The US Navy has released a request for proposals (RFP) for the guided missile frigate FFG(X) design and construction contract for the first 10 ships.

The RFP provides for a full competition and will result in a contract awarded to one company in fiscal year 2020.

“The guided missile frigate is an agile, multi-mission platform designed for operation in blue water and littoral environments”, says the RFP.

The FFG(X) will have multi-mission capability to conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare and information operations.

Responders to the contract solicitation must propose an FFG(X) design based on a parent ship design that has been through production and demonstrated in full scale at sea.

To reach the US Navy’s full requirement of 20 FFG(X)s a second contract is planned closer to fiscal year 2025 for the next 10 ships to ensure more accurate pricing on out-year ships.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

55 COMMENTS

  1. It’s a pity the design must have already been to sea. If T26 hadn’t been delayed to the extent is has it would realistically only be going to sea now so still not qualify.

    • Personally I wonder if that wasn’t done specifically to keep the T26 out of the running. It would have made a strong contender vs US designs….

    • It’s possible they’d have made an exception if Glasgow was already in the water. After all, the USN was actually the one that suggested a common frigate, or at least some commonality between classes, for the USN, RN, RAN, and RCN. Now that exact thing has happened but the US has effectively ruled it out.

      • It’s ugly as hell, just like the yank littoral ships are ugly as hell and Zumwalt destroyers, the bridge windows look terrible on the littoral ships, I know looks don’t mean jack but it’s nice to have good looking ships to look at. I do like the look of the American AB destroyers though and they are nice multi purpose destroyers unlike our 45s unfortunately, I hope we get the fitted for but not installed MK41 silos put in in the near future, doubt it though.

  2. I suspect the Canadian version of T26 is exactly what the USN needs. Shame it is not even under consideration.

    • In some quarters in the US there is a lingering suspicion of the RN. It is probably historical from 1776.

      • There’s a good joke on one of the boards
        “Last time the USN acquired a British frigate they paid rather less than a billion …”

    • No, they mean they will sign a contract for 10 more ships in 2025. Doesn’t mean the first 10 have to be done by then.

    • I doubt it, the U.S. congress has thrown a curved ball into this demanding a lot of the support equipment is sourced in the US.This means a lot of new development work to qualify replacement equipment from local suppliers.

        • Our Politicians have never been more clueless. I blame the Treasury for the inability to see the benefits of a vibrant and comprehensively equipped RN that might contribute by rebuilding our Shipbuilding Industry.

    • They plan on having the 9th and 10th ship start building in ’25, with 19th and 20th started in ’30. The plan has already slipped one year due to budgeting. With what we call the terrible ’20’s on our doorstep I suspect there will much more, “slipping” here in the U.S.

  4. Would be interesting to see Babcock bid with an Arrowhead 140 variant. Iver Huitfeldt is already in the water after all :-). I’ll go and put my coat on…..

  6. Is there any likelihood that the US navy might reconsider the type 26? It seems crazy that Canada, Australia, the UK use the same platform but the US opts for something that is an older design….maybe the logic of interoperability might dawn on US navy planners. I think they should reconsider the type 26 in my opinion.

    • Thought I came across an article a while back were someone within the US department was saying the very thing that the USN should be looking at the t26 even though they are not in service yet, because of their modern design & adaptability, the commonality of having the model of ships throughout these navies that work so close together. So maybe they may look again & adapt the conditions for the competition.

      • But not too proud to pick an Italian or Australian design? Just another ignorant anti-American cheap shot. Grow up,

      • Not too proud to pick a British design; after all, the US Marines have for years and still use Harriers.

        No, they’ll use other nation’s designs; they’ll just insist on them being built in the US to protect their own shipyards and workers and industry.

        Which is fair enough, and what we should be doing. It’s not just about size and the clout they have; they have the will. Our government don’t. They just care about spending as little as possible.

        We’ll likely get all 13 Type 26 ships in the end but by the time the last one enters service the first (possibly 2nd and 3rd) will be retired!

    • One problem with that is that, once a spec is issued with this type of restriction, a change would result in everybody that put something forward under that restriction would sue the US government if they lost to one of the newcomers.

  7. Let them run the competition, decide they don’t like any of them, delay for 12 months, and then buy T26.

  8. That description of “multi-mission capability to conduct air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, electronic warfare and information operations” sounds like a smaller AB. It seems the USN are still hooked on the concept of having every ship a jack of all trades but none as masters of anything in particular. Its especially confusing given as others have said the USA has the money and political will (let alone the industrial capacity) to build and operate specialist ships. The UK may indeed have smaller numbers but in their own individual spheres of operation they are each the best in the world.

