon but still has plenty of room if needed. Remember, EB actually does most of its part of VA construction at Quonset Point with Groton being the assembly yard for the segments. There's no bottleneck on construction, just funding. EB alone was cranking out 688s and Ohios in the 80s.

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I stand to be corrected here, but I think that, by law, all US naval vessels have to be built domestically.

Didnt in WW2. The US was using British and Canadian built Flower class Corvettes for a while. Probably not enthusiastically, but...

 

 

That was wartime and 75 years ago.

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"Perhaps some technology can be salvaged from the Zummies."--Josh

 

I wonder if the Zumwalts could be converted into a Tico replacement.

Not without stripping the design down to hull and maybe power plant. I don't know if either has been proven yet.

 

Probably as easy to just design a new one from scratch.

 

 

Isn't that basically what they did to the Spruance design to build the Ticos? I'm also curious about the real life experience they've had with the Zumwalt hulls at this point.

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Supposedly the hull form works well. I don't think it's practical to rearm the Zumwalts, but surely a new design armed with cruiser weaponry would be workable? DD(X) hull has more room and more power than Burke/Tico.

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Yeah, fair one. They really should open it up to foreign production to force US Yards to be competitive.

 

US yards aren't supposed to be competitive, they're supposed to employ union voters.

 

Its moronic. We are going to have a gap in orders for submarines at Barrow in Furness, and you are going to have a shortage of yards to build Virginia's. So, why not use the capacity?

 

 

Shortage of yards to build Virginias? You have EB and Newport News (or whatever they're calling it this week) each building one VA a year. EB will start building the Columbia class soon but still has plenty of room if needed. Remember, EB actually does most of its part of VA construction at Quonset Point with Groton being the assembly yard for the segments. There's no bottleneck on construction, just funding. EB alone was cranking out 688s and Ohios in the 80s.

 

There was a lecture about it on Atlantic council. They were facing a crunch where the number of boats they could get into service was less than the number 688's being withdrawn from service. IIRC, it was because you dont have the number of yards you had in the 1980's that could build SSN's. Afaik, that crunch is still on. Its one reason why the Americans were so receptive at fixing our Astute class design I guess.

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BTW, regarding comments about being built in the US. Fincantieri will, of course, be building these in the US (Wisconsin, I think).

 

IIRC the Navy has talked about shopping construction to at least one other yard to increase the rate of production. Not sure if that will be Austal or someone else.

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Yeah, fair one. They really should open it up to foreign production to force US Yards to be competitive.

 

US yards aren't supposed to be competitive, they're supposed to employ union voters.

 

Its moronic. We are going to have a gap in orders for submarines at Barrow in Furness, and you are going to have a shortage of yards to build Virginia's. So, why not use the capacity?

 

 

Shortage of yards to build Virginias? You have EB and Newport News (or whatever they're calling it this week) each building one VA a year. EB will start building the Columbia class soon but still has plenty of room if needed. Remember, EB actually does most of its part of VA construction at Quonset Point with Groton being the assembly yard for the segments. There's no bottleneck on construction, just funding. EB alone was cranking out 688s and Ohios in the 80s.

 

There was a lecture about it on Atlantic council. They were facing a crunch where the number of boats they could get into service was less than the number 688's being withdrawn from service. IIRC, it was because you dont have the number of yards you had in the 1980's that could build SSN's. Afaik, that crunch is still on. Its one reason why the Americans were so receptive at fixing our Astute class design I guess.

 

 

Block obsolescence after a major building program is common. They want 48 subs on hand and at some point in the future, it dips below that for a bit but it's more a funding issue. Plus it takes time to train welders etc to get back to speed, especially with a graying workforce. EB has restarted its apprentice program to help. I doubt they could just hand the blueprints to new yard and start making subs not mention the IP issues and security.

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Well Narrow in Furness took the lead in designing the common missile compartment for your and our next generation of SSBNs. I think EB gave a lot of help in sorting out the Astute design. So I don't think information exchange would be an issue.

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From what they describe in one book I've read on the RN submarine force, it was mainly project management. There was a long ago from the Vanguards to the astutes. Even longer from the Trafalgars to the Astutes. They still had the technical skills apparently, it was the American team that got it pointed in the right direction iirc. There was some technical problems, but they turned into excellent boats.

 

This is the book, absolutely first rate.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Deep-Royal-Submarine-Service/dp/0241959489/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Silent+deep&qid=1589313290&sr=8-1

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
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Fincantieri appears to have found the secret sauce to compete for international shipbuilding contracts. Japan should be taking notes, as this is one concern it has not been able to master.

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I suspect politics has a fair game to play, though I personally would have no problem to have USN ships contracted and built in Japan.

Using the small SPY-6 radars and associated US combat system into Akizuki/Asahi-class ship may suit the bill for a new frigate. 6,800 ton full combat weight, 32 VLS with ESSM, 127mmL62, COGLAG propulsion, Type 17 SSM (to be introduced with JS Maya), 200-220 crew, hanger for 1 heli.

Edited by JasonJ
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I like the FFGX, but the US is going to have to retire a lot of ships soon if the Flight I/II Burkes don't get SLEP'd. Is there any kind of delivery schedule available for the project? I know when the first is supposed to hit the water, but how many per year do they expect to produce? One? Two?

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I like the FFGX, but the US is going to have to retire a lot of ships soon if the Flight I/II Burkes don't get SLEP'd. Is there any kind of delivery schedule available for the project? I know when the first is supposed to hit the water, but how many per year do they expect to produce? One? Two?

On page 5 and 6 are 5-year and 30-year ship building plans in the document linked in the earlier post: http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44565&page=5&do=findComment&comment=1479295

 

In the 5 year plan, setting out the funds for procurement goes from 1 FFGX for last year and this year, 2 ships in the following years, and 3 for 2025. The 30 plan is last years and may not reflect the 3 in the 5 year plan's 3 ships for 2025 but for the 30 years, it has 2 SSCs (small surface combatants) going for the whole 30 years. The graphs are about the 355 goal and the document says the goal does not include unmanned surface ships. So assuming that the LCS production will end soon, that leaves only the FFGX and whatever successor design, 2 each year for 30 years. So at a rate of 2 a year over the long term, production would generally have to be kept at the same rate as procurement. That seems to be their thinking going by it.

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I like the FFGX, but the US is going to have to retire a lot of ships soon if the Flight I/II Burkes don't get SLEP'd. Is there any kind of delivery schedule available for the project? I know when the first is supposed to hit the water, but how many per year do they expect to produce? One? Two?

 

It will be interesting to see how many they do end up producing, as it will be an indicator of their urgency level in various ways.

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I like the FFGX, but the US is going to have to retire a lot of ships soon if the Flight I/II Burkes don't get SLEP'd. Is there any kind of delivery schedule available for the project? I know when the first is supposed to hit the water, but how many per year do they expect to produce? One? Two?

 

It will be interesting to see how many they do end up producing, as it will be an indicator of their urgency level in various ways.

 

 

They already wanted to bid out twenty of these, so a second flight of this or something like it is all but guranteed. I suspect however there will be 30-40 of these ships eventually so long as the drive train is sound and the hull can support future power needs.

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What are the odds of a clean-sheet-of-paper DD design?

 

No time soon. Burke III is the next destroyer; the other major combatant is a cruiser sized hull and the USN can't decide what they want to do with it. If the Burke 3 is anything to go by, the amount of power required just for the desired radar will be extreme, to say nothing of any directed energy weapons. In fact given the power requirement of the SPY-6 V(1), you have to wonder if you couldn't use it as a DEW at very short ranges.

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