(11-13-2021 06:04 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  US will be building New Frigates designed by the French and Italians.

Except we are not exactly doing that. Our surface navy has a potential hole at the top of the capability chain with the pending premature retirement of the 22 remaining Ticonderoga cruisers, and a big hole at the bottom because since we retired the Knoxes and the Perrys prematurely, we don't have any dedicated anti-submarine warfare (ASW) frigates. When the Berlin wall fell we decided that we would never have to play ASW again, and that is proving to be a major miscalculation. Both the Ticonderogas and the Burke destroyers focus primarily on anti-air warfare (AAW). You don’t really want something as expensive as a Tico ($3B today) or a Burke ($1.8B) chasing subs. The LCSs were going to be ASW ships, but their engines are too noisy and blank out their sonars, so they are useless for that (or anything else, for that matter—the faster we turn them into diving reefs, the better).

The FREMMs (the French-Italian ships) are pretty good general-purpose escorts, for ASW and anti-surface warfare (ASuW), like destroyers in WWII. With them plus a potential new class of specialized ASW frigates, we could plug the bottom end ASuW/ASW hole. But that’s not what we are doing. Instead we are modifying the FREMM design to carry the AEGIS AAW radar system, and apparently building 20 of them as cheaper and much less capable (32 missile tubes versus 122) replacements for the Ticos that the Navy wants to retire early.

In another thread, I proposed a fleet structure to address each of the Navy’s mission needs. I am repeating it here, adding annotation for what the Navy has and/or is proposing to build:

Role/Mission – My Proposal – Navy’s Proposed Fleet

Nuclear strike – 12 SSBNs – Same
Conventional strike – 20 SSGNs, 30 Virginia VPM SSNs – 5 SSGNs, 28 Virginia VPMs
Fleet air defense and strike – 12 CVNs – 11 CVNs
Aviation escort – 12 CVL/CVE conversions initially, replaced by 12 CVs – None
ASuW and Land Attack – 8 battlecarriers – None
ASW hunter-killer – 8 ASW helo carriers – None
ASuW and escort – 20 cruisers – None
AAW – carriers, cruisers, 40 AAW destroyers (Burkes) – 40 Burkes, 20 FFG(X) (the FREMMs)
ASuW and ASW – 60 GP escorts – None (FREMMs converted to AAW)
ASW – 80 ASW frigates – None
ASW and convoy escorts – 30 ASW corvettes – None
Patrol and ASuW--30 missile patrol boats – None
ABM/BMD – 12 ABM/BMD conversions – Secondary role for Burkes
Power projection – 60 amphib ships – 13 LHA/LHD, 25 LPD/LSD
Mine warfare – 30 mine countermeasures (MCM) ships – None
Submarine warfare/ASW – 30 Virginia VPM SSNs, 30 smaller and cheaper SSNs (Barracudas?), 30 SSKs – 28 Virginia VPMs, 31 Virginia replacement SSNs

So, the Navy will have big holes in ASuW, ASW, MCM, and coastal/littoral warfare. Also, with fewer SSGNs (the optimum conventional strike platforms) the Navy’s strike power will be severely reduced, and the Navy will be relying on the Burkes for ABM/BMD protection, instead of having dedicated ships. And the Marines are getting out of the amphibious warfare business, so power projection ashore will be dicey at best.

And based on CBO or other best available sources, my proposed 600-ship fleet would cost the same $840B to build, or $28B/year over 30 years, as the Navy’s proposed 355-ship fleet, because my cost/ship is roughly half the Navy’s--$9B Nimitzes and $6B conventional CVs versus $15B Fords, $2B Barracudas versus $5B Virginia replacements, $5B Ohio-based SSGNs versus $8B Columbia-based SSGNs, a cheaper amphibious force than $3.8B LHAs/LHDs and $2.2B LPDs, and including smaller, cheaper units like SSKs, corvettes, and patrol boats.