"Four Reasons Why Hybrid Electric Drive Would Be" Topic

….Good for the Navy's Future Frigate

"The U.S. Navy is moving ahead smartly to acquire a new frigate or FFG(X). Last year, it awarded five contracts for conceptual designs to Austal USA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Fincantieri Marine and Huntington Ingalls. To shorten the time between design and production, the Navy required that the FFG(X) be based on an existing ship already in production either in the U.S. or overseas. The current plan is to finalize the frigate's requirements in the next few months, release a formal Request for Proposals around mid-year and downselect to a single winner for the 20-ship program in 2020.

The five companies competing for the FFG(X) face a number of challenges in developing their designs. The Navy has articulated a demanding set of requirements. It wants a multi-mission ship that can contribute meaningfully in a high-end combat environment involving anti-submarine (ASW), air and missile defense (AAW), and surface warfare (SUW) missions. At the same time, the Navy has been pushing hard to lower the projected costs for the FFG(X), publicly announcing that it had reduced the projected average cost for the new frigate by $150 USD million, or nearly 20%. Also, the competitors are inevitably constrained by the limits of the characteristics of the existing ship designs on which their proposals will be based…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Getting a ship to do one thing really well is easy, to get it to do multiple things not so easy or cheap.

Well, we already (at least sorta) have the tech figured out in the Zumwalt drivetrain, so basically using about half the Zumwalt powerplant would be pretty solid.

And it would give enough of a production run to get the entire system cost a little cheaper.