FFLX/FFGX

[Colosseum]

What is your relevant real world experience again? I am just curious. Purely on a ship bucket professional level.

Very few of us have what you would call "relevant real world experience" unfortunately. We are just a bunch of idiots who draw boats on the internet (for all intents and purposes).

[heuhen]

Either that or you are a crazy Norwegian.

We are not that crazy but we have out moment.


But we are called by many one of the beast sea nation that have always build good ships. In fact back in the 60/70's when we got supply ships from USA for Oil rig operation we found them so bad sea boats that we had to throw them away and build our own.


When we build the Oslo class frigate in late 60's that was based on the Dealey class, we had to redesign the entire hull and bow. this gave the Oslo class better capability to carry bigger weapons, and better speed and sea-capability. While Dealey class was rated for 25 knots with 20000 Shp, The Oslo class was rated for 28 knots with 20000 Shp (31,5 to 35 knots with combat propellers, depends on witch of the Oslo class. Note HNoMS Bergen managed 38 knots one day when they removed all safety from the engine)

The we come to the Spanish build Fridtjof Nansen class. To say it this way we had to show the Spanish engineers and designers pictures from Norway of Naval ships with a lot of ice on deck, before they believed us! So what those engineers gave us was an frigate build extra strong in the hull. She have an strengthened keel to, that can be fully operational with 300 tons of ice on deck up to sea state 7/8 And with clean ship, up to sea state 9 or more...!?! Last year during and extreme storm, so extreme that the Norwegian Oil rig in the North Sea "Troll A" started to wave and that one is an massive solid platform. They Navy had exercise in the North sea. A saw an in new on the TV pictures from that exercise: All you could see was the main radar mast with the Spy-1 and partially of the wheal house visible over the waves.

Yes we have our moments of craziness, but you bow mounting is betting us in that area at the moment.

[Praetonia]

1. Your OP specifically says it can fire SM2.

Read the thread, that requirement was removed. You will not is not included in the weapons envelopes provided.

2. The stated load out even without SM2 is equivalent to a lot of European first-line warships. They don't cost $350m. FREMM for instance has almost the same specification and costs $750m each.

Even if it is $750m that is still far less than half the cost of a Burke that costs $1.8M. That’s BEFORE the restart, hulls starting at 113 will have to factor in those costs.

The Absalon also has a similar load out and is $250m, there is a lot at play here.

3. Lasers are non-existent tech that isn't going to be cheaper than a 1980s fire control system.

They already are in some instances. LaWS for instance is far cheaper than the Phalanx mount it is proposed to fitted to (Plus you still get the Phalanx).

So since you're going to be spending so much to fill such a nebulously defined role I do not see the advantage over building more Arleigh Burkes; fewer will be available but the USN already has more modern escorts than every other navy combined and they can be used in all range of missions.

If that’s your justification why not just decommission them until we resemble a European Navy in numbers? The USN is not a European Navy and has different and more missions and our standard is to be better at them. The fact is we are conducting all those missions right and don't have enough Burkes, and we are accomplishing them by using those Burkes inefficiently.

AAW just isn't a "second line" mission. It doesn't happen unless there's a real war going on, and is responsible for most of the cost of modern warships.

The only mission that happens outside of war is MIO. And yes AAW can be a secondary mission area. Many platforms are not dedicated AAW platforms but still hsave robust AAW weapons load outs (the FFG7, for instance, was primarily an ASW platform). Just like many non ASW dedicated platforms still have ASW weapons.

AAW, just like any threat, can be scaled to meet expected threats. Defending a fleet from China is not the same thing as defending it from Iran. If you build your entire fleet around defending against China and you spend most of your time not defending against China you are wasting money, especially if combat against that high end peer competitor is a very off chance (it is). Do you still prepare for it? Sure. Do you bend every asset you have and design decision you make against that single threat? Nope, or rather you shouldn't.

In a perfect world we could have DDGs on every street corner, but I am sure you are aware that the Navy is in a pretty big budget crises at the moment and it only looks to get worse. Currently we are dealing with:

-Our end strength was just revised to 300.

-DDG1000 has been truncated to 3 ships from 32.

LCS is a gold plated boondoggle that cost $637m and $704m respectively, or in other words almost three times the cost of a single Absalon with ridiculously less capability. Its original cost was supposed ot be $220m! And even at that original cost it is ridiculously expensive for what you get (again compare it to Absalon).

- FFG7s will be entirely retired by 2019 do to wear. We can't keep them even if we wanted to.

- DDG51s are currently being run into the ground and we can not afford to maintain them. In fact, we ARE NOT maintaining them. We are kitbashing together the deploying ones by cannibalizing the returning ones. The long term viability of this should be obvious to anyone.

