Meet the Navy’s new frigate. It’s definitely not the same as the old frigate.
Following the recent cancellation of the Constellation-class frigate, the Navy has decided that the design for its FF(X) frigate will be based on the Coast Guard’s Legend-class National Security Cutter.
Frigates have many missions, including protecting and escorting other ships and hunting submarines, but the Navy has been without such vessels for more than a decade. The Constellation-class frigate program — for which the Navy has already spent about $2 billion — was initially envisioned as a relatively easy lift for the service because it was based on an existing ship.
But the Navy couldn’t help tinkering with the Constellation’s design, making it much different from the warship on which it was based, and that inevitably led to construction delays and cost overruns. Eventually, Navy Secretary John Phelan announced in November that the service would only accept two of the ships currently being built and cancel the remaining four that had been under contract.
For the Navy, it was time for Plan B. That meant looking to the Coast Guard.
Since they first entered service in 2008, Legend-class cutters have shown they are formidable ships, and they have a proven design. One of the cutters was seen taking part in the pursuit of a Russian-flagged tanker suspected of transporting oil in violation of sanctions.
Each vessel is 418 feet long, has a crew of 148, and can reach a top speed of 28 knots. They also have a range of up to 12,000 nautical miles and can deploy for between 60 and 90 days, and they cost an average of $670 million per ship.
The cutters’ armaments include a Mk 110 57 mm deck gun; a Phalanx 20 mm close-in weapon system (CWIS), and four M2 .50-caliber machine guns. But to become warships, they will need more robust combat systems.
Therein lies a major challenge, because as currently envisioned, the new frigate’s design does not include a built-in Vertical Launch System, or VLS. The now-cancelled Constellation, by comparison, was supposed to have 32 VLS cells.
This is potentially an issue because the Navy is in the process of retiring its cruisers, each of which can carry up to 122 missiles in VLS cells. Meanwhile, China is building Type 055 destroyers, each of which can carry 112 missiles in VLS missile tubes.
Although the new frigates would have a different type of missile launching system, it is unclear if they might run into the same types of issues as the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships, which have needed to be up-gunned for high-end conflicts but have proven most successful in chasing drug smugglers.
Nevertheless, it’s clear the Navy needs frigates quickly, and it hopes to launch the first ship in 2028. But it remains to be seen if the new vessel can avoid the types of construction delays that doomed the Constellation, which was originally supposed to enter service this year, before that was pushed back to 2029 at the earliest.
For more information on the Navy’s latest adventure in shipbuilding, head to our YouTube channel, where Task & Purpose’s video producer Kyle Gunn talks about how the Navy is hoping to get it right this time.