    The point being it is actually more cost effective to have an ASW specialist Frigate and an Air Defence specialist destroyer operating together than have an AB and an FFG together (or indeed two FFGs) duplicating each others capabilities in too many ways.

    It will be interesting to see what each hull will cost with all these gizmos built in ..

    • Indeed, so ( in the RN) what is the relevance of a ‘general purpose’ frigate? Just asking….
      Ought not the T31 x 5 program actually produce +2 ASW ships, + 2 AAW ships and another River 2 OPV?

      • @ Paul P – My understanding is that the GP Frigates would relieve more capable Frigates for the ASW and Carrier support work. Having said that I suspect the new Rivers would be as capable as a GP Frigate on those more ‘Littoral’ and enforcement duties (although I am happy to be corrected by Gunbuster and other ex Andrews).

        But to your point: the 5 x T31s are budgetted @ £1.25 Bn, a T26 @ £1 Bn each and a T45 @ £1 Bn in 2000 money. So with the best will in the world we lose 5 x GPs and gain 1 x T26 / T45. At a time when we need hulls in the water and to regenerate UK shipbuilding we need the 5 x GPs more than others at the moment. Nice idea though.

        • Well I confess I was playing at being the Devil’s advocate. Your point on costs is well made and does suggest to me that the the Arrowhead 140 might be the best choice for R31, sort of along the same lines of thinking as the Italian navy PPA idea – a 140m OPV ffbnw the ability for midlife upgrade – VLS to AAW and / or electric ‘good enough’ ASW drive.
          One could argue that Arrowhead at 140m, is just 9m short of what the RN really wanted…another 5 Type 26 without the expensive gold plated ASW engine drive sound insulation.

          • The Italian PPA idea is interesting. 10 identical hulls, 3 equipt as frigates, 3 as corvettes and 4 as OPV. €3.9B for the first 7 is quite expensive though.

          • Yes, if you carve out ASW and AAW as specialised ( and expensive) ships ( Fremm/ Freda/ T26/ T45/ Horizon) then it seems they have defined everything else as a GP hull.
            In a way I think that BAE would like the fairly successful Khareef /River 2 hull to be the basis of similar family of vessels but they are coming at the concept very late, decades behind Blohm and Voss with the Mekos.
            Arrowhead 140 could be our PPA.

          • At roughly £500 million per ship for the first 7 id say that it represents good value – yes they are being built with different equipment levels but it will be interesting to see how they perform once in service.A comparison is the order for the first 3 Type 26 Frigates is in the same ballpark.

    • The problem with specialist ships is they have a disturbing habit of never being in the right place. This was true in the past and is true today. For an example when recently has the RN consistently deployed T45s and T23s in concert with each other?
      There is the argument that the USN could procure more of each type, but that falls apart when you think about how many more responsibilities the USN has.
      Then of course you have to ask the question what is during a engagement (or even during transit due to a accident/engineering casualty)the ship that is damaged is the ASW specialist? The whole task group just became much more vulnerable.

    • My take on it is that with the numbers the USN fleet has they can afford to have specialist escorts, but with our tiny fleet we simply cannot afford to have anything but good all-rounders.

      We should’ve moved heaven & earth to get the T26 into the running by cracking on with the 1st RN T26 so it could’ve qualified.

      • ‘We should’ve moved heaven and earth’. When did that ever happen in Treasury World especially under Hammonds dead (weight) hand?

    • I do agree with you Chris, I would have thought that
      the USN is lacking in specialist ASW warships, including all that hull quieting tech, which the AB’s don’t have. An USN ASW frigate would need to be able to defend its self when operating alone ahead of carrier battle fleets. Is this what the role of an ASW frigate be, searching for submarines some distance, ahead of fleets, Not escorting CBG like RN doctrine?
      Would a fleet of Type 26 frigates fulfill that rrequirement? It would be very interesting to know
      how the USN would arm a Type 26 frigate?

      • Both the proposed Australian and Canadian versions seem to be equipped with mainly American systems and Weapons so I wouldn’t expect there to be much difference to an imaginary USN variant.

  9. would be very interested to see more on what mission requirements and what corresponding specifications of critical hardware to support those. It was my understanding that the LCS ended up being a lesser valuable and somewhat vulnerable asset; the predecessor Perry class FFGs were also regarded as somewhat vulnerable. One wonders what is in store for this eventual replacement – and why the US Navy would bother with it, when it already fields large numbers of the very capable Arleigh Burkes (the gold standard in multi-mission combat platforms). No doubt there is a doctrinal reason behind it – but I had thought the advent of the AB DDG had rendered the lighter platforms effectively worthless to a navy of America’s size.