- DDG51 production will not meet even the reduced end strenght goals by 2025, and is completely off the rails by the end of the 30 year building cycle.

- DDG51 Flight III is ballooning out of control in cost. Its cost was estimated at $2.2B a piece when the program began, it’s estimated to be upwards of $3B now. Per vessel. Let me remind you the $3B mark is what got the DDG1000 cancelled and then truncated to three units.

- We are drawing down personnel, and with all those sailors on DDGs supprting mission areas not being used essentially sitting idol, its unnecessary straining the force. In addition to that the Navy consistantly grossly underestimates the crews needed for its new vessel classes. The LCS is using its mission bays to house extra berthing and converting its original berthings from 2 to three man bunks (and paying for it too mind you). The problem is the Navy shaped its force to provide for those ridiculously reduced and unrealistic crew requirements.

Does any of the above speak to an environment where we can have only vessels designed to be world beating in AAW, ASW, ASuW, Strike and MIO but only used to do AAW? Or ASW? or ASuW? Or MIO?

I don't want to be speaking past you though, so what do you think a lower cost frigate sized combatant should look like. Keep in mind starting in 2019 (right now really, the FFG7s are jokes) the only options the USN has to address any threat is either a DDG (or more expensive CG) or the LCS. What would your intermediate design between them look like in armament?

As I see it there are two broad scenarios:

1. A major war, say with China over Taiwan or Japan. Here the second line destroyer is a false economy because one ship that can fire the modern SMs out to long range is more useful than two ships with only ASW and point defence.

2. A small local conflict or sub-war (eg. piracy) in which case AAW is not necessary.

Now for sure using Arleigh Burke for 2. is more wasteful than using a ship with cheaper AAW capability. But those 'cheaper' ships aren't much cheaper, and so make the number of ABs available for 1. significantly smaller. Making a specialist ship for 2. only makes sense if the capability is very low, so say you could get a class of 10 of them and totally squash Somali pirates for the cost of only 1 AB.

You also seem quite inconsistent about what you believe are the issues here. You say that the USN's problem is lack of ships for small conflicts against low-capability opponents then say that requirements are increasing because of China. You say the US is desperate for more hulls because there's less money and then you say that the US must have the best because the US has so much money. At least one of these must be false in each case.

[heuhen]

when it come to Money, Norway could have bought up the US Navy twice without having to rent money! Just an fun fact.

[Shipright]

Very few of us have what you would call "relevant real world experience" unfortunately. We are just a bunch of idiots who draw boats on the internet (for all intents and purposes).

I only ask because he was throwing out credentials. Some he said seemed pretty useful for some idle drawing purposes.

What he neglected was himself. I am just curious where he is coming from in his rants. If he is straight out of Thales or NAVSEA then I can understand his air of infallibility concerning these matters.

We are not that crazy but we have out moment.

It was a complement, you have some crazy sea space to deal with routinely and you do so well. however...

But we are called by many one of the beast sea nation that have always build good ships. In fact back in the 60/70's when we got supply ships from USA for Oil rig operation we found them so bad sea boats that we had to throw them away and build our own.


When we build the Oslo class frigate in late 60's that was based on the Dealey class, we had to redesign the entire hull and bow. this gave the Oslo class better capability to carry bigger weapons, and better speed and sea-capability. While Dealey class was rated for 25 knots with 20000 Shp, The Oslo class was rated for 28 knots with 20000 Shp (31,5 to 35 knots with combat propellers, depends on witch of the Oslo class. Note HNoMS Bergen managed 38 knots one day when they removed all safety from the engine)

The we come to the Spanish build Fridtjof Nansen class. To say it this way we had to show the Spanish engineers and designers pictures from Norway of Naval ships with a lot of ice on deck, before they believed us! So what those engineers gave us was an frigate build extra strong in the hull. She have an strengthened keel to, that can be fully operational with 300 tons of ice on deck up to sea state 7/8 And with clean ship, up to sea state 9 or more...!?! Last year during and extreme storm, so extreme that the Norwegian Oil rig in the North Sea "Troll A" started to wave and that one is an massive solid platform. They Navy had exercise in the North sea. A saw an in new on the TV pictures from that exercise: All you could see was the main radar mast with the Spy-1 and partially of the wheal house visible over the waves.

...all the above illustrates is Navies do not design their ships to weather such extreme conditions as a matter of course. If the had the Spanish would not have had to be informed of your requirements and its pretty clear they did not build vessels for their own Navy that have the reinforced hulls and keels you speak of.

Yes we have our moments of craziness, but you bow mounting is betting us in that area at the moment.

