Here’s RADM Mark Montgomery (ret.) talking with Vago Muradian about the new Constellation-class frigate:
Historically, the Navy either changed the HME — the hull, mechanical, and electrical — or the combat systems of a ship in between generations. We didn’t change both simultaneously. If you think about Spruance to Ticonderoga, and Ticonderoga to Burke. We broke that with the LCS, Littoral Combat Ship, and the Zumwalt-class. In both cases, we really struggled with fielding the ship. I like the fact we’re doing that.
The frigate’s HME is supposed to stay mostly the same with its Fincantieri parent design. There’s been some hull changes but most of the internal design should stay the same. So the combat systems will be the change, and a big consideration will be vertical launch system (VLS) cells. The DDG-51 has between 90 and 96 VLS cells, while the FFG-62 will have just 32 (with 16 additional Naval Strike Missiles externally mounted). Here’s Montgomery:
I worry a little bit — what they show is a 32-cell VLS. I think VLS tubes matter. Whether they’re less tubes but longer for hypersonic missiles, doesn’t matter. I’m hoping when they talk about the destroyer payload module, they will pack a bunch of missiles into the ship from the get-go. You cannot destroyers with only a 32-cell VLS.
Meanwhile, China is building a lot more Type-055 destroyers that are larger than the DDG-51s and have 112 VLS cells. OK, back to Montgomery:
Here’s there real problem. It’s a good looking idea, I think they’re on the right track. The problem is, they’re not going to win the competition with the SSN(X), the Virginia-class replacement, and the F-35 replacement. Those two have a much easier job explaining why they are needed going forward than the Navy does selling the DDG(X) over the flight-III DDG [i.e., Burkes]. If it looks like we’re iteratively improving the flight-III DDG, I don’t think this will compete well with those two. I don’t think the Navy can afford to recapitalize the sub, the fighter, and destroyer in the same ten-year period. Especially with Columbia-class going on in the background.
So I think in the end, as good as this is, I hope they pilot some of this, steal it, and make it part of a DDG-III outfit or DDG-IV because I still think that’s slightly more likely than DDG(X) in 2028.
I think this rationale for budget competition often leads to the very problem Montgomery pointed to: packing in too many requirements into a new class of ship. A case needs to be made based on overpromising outcomes that are not validated by engineering. This helps a program secure budget and move forward. But Montgomery says incremental upgrades of the Burke are more likely rather than the Navy’s clean-sheet DDG(X) idea.
Indeed, the recent unveiling of the DDG(X) concept stated: “DDG(X) will utilize successful evolutionary development approaches from Destroyers, Cruisers, Frigates, CG 47 to DDG 51 upgrades vice revolutionary approach.”
Certainly this goes along with Congressional requirements for high TRL subsystems and land-based testing ahead of any new ship class. They would not accept a gold-plated ship program at this point. And that being the case, incremental change is the best path forward to approval because it might fit into the top line. It is “affordable.”
If this is the development methodology the Navy wants to adopt, then why not set a portfolio budget for major capability areas like surface combatants, incrementally change that top line, and allow NAVSEA to iterate on new HME and new combat systems? It’s not like one day the Navy will decide it no longer needs surface combatants. But that’s how the budget works until big Navy, OSD, and Congress can be convinced they need a very particular type of ship fully planned. That drives all sorts of rigidities into the incremental development process. For example, one of the big unknowns is the evolution of autonomous systems, and so over-planning new classes of ships could prove wasted effort, or worse, stifling to technology adoption.
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