    • The doctrinal reason is the USN never intended for patrol, anti-piracy, freedom of navigation patrols and presence missions to be done by DDGs. Back in the 80s and 90s the Navy didn’t have to send a Burkes and Spruance/Kidd class DDGs worse Ticonderoga CGs all over the place doing what amounts to busy work.
      Doing that puts wear on the platforms and crews. In addition to playing hell with finding the escorts for CSGs and ships capable of launching meaningful cruise missile strikes when used in concert.
      The current state of affairs was caused by the lack of frigate construction in the 90s and the failure of the LCS program (which were supposed to be cheap and mass produce able), combined with the early retirement and disposal of the Spruance and Perry class. So now the USN has used multi-billion dollar Burkes and Ticos to chase down Somali pirates and show the flag in third world countries.

      • good answer, Elliott – thanks for that. and I agree with you on the LCS – I was just trying to put it in kinder language.. on the flipside though, despite having had DDGs / CGs deploy for this type of tasking – we have also seen FFGs ending up deployed in higher threat environments, in which they have suffered capability shortfalls. on paper I agree with the doctrinal explanation you cite – however in practice I guess you’ll never know exactly what you’ll be running into.. no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. at least it’s a multi-mission platform anyway.

      • Apparently the USN has finally come to the (very) belated recognition that the LCS in its current configuration is a non player in pretty much any role outside of the most low threat missions. This Hellfire package will be useful against small boats and patrol craft but for anything else is effectively useless. Note however, that the USS Montgomery which is an Independence class (and the most successful design) LCS has apparently deployed with the Kongsberg NSM. If so, it’s a very good step in the right direction. Face it, the LCS should be heavily armed, high speed, and unfortunately – expendable – modern versions of the WWII PT boat.

        https://news.usni.org/2019/07/03/navy-completed-hellfire-tests-on-littoral-combat-ship-will-likely-deploy-later-this-year

        Cheers

  10. My concern is this is the USA’s low end platform. Our T31 would be lucky to be accepted as a coastguard vessel over there yet we will be sailing it all over world and into dangerous areas. Italy building the PPA, an OPV that will totally outclass the T31.
    As I’ve said before, if the role of T31 is anti piracy and flag waving then River 2 is plenty so just build more of these and save some money. If not, the T31 should be something similar to what the USA are considering with this frigate. No outright specialities but good solid performance in all areas and well armed.
    So how about we build 5 River 3’s with a hanger, a 76mm gun and a small
    Number of Mk41 with quad packed seaceptor and a 3D radar for say £200 million each, save 500 million to upgrade the T45’s with mk41 and some sort of anti ballistic capability, then wait until we have built the first 8 T26 and then look to build a GP version when we have more money?

    • I suspect you have just enunciated how it went down.

      Act 1 Scene 1
      RN..we would like 13 T26 8000 ton Arleigh Burkes
      MOD : you can only afford 8
      RN : ( sighing) well ok, but the other 5 need to be 4000 ton ‘credible’ frigates
      MOD: they can’t cost more than £250m each.
      BAE -smiling aside to audience ( good job we spent that design money hardening Amazonas/ Khareef hull for that overpriced R2)
      BAE : we have just the thing…Avenger… A bargain at £250m apiece.
      MOD: not a credible frigate and anyway your reputation is &&ite
      BAE: that’s a bit rich. We are doing are best to smooth out your funding delays and requirement changes
      MOD: Too bad, You will have to suck it up, and this has to be an open competition. Here’s the minimum requirements.
      BAE: Managers consult…Suits us, we’ll rename Avenger Leander and get CL to build it. They actually like building ships.

      White knight cries in the distance….
      What ho! It’s Babcock with 140m Arrowhead.

      MOD: Oh blast, this looks too good. Now we’ll have to have another foreign competitor. Meko looks good, and they are based in Belfast.
      This is taking forever. We need to lifex T23

      All go charging off stage left with their designs muttering….

      • I agree that the FREMM is the most likely winner. For two reasons the first being it is the largest and most capable option (and more expensive) all of which appeal to the Navy.
        The second reason is political and industrial. Austal likely has more transport contracts in the future. Bath can keep building Destroyers till the next class comes on line. HII is always busy. But Fincantieri’s Marinette Marine shipyard would be left without any likely orders in the future. Not something usually done in a swing state or when the Navy (and Congress) is desperate to keep as many shipyards open as possible.

        • That’s been one of my points in past posts as well Elliot, all of the other yards involved here would have continuing contracts while Marinette would have neither the FFGX or GD’s Freedom class LCS.

          Cheers!

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here