"Navy plans to retire all frigates by end of 2015" Topic

"The steady decline of the fleet's frigate force is being stepped up, and it's looking like the last ship, previously scheduled to inactivate in 2020, will leave service by the end of 2015.

Twelve frigates already have been programmed for decommissioning in 2014 and 2015. Now, sources said, the Kaufman and Rodney M. Davis, previously slated to inactivate in 2017, and Ingraham, in 2020, will be gone before 2016…"

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Full article here.
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Amicalement
Armand

Hmmmmmmm……………….

These would be great for the Philippines, it would give them a modest but real navy. All they have now is 2 refurbished US Cost Guard Cutters and a bunch of old stuff with no combat value. 14 frigates will not stop the Chinese from bullying the Philippines but at least it would show them that the Filipinos are prepared to defend themselves if need be.

Fons
mmps.asia

On a serious point, why is the US Navy pretty much abandoning Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW)? We're dumping the P3s before the P8s are fully up to speed (and they decided not to put MAD gear in the P8s, which means we're walking away from that technology). The LCS had a planned ASW module but that was never finished (or even started) and now they appear to have cancelled it entirely. Now they are accelerating the decommissioning of the FFGs (which are really just FFs since they dumped the Mark 13 launchers and sold the missiles to Taiwan).

What gives? The only local ASW that the Navy will have is based on helos, drones and other Submarines. Is that enough? Did I miss some amazing new technological developments? It occurs to me as a former USN crypto tech that we're walking away from asw precisely at a time when other nations are expanding their undersea warfare capabilities.

Well, they're old, and the US government has decided to throw away our military, because that's the tradition.

No surprises here.
-Kle.

Because, TG, the world is filled with rainbows, unicorns, and puppydogs, and there are no dangers anymore.

I hope the Canadians will protect us.

Given their age and the lack of margin for upgrades, I'm surprised they lasted this long. Their ASW suite is outdated, their AAW is gone (and never was that much to begin with) and the hulls are getting to their 'use by' date. The big problem is their replacement (the LCS) has failed miserably. Whether the Navy decides to go with a replacement (for the replacement) depends on whether they see their mission as needed.

Blame the people like me. The engineers and tech guys. All equipment ages and needs either updating or replacement. Navy frigates, CAS aircraft, body armor, road, bridges, electrical grids; they all age and begin to fail.

We have all been over the LCS and the F-35 here ad infinitum.

Our society has always clamored for and expected the BEST of our gear. Sometimes, designing the best means we forgo the "really good" and when the best fails… we lose out. Money, time, and sometimes lives. These are costs we pay. Sometimes we just ask for too much out of our equipment, set goals that might just be too high, at least currently.

Maybe engineers like myself should not just say "sure, we can do that" but instead ask "are you sure all that is worth it?"

While the Perry class frigate has nice lines, I seem to recall they were the LCS of the day. They were slower than the submarine they were designed to kill, had an Italian designed 3" gun which could only fire port and starboard. Their "One Armed Bandit" launcher was their only saving grace.
But, for all their inadequacies, they were built under budget and ahead of schedule. Well done Bath Iron Works.

The navy didn't give up on asw. The best way to kill a sub is with another sub and today's integrated systems allow our attack subs to work with the surface fleet without as much fear of friendly fire.