When the LCS 2 has its deck mount ripped of you can consider yourself proven. Until then, I appreciate your opinion and comments

As I see it there are two broad scenarios:

1. A major war, say with China over Taiwan or Japan. Here the second line destroyer is a false economy because one ship that can fire the modern SMs out to long range is more useful than two ships with only ASW and point defence.

2. A small local conflict or sub-war (eg. piracy) in which case AAW is not necessary.

Real recent conflicts that do not conform to your dicotomy above: Libya, Iraq, Kosovo, Iraq, Panama, Libya, Iran..

Potential future conflicts that do not conform to your dictomy above: Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Israel and company, North Korea...

And that's just right now, who knows what things will look like in 2022. Suffice to say you have a bit of current events and news to look into.

As to short range AAW defense I again ask you if you are anticipating any European Navy to be instakilled the second they engage in any war. If a Burke is all that will do in any scenario, are they just spilling their wheels with their frigates and small destroyers?

You aren't responding to my comments so I am not going to go in depth any more. If you have specific questions I will gladly answer but as you can see I am getting sandbagged with comments here.

Now for sure using Arleigh Burke for 2. is more wasteful than using a ship with cheaper AAW capability. But those 'cheaper' ships aren't much cheaper, and so make the number of ABs available for 1. significantly smaller. Making a specialist ship for 2. only makes sense if the capability is very low, so say you could get a class of 10 of them and totally squash Somali pirates for the cost of only 1 AB.

If it cost exactly as much as the ship you provided as a comparison that is $750 million it is still more than half as cheap. I provided you these numbers and and you have ignored them.

Nobody here has discussed making any specializes ships least of all me. The FFLX and FFGX both are multirole vessels that have have the philosophy of jack of all trades master of one, instead of the Burke that is a master of all trades and user of one. The only role that is axed completely is STRIKE. If you consider these vessels specialized then you consider every European surface combatant in existence specialized.

I am curious what you think the FFG7s were for and based on your opinion as stated whether they should have ever been built let alone allowed to stay on for as long as they have. Your answer should be no on both counts if you are consistent.

You also seem quite inconsistent about what you believe are the issues here. You say that the USN's problem is lack of ships for small conflicts against low-capability opponents then say that requirements are increasing because of China. You say the US is desperate for more hulls because there's less money and then you say that the US must have the best because the US has so much money. At least one of these must be false in each case.

[/quote]

Maybe we are dealing with some language issues here but of note:

-I never said anything about any requirement increasing due to China. If anything I advocating decreasing capabilities by not designing everything to that scale of conflict.
-I never said the US must have the best equipment, just that our mission profiles are generally more numerous and demanding than your average European Navy. That's the mission, not the equipment, my whole point is those missions can be tackled by vessels less capable in certain respects and right now we are overtaxing our destroyers because we don't have enough of them nor those less capable vessels mentioned.
-I never said anything about the US having so much money. The AU in the OP specifically mentions the FFG7s and CGs were/will retired early, Flight III Burkes and the LCS were canceled etc because of money. I then just told you we can't have DDGs for everything because of money in my last response to you, plus a whole list of other budget related issues.

I hope that clears things up.

[Praetonia]

I am indeed not going to individually respond to each of the several paragraphs you make in response to every sentence I write. This is in the interests of time, preserving my sanity, and not crashing the server after half a dozen iterations of exponential post length increase. It is not meant as an insult.

I will ask you one simple question: what circumstance requires a Trident that would not require an Arleigh Burke, but which could not be met by a Type 23 or less capable escort? I am looking for clarity not volume.

[Shipright]

You have been provided with myraid, but Iran is a good example mentioned twice now. Libya is an even better one. Or any ESG/ARG/CSG that needs self defense capabilities without the bells and whistles, so pretty much one anywhere other than off the coast of China. Right now they have DDGs in tow twiddling their thumbs.

Or better yet, since there are generally a fleet in these areas you have 1 DDG and two FFLXs instead of 3 DDGs like right now and let the DDGs have an actual maintenance schedule for a change.

If you are using a DDG in any other location it should be doing so because you need their STRIKE or NGFS.

As fort he Type 23 you don't seem up to speed on its capabilities. It is basically an FFLX clone minus the laser mount plus the 8 harpoons. The individual weapons are more capable that what the Type 23 has, but you would expect that in a hull 29 years younger would you not? Or are you suggesting you want us to build a new hull with cold war weapons?

So I suppose now the question is what would your modern Type 23 look like, since you dodged the question last time?

[Colosseum]

[Kilomuse]

Now THAT'S a real warship!

[Shipright]

I am sorry but the bow freeboard is to low, that's why they all instantly had the bow mounts ripped off and were snapped in half and sunk by wave action the second they left the ways. If only someone had read this thread maybe we could have won WWII