Capitol County Class FFG(x) (deployed 1991) go to page 10

[erik_t]

Okay, here goes nothing. Since you've stuck a "USA" on there, I'm willing to assume that she should fit with standard US doctrine and the like. Moving sort of aft-to-forward...

• One large single rudder seems unlikely, and is unattractive in that it hangs well below the keel. I don't think we've built a two-screw one-rudder combatant in... fifty years, maybe. Not since the Belknaps.
• The capstan on the stern is going to be a pretty scary obstacle for landing helos, I think. I'd try to copy the Burke a bit more in this area.
• As Ace said, the half-deck aft is a bit curious. I'm not a HUGE fan, although it's not the end of the world. The hull is otherwise three full and proper decks deep, which is good.
• I don't think there's ever been a US Navy ship with as much close-in defense as this one has. Oto 76mm is already a pretty potent short-range AAW system, and then you tack on two RAM and... three? four? Millennium guns? I mean, it's GREAT to have that much firepower, but that's a lot of space, weight, and money that you're using on systems that you hope to never actually have to use. For my money, I'd much rather spend that space, weight, and money on more effective medium- and long-range air defense systems. More VLS cells, or better radar, or something. Anything more than a 76mm, 50cal, a single RAM launcher, and maybe a pair of Mk 38 Bushmasters seems pretty silly to me. Let's remember what this ship is replacing.
• The SATCOM dome hanging off the side of the ship seems like a sort of strange location. By removing some of the superfluous close-range armament, this can be placed directly on deck where it is less prone to weather damage and is a lot easier to maintain.
• It would be nice to fit two helos, if you can. In the modern era (even in the 1990s), helicopters have been far and away the most-used and highest-utility systems actually aboard USN combatants. You have the hull width for a double hangar, and the RHIB bay is far enough forward that it would not encroach on it.
• The liferafts are also in a bit of a precarious position (and are overlapped by the railing). Moving them up a few feet and then inboard a few feet would seem like a good change. They would probably need some small bulwark to protect them from RAM blast (I'd keep the aft launcher).
• The SRBOC launchers seem to be located in a very unfriendly position. Remember, men need to actually be able to get around these to reload them, while manhandling a 25kg mortar round! They also have some non-trivial recoil, although I don't know exactly how much. Relocating this to the weather deck would seem to make it much more useful in real operations. Perhaps put it where the aft Millennium Gun is now.
• With this much effort towards stealthiness, I'd try pretty hard to get the Mk 32 SVTT inside the shell of the ship, like on a Spruance.
• Plant is presumably two LM2500, right? Do you have in mind any sort of cross-connection, or anything? Right now, you're using fixed-pitch screws, which means you have no reverse power and you will be very draggy when you trail a shaft. This is okay if you're looking at a COGLAG sort of arrangement, but it's probably not okay if you're using mechanical drive.
• I'd try to relocate the OE-82 SATCOM "dog dish", and the other dome, from their locations right next to the gas turbine exhaust. That exhaust plume is awfully hard on equipment.
• Like the aft liferafts, I'm a little leery of the location of the forward cluster, off the side of the shell of the ship. I wonder if they'd be lost in especially heavy weather. Maybe relocate them to the side of the funnel, above the firefighting equipment? As a note, you currently have enough liferafts for 225 crew. That's really a bit more than you need, Perry sails with 175. IIRC, USN doctrine requires that there be enough liferafts for all crew even after the largest single cluster of rafts is destroyed, and each of these Mk 7 rafts hold 25 men. So you have (4-1)*3*25 = 225.
• I only see a trunk for a single ship-service generator, and it's in the main engine room. This isn't enough power, and even if it were there's no redundancy. You need at least one more, either well forward or (more likely) well aft, between the RHIB bays.
• SPY-5 is probably a great system for a ship like this, but you certainly do need a real air-search set. SMART-S would seem reasonable, and I think SPS-49 would also be a realistic option. There's nothing to say the USN might not go with any of the L-band European sets as well, although SMART-L is likely too heavy. SMART-S is obviously the easiest fit dimensionally, and would be just fine. It's just a frigate, after all.
• Have you considered something like the AEM/S enclosed mast? They were very much in vogue at the time.
• It's pretty clear that your superstructure was driven by Burke experience, but there's no reason to lay things out this way with a system as small and light as SPY-5. Indeed, it would be nice to have an arrangement more like the art shown of a refitted Perry, with a small deckhouse above the bridge hosting four panels, and the aft panels being well aft, behind the gas turbine exhaust. This way, if you take damage, you still have the ability to defend yourself through about half-azimuth while you wait for the cavalry to come save your butt.
• I don't really like the enclosed bay for SLQ-32, since it's going to have a lot of internal corners. I'd sponson it off on a platform, like on the Burkes.
• Even if you wanted to keep the forward Millennium Gun(s!), I don't think they actually have space to rotate right now.
• Just in general, aside from the above, the electronics setup feels very well thought out.
• I think a repeat of the Perry sonar is unlikely. The magic of towed arrays means that a lot of mid-1990s USN frigate concepts had no hull sonar at all. If you did keep one, I'd try to go with a bow dome, perhaps with something like the Spherion family.
• 32 strike-length Mk 41 cells seems exactly reasonable. Kudos for not hilariously overloading this design.
• I'd try to trade the Oto 76 for a Mk 45, if possible. The USN was never terribly thrilled with the 76mm, and 127mm surface fire (especially NGFS) is much, much more worthwhile. This is one of the things you might be able to "buy" by downgrading the overkill CIWS situation.
• The bow feels... wiggily. Lots of compound curves. Note how the line of the stem on FFG-7 is a straight line. I'd try to keep it like that, since it's a lot cheaper to build.

