Constellation class cancelled

[MikeJames]

The US Navy has recognised that the Constellation class frigate is a monumental cluster-frak, and has cancelled the program.

It was running years late and massively over budget, having started as an Italian FREMM frigate, before the US Navy modified it to the point that any resemblance to the design or capabilities of the original were gone, at a massive cost in money and time.

The first two ships under construction will be completed, but the program, which had been intended to be the basis for a class of initially 20, but probably many more, will end at that point.

No word on what, if anything, will replace it at this time.

Mike[/color]

[MikeJames]

The US Secretary of the Navy has stated that the next US Navy frigate will be derived from the Coast Guard's Legend Class National Security Cutter.



Legend class

Potential US Navy version.

At last weekend’s Reagan National Defense Forum, Navy Secretary John Phelan said the new frigate would be based on an American design and stressed that any change orders would have to go through him. The Navy has taken severe criticism by lawmakers and outside observers for making an excessive number of design changes to the Constellation-class frigate, which experts argue led to its schedule problems and cost overruns.

It appears that Secretary Phelan wished to avoid any repeat of that fiasco.

The Navy hopes to have new frigates based the NSC design “in the water” in 2028, a senior service official said today, an aggressive new schedule following the service’s cancellation of the Constellation-class frigate.

Mike