{"id":23569,"date":"2025-04-03T23:21:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T20:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=23569"},"modified":"2025-04-03T23:21:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T20:21:37","slug":"us-navy-constellation-frigates-face-serious-problems-with-a-visible-risk-of-limiting-their-capabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=23569","title":{"rendered":"US Navy: &#8220;Constellation&#8221; frigates face serious problems with a visible risk of limiting their capabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A new report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), entitled: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/gao-25-108225\">Navy Shipbuilding: Enduring Challenges Call for Systemic Change<\/a>\u201d (March 25, 2025), documents the problem of the US shipbuilding and repair industry, which leads to cost overruns and delays (see HERE). As the report states, the US Navy currently has 296 warships (aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and combat support ships) and wants to increase the fleet to 381 warships in 30 years. However, with the current situation, it is doubtful that this specific goal will be achieved. The report also cites examples of poor choices and program management, such as the LCS program, which proved to be completely unsuitable as a ship, the \u201cZumwalt\u201d, the cost of which skyrocketed to $10.6 billion per ship, seven times higher than the original, the \u201cConstellation\u201d frigates and the LSM landing craft. The report cites three serious failures for the \u201cConstellation\u201d in particular:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFunding Commitments Based on Unstable Design: In April 2020, the Navy awarded a fixed-price contract for detailed design and construction of the first frigate, with an option to build up to nine additional ships. In August 2022, after the Navy certified to Congress that the basic and operational designs were 88% complete, it authorized the start of construction of the initial frigate. At that point, the Navy had exercised an option to build the first two ships (FFG-63 and 64). By May 2024, the Navy had exercised an option to build three additional frigates (FFG-65\/66 and 67)\u2014bringing the Navy\u2019s total financial commitment to over $3.4 billion. This pace of signing contracts so soon after the first ships began construction led to problems. As we reported in May 2024, the Navy used ways of measuring design progress that were inaccurate and concealed the true progress of the design. As a result, the Navy significantly overestimated design progress when it approved the start of construction. We recommended that the Navy restructure its design review practices to better reflect the true progress in the design. However, the first ship is now 3 years behind schedule, and construction has essentially ground to a halt as the Navy and the shipbuilder continue to negotiate critical technical requirements related to the ship\u2019s design. This resulted in the Navy reporting that the basic and operational design was only 70% complete, in December 2024, 2 years after the Navy certified that the design was 88% complete and signed the shipbuilding contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Untested Systems Pose Technical Risk: The program leverages many proven systems to reduce technical risk. However, our May 2024 report found that two key systems\u2014the propulsion and machinery control systems\u2014pose a high risk to the frigates\u2019 capabilities and schedule. These systems include new components and software code that have never been integrated into a Navy ship. However, the Navy did not fully test these systems before the estimated delivery date of the first frigate (December 2026). We recommended that the Navy ensure that the Master Test and Evaluation Plan incorporates additional ground-based test activities for these two systems. The Navy partially agreed with this recommendation, stating that it has tested them ashore, but does not intend to update the Master Test and Evaluation Plan to include additional test objectives related to these systems. Given that the Navy has previously encountered challenges with integrating propulsion and machinery control systems on other ships, this approach increases the likelihood that problems will not be discovered until the ship is at sea, limiting fleet availability and leading to costly repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Design changes and the associated risk of weight gain undermine planned capabilities: The Navy and the shipyard\u2019s ongoing evaluation of performance and technical requirements has prompted a series of design changes. These changes have reduced the similarity between the parent design approach followed by the Navy and the shipyard during the 16-month design phase. As a result of these changes, in part, the frigate now bears little resemblance to the parent design that the Navy selected in 2020. weight increase to levels that exceed available tolerances. Already the Navy is considering reducing the frigate\u2019s speed requirement as one possible way, among other things, to resolve this weight increase. Now, in 2025, the ongoing redesign has resulted in weight increase, to levels that exceed available tolerances. Already the Navy is considering reducing the frigate\u2019s speed requirement as one possible way, among other things, to resolve this weight increase.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), entitled: \u201cNavy Shipbuilding: Enduring Challenges Call for Systemic Change\u201d (March 25, 2025), documents the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1808],"tags":[2826,4290,6761,2473,2152],"class_list":["post-23569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-space","tag-constellation","tag-constellation-class","tag-ffg-62-constellation","tag-frigates","tag-us-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23571,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23569\/revisions\/23571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}