Overall, it's a very attractive design. I like it a lot, and the attention to detail (especially on, eg, the comms equipment) is superb. I wouldn't wear out my fingers talking about it if I didn't think it had tremendous promise. I think just a few conceptual changes would really make it sparkle, as one of the finest personal designs we've seen recently.

[sabotage181]

Okay, here goes nothing. Since you've stuck a "USA" on there, I'm willing to assume that she should fit with standard US doctrine and the like. Moving sort of aft-to-forward...

• I only see a trunk for a single ship-service generator, and it's in the main engine room. This isn't enough power, and even if it were there's no redundancy. You need at least one more, either well forward or (more likely) well aft, between the RHIB bays.

Overall, it's a very attractive design. I like it a lot, and the attention to detail (especially on, eg, the comms equipment) is superb. I wouldn't wear out my fingers talking about it if I didn't think it had tremendous promise. I think just a few conceptual changes would really make it sparkle, as one of the finest personal designs we've seen recently.

Thank you erik, I like a lot of your suggestions and I'm going to investigate all of your suggestions as well as address this list with a later post. For now I just wanted to point out that I do indeed have emergency power and its exactly where you suggested it be. They are EDG's and you will see the intake's exactly where you said they should be. the exhaust is on the hull corresponding with the intakes. In real life the exhaust would be on opposite sides of the ship but in a effort to spruce up the boring hull I've put both exhausts on the side we are viewing (starboard)

One more question I would like to pose to everybody is;
If I use the smart s (I like the specs, sounds perfect for this ship) what kind of FC directors does this system use?

Again I would like to thank you all for all the help you all give

[Judah14]

Thank you erik, I like a lot of your suggestions and I'm going to investigate all of your suggestions as well as address this list with a later post. For now I just wanted to point out that I do indeed have emergency power and its exactly where you suggested it be. They are EDG's and you will see the intake's exactly where you said they should be. the exhaust is on the hull corresponding with the intakes. In real life the exhaust would be on opposite sides of the ship but in a effort to spruce up the boring hull I've put both exhausts on the side we are viewing (starboard)

One more question I would like to pose to everybody is;
If I use the smart s (I like the specs, sounds perfect for this ship) what kind of FC directors does this system use?

Again I would like to thank you all for all the help you all give

STIR or STING EO Mk. 2

[erik_t]

Ah, those trunks are diesel generator exhausts. Fair enough; I assumed they were somewhat generic ship-ventilation kit.

I sort of wonder if you should have any SSGTG at all. Perries had exclusively diesel ship-service generators* if I'm not mistaken; the USN considered them too loud for regular use on a major ASW asset, but the Perry heritage was really as an AAW ship and thus she received diesels. I think everything afloat has diesel generators for major emergency use, but they're nowhere near powerful enough to power anything but light hotel loads (major radars are certainly right out!).

Maybe that's okay; as I was saying (and as you see on, eg, the CPCX light frigate design from that era), a lot of period concepts pushed the major sonar onto a towed array, in which case ownship silencing would not be quite so critical. I think the primary concern is silencing to keep your own sonar operating well, not to keep the Akulas at bay.

Having both one of the usual AG9140 (the smaller of the three exhausts on your main stack) <em>and</em> major diesel generators would seem to complicate maintenance, logistics and training for no very good reason, IMHO.


* Note not emergency generators, but constant use, since in the Bad Old Days you couldn't draw ship-service electrical power from the main propulsion turbines

[erik_t]

Incidentally, I would absolutely stick with SPY-5 as the fire control set. Even at the end of the Perry construction, the USN was considering fitting fixed X-band phased arrays in place of the WM-20 series "egg", to counter steep-divers and the like. SPY-5 perfectly fits the bill, and resembles sets envisioned on a number of frigate concepts of the 1990s. Note that there would be no need for a separate gunlaying set; Burke had been doing this all with SPY-1 since the early 1990s.

You would probably like to have an optronic gun director, though, since you have no TV camera mounted on a SPG-60. I would either use the Kollmorgen Mk 46 (common to the Burkes) or the McDonnell-Douglass SAY-1 TISS. I'd prefer the latter, since it's more compact and has a laser rangefinder. Your mileage may vary. In any case, such a system is so light and compact that you might choose to cross-deck them (fitted "for but not with", as they say) on ships entering a region like the Persian Gulf, where mine detection and the like can be critical.

Another interesting choice for an air-search set might be the planar array SPS-49 being considered in the mid-1990s. It has many excellent advantages.

[sabotage181]

ok, just a quick update for now



comments/suggestions welcome

[Judah14]

The fire control director you used is the Sagem EOMS NG, right? it would be great since you have an EO FCS and an IRST in one system.

[Philbob]

I dont feel a US ship would be fitted with a millennium gun at the forward B postion. maybe a CIWS or Mk38

[Judah14]

I dont feel a US ship would be fitted with a millennium gun at the forward B postion. maybe a CIWS or Mk38

Millennium gun is also a CIWS. And Lockheed Martin is the US licensee for its sale and manufacture.

[sabotage181]

The fire control director you used is the Sagem EOMS NG, right? it would be great since you have an EO FCS and an IRST in one system.

Thank you Judah, I have actually been looking for this system for a while and found it on Mihoshik, MConrads, gunship and Colosseum's North Point Ardent Class (beautiful ship/drawing). Ive also used some other parts of that ship for my drawing

I dont feel a US ship would be fitted with a millennium gun at the forward B postion. maybe a CIWS or Mk38

Thank you Philbob. This gun system is just to bad assed to not use, and was developed (in conjunction with??) Lockheed Martin, so it is possible

latest update



Mostly detail work right now, but I am curious if this screw is more appropriate? Is it to big? Any other comments and suggestions welcome