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Lately is being too kind. The USN squandered decades since the end of the Cold War. Failures to replace the FFG-7 frigates, early decommissioning of the Spruanc
by greedo 5y ago
Lately is being too kind. The USN squandered decades since the end of the Cold War. Failures to replace the FFG-7 frigates, early decommissioning of the Spruance DD class, DD-21 program failure, failure to build CG-X, etc. The list is horrifically long. And if you tie this into selling off naval shipyards, now we're stuck with just a few vendors even capable of servicing/maintaining surface combatants.
It's been thirty years of shame for the USN and unfortunately, ship building takes a long time and if you lose building capacity, that compounds the issue.
- kcb 5y agoAt least FFG(X)/Constellation seems to be going smoothly. Maybe that's a good sign.
- sofixa 5y agoThat's because the US navy finally accepted they're not that unique and asked for a proven foreign design. It's a subsidiary of an Italian shipbuilder building on the platform of a Franco-Italian design. Of course it should be going smoothly.
- greedo 5y agoUnfortunately they've made a lot of design modifications to the FREMM design. I worry that while some of these are necessary, it will add cost to what should be a comparatively cheap platform. If these end up being half the cost of a Burke while only capable of performing at 30%, it won't work out well.