An Imperfect Frigging Frigate is Better Than No Frigging Frigate At All
X follower A Roehart apparently not only knows me, but can read my mind:
I say read my mind because on today’s agenda was writing a post on this latest US Navy clusterfuck of a shitshow: the cancellation of the Constellation class frigate program with two ships partially completed.
Yes, I knew they were late. Yes, I knew they were over budget. What isn’t in the USN? But this made my head explode: “Weight growth reduced the speed to below 25 knots.”
25 knots? RUFKM?
I say again: 25 knots???
Great! They could keep up with battleships launched in 1912! A nuke carrier or an Arleigh Burke? Not so much.
To put things in perspective, a WWI era four stacker could make 35 knots with 300 psi boilers.
Who would even think about proceeding with construction of a ship class that is so overweight Ozempic couldn’t fix it?
The basic lesson here is that every aspect of Navy shipbuilding (and per A Roehart’s point, procurement generally) is broken, from design to construction.
The supposed genius of the Constellation program was that it would be based on a proven foreign design. Then the Navy would do a few tweaks to improve, and voila! A reliable class that could be churned out quickly and (relatively speaking) inexpensively.
But nooooo. Tweak was layered on tweak, which was layered on more tweaks, until the sleek foreign frigate became an American fatso frigate that gets out of breath when breaking 20 knots. And all that tweaking took time and money.
No doubt the Navy wanted the perfect frigate. But the perfect is the enemy of the good. And even a faulty frigging frigate is better than no frigging frigate at all. Which is what we have, after the expenditure of much treasure and time.
In WWII, the US was renowned for producing adequate but not stellar armaments, but doing so in huge numbers and low cost. In contrast, the Germans were renowned for producing state-of-the-art weapons in low numbers and exorbitant cost. Think of the M4 Sherman vs. the Tiger or Panther.
Remind me: who won?
The US has evidently adopted the German philosophy, and jettisoned its own. No more so than in the Navy.
Or put differently, as Stalin (supposedly) said “quantity is a quality of its own.” The US Navy needs hulls in the water. Functional, pragmatic ships (Nimitz always bridled at calling Navy ships “vessels,” which reminded him of chamberpots).
Moreover, since the dawn of naval warfare it has been recognized that the optimal fleet consisted of specialty types with relatively narrow functionality that performed complementary functions. A combination of high end and low end, with frigates (from the days of sail, for crissakes) being at the low end. The Oliver Hazard Perry class of FFGs introduced in the 1970s are an excellent example of this.
But the Navy has instead tried to create ships that do it all and end up doing nothing. Not least because they don’t get built.
Who is to blame? Everybody. Generations of Navy brass and civilian leadership, of course. But also Congress and the defense contractors.
How to fix it? With some accountability, to start with. Who has ever been held accountable for past fiascos, e.g., LCS or Zumwalt? Indeed, if anything there has been negative accountability. How many military officers or Pentagon bureaucrats have moved into cushy jobs at contractors?
The more this happens, the more attractive the Admiral Byng corrective (“pour encourager les autres”) appears.
If you deem that too extreme, then Commander Salamander’s suggestion of defenestrating everyone RADM and above, and their Pentagon civilian counterparts, is a good start. They are products of a diseased culture and the culture must be purged to be (in Sal’s words) “baseline reset.” Yes, it is collective punishment, but the collective is at fault.
I am ambivalent about Pete Hegseth, but one thing he has done that deserves support is his recent initiative to reform defense procurement. Alas, it is an initiative, not a fait accompli. Whether it is even possible to reform so thoroughly broken a system is, alas, highly uncertain.
“Think of the M4 Sherman vs. the Tiger or Panther.
Remind me: who won?”
In the big picture, the Red Army won. Of the fighting in France, the western allies won, not because of the Sherman but principally because of the wonder of the Mulberry harbours and PLUTO, because of air supremacy, and because of their huge superiority in artillery.
The German tendency to over-engineer everything was first explained to me in the excellent “Most Secret War” by R V Jones – warmly recommended. Then recently I saw in a blog comment thread a wonderful summary of his and your point: the Germans are not efficient, they are meticulous.
P.S. Talking of fine summaries “even a faulty frigging frigate is better than no frigging frigate at all” is well said. Whether it’s also true I don’t know. I suspect that if ever the USN goes to war with China on the Asian continental shelf then the USN will be largely sunk however good or bad its vessels are. If I were Prez of the USA I would be mighty keen not to put this prediction to the test.
Comment by dearieme — November 28, 2025 @ 9:10 am
Designing this frigate should be simple.
Use an existing 57mm gun platform.
Use existing VLS system.
Add a landing platform and maybe a hanger for rotary aircraft (and drones)
Use existing propulsion system.
Design the hull around this.
Nothing new. Nothing cutting edge. NOthing spectacular.
Comment by MARK — November 28, 2025 @ 3:08 pm
@Mark: Err radar, countermeasures, stealth, sonar etc etc?? We’re not talking whites of their eyes combat. Not quite as straightforward as you make out.
Of course the Yanks could always tap into to the various programmes underway in Europe and Asia, but there’s bugger all chance that happening given their current myopic political outlook.
Comment by David Mercer — November 29, 2025 @ 8:14 am
Meanwhile the Chinese are building quality in some quantity. Not long before the USN will have to cede its home waters i.e. the SCS and surrounding stretches.
Comment by David Mercer — November 29, 2025 @ 8:20 am
I invite correction from those far more knowledgeable when I ask what the primary role of a frigate is. To screen a carrier, to patrol, to escort commercial ships, to launch missiles primarily against land-based targets, to support amphibious assaults, what? The various Venn diagrams don’t overlap a lot.
Comment by Michael van der Riet — November 29, 2025 @ 1:51 pm
@MvdR AI is your friend…
Basically a small-to-mid sized utility vessel with a focus on protecting bigger value assets like carriers, amphibious assault vessels etc, primarily providing anti-submarine and air defence capabilities. Depending upon the navy they also get involved in special ops, anti-piracy/sea lane protection ops etc.
Comment by David Mercer — December 1, 2025 @ 1:15 pm
Hi David, as I said, the various Venn diagrams don’t overlap a lot. The Constellation frigate is trying to be all things to all men. The “etc.” part of your reply is where the breeding out of control additional specifications and bottomless hole cost overruns come from.
Comment by Michael van der Riet — December 2, 2025 @ 8:19 pm