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Sooner or later, the United States Navy will have to start building frigates again; for a variety of reasons, the former seems preferable to the latter. The reasons vary from sustaining the shrinking shipbuilding industrial base to maintaining the size of the fleet.
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Equally important, the Navy simply does not need any more sophisticated—and very expensive—Aegis ships for today’s missions. The 27 Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class Aegis cruisers and 30-odd Arleigh Burke (DDG-51 )-class Aegis destroyers are more than enough for today’s environment. Less-expensive frigates would do just fine.
With the exception of the United States, the rest of the world’s fleets are becoming frigate navies. Cruisers have virtually disappeared from all fleets and only a few navies are building destroyers. Granted, cost is the main reason for their disappearance, but another is the increased capability of today’s frigates. Many have cruiser-like flexibility, with their antisubmarine, antisurface, and antiair warfare systems, and most carry a helicopter, which is considerably more than can be said for the first block of DDG-5 Is. In fact, with the exception of the sophisticated Aegis ships that were, after all, designed for the Cold War, the line between cruiser, destroyer, and frigate capabilities has become somewhat blurred.
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The Turkish Navy’s 2,900-ton guided-missile frigate Yavuz, a Blohm + Voss Meko 200, has a range of 4,000 nautical miles at 20 knots and a crew of 26 officers and 154 enlisted. Her helicopter is armed with Sea Skua missiles.
Also with the exception of the United States, many countries are now getting into the very lucrative frigateexporting business. Germany has been exporting its Meko class for years and currently there are two separate European frigate consortiums looking at designs for both domestic use and export. As a result of building expensive Aegis systems that few except Japan can afford, U.S. yards have been shut out of the process, but they have not been idle. Both Newport News and Bath Iron Works have frigate proposals and believe they can compete with European yards if given some assistance. First would be a system of government loan guarantees, and second, some U.S. Navy buys to put a ship in the water.
A somewhat similar situation occurred in the late 1970s when Northrop at considerable expense developed the F-20 fighter mostly for export. It had some potential foreign customers, but all had the same request—they wanted the U.S. Air Force to buy a few first. They reasoned that if it was good enough for the Air Force it was good enough for them, and that logistic support, a major plus when buying U.S. products, would be guaranteed. It never happened, but that is another story.
While exports are certainly important, especially for the new Clinton administration, they should never be the sole rationale for a U.S. defense decision; when it comes to frigates, however, there are also several good military reasons.
Most frigates are flexible ships. Even the unfortunate Stark (FFG-31) disaster in 1987 was attributed more to human error than to design. An Aegis ship faced with the same conditions would have fared little better; in any event, better to expose a
frigate than a cruiser, which is, after all, a traditional mission of frigates and their predecessors, the destroyer escorts (DEs) of World War II.
There is another, and again very traditional reason, for building smaller ships like DEs and frigates: to maintain fleet strength. Although the numbers today are not bad, largely because of the buildup during the Reagan years, the trends are not good. Excluding survey ships and conversions, the Navy will be building approximately four new warships per year throughout the 1990s. Since warships last about 30 years, eventually there will be a 120-ship Navy. There already are ominous signs. The administration’s Bottom-up Review force listed naval strength at 346 ships, but in the fine print stated it could afford only 331. Even that number is optimistic at a building rate of only four warships per year.
Bath and Newport News officials say they could build frigates for $300 to $500 million, considerably less than the almost one billion dollar DDG-5 Is. While neither yard wants to disrupt the current three DDG-51 s per year building program, the Navy as an alternative could build two DDG-5 Is and two FFGs
with the same budget. Operating costs would be considerably lower since frigates are manned by fewer than 200 sailors, which compares very favorably with crews of 357 on DDG-5 Is and 385 on the CG-47s. Additional savings accrue from using simpler systems. To lower costs, the Coast Guard might even buy some for its aging cutter fleet; adding in a few more for export just might save the industrial base.
There is yet another reason for a building a lower-cost frigate: to save enough money to build an even more sophisticated cruiser or destroyer soon after the turn of the century. Unless the Navy starts building some cheaper ships, it will not be able to afford the new types that truly might be required in 2010, which, in shipbuilding terms, is almost tomorrow.
Barring a return to some form of Cold War, current funding rates will never increase, especially with increasing domestic spending demands. In sum, for a variety of reasons—to maintain fleet numbers and the industrial base, for the lucrative export market, and finally to prepare for building more sophisticated destroyers and cruisers for the 21 st Century, the Navy should, once again, start building a flexible frigate.
James L. George, a distinguished naval analyst, is an Adjunct Fellow with the Hudson Institute, and is the author of The U.S. Navy in the 1990s: Alternatives for Action, published by the Naval Institute Press.
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Proceedings / May 1994