Shipbucket

Agreed on the need for less-expensive ships. Several of the designs posted here may not have every bell and whistle the USN (or the various lobbyists) would want, but they would still be more than a match for anything our future opponent the PRCN would field.

Something like this perhaps?



Not super special but it gets the job done (and yes it has its roots in reality).

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Blood and Fire

Legend class cutter: Cost : Mid-2013 US official sources:
Although the NSC program’s official total acquisition cost estimate is $ 4.749 billion (an average of about $ 594 million/per ship), the Coast Guard more recently estimated the combined procurement cost of the eight ships at $5.474 billion, or an average of about $684 million/per ship, assuming the seventh and eighth ships were funded in FY2014 and FY2015, respectively...
LCS class : Cost : Mid-2013 US official sources:
The Navy’s proposed FY2014 budget requests $1,793.0 million for four LCSs, or an average of about $448 million per ship. The Navy’s proposed FY2014 budget estimates the average cost of the four ships to be requested in FY2015 at about $456 million, and the average cost of the two ships per year to be requested in FY2016, FY2017, and FY2018 at about $499 million, $516 million, and $528 million, respectively.

Source here, enjoy (or not)

Bertholf large-cutter or LCS, 456 to 684 $ million per (almost unarmed : with a 57mm gun, up to 2 x 30mm gun, maybe one RAM or Phalanx, few 0,5" MG, dubious/highly-criticised aft bay modules, no VLS) ship, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT, AMEN !!!

The "heavily-armed" Bertholf large-cutter (with up to a 76mm, maybe 8 or 16 VLS , maybe up to 8 SSM (in cumbersome ageing quadruple style canister !), one CIWS) may end-up to.......800 $ millions

For this price, a european shipyard build a 6000 tons frigates with a 76 or 127mm gun, 32 VLS & so.....

For the USN, better to began to design a new generation of frigate

This may be a bit off topic, but why the hate against canister launchers? They're the easiest, lowest impact and most importantly the cheapest way to carry Harpoon sized anti ship missiles. Even brand new missiles such as the Naval Strike Missile uses them.
If they were as ageing (A curious statement about a steel scafolding) and inferior as you imply they'd surely go for some other type of launcher. Heck, they even made a VLS version of the Harpoon, but so far no-one's been interested in buying it.

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

a few problem with your cost estimate, Colombamike

first of all, let me compare your 800 million dollars for an USN frigate with the cost of one of those 6K tons eurofrigates. the LCF, in this case.
- one LCF was indeed about 800 million dollars to build.
- this, however, does not include the funds that went into the predecessing project, NFR-90
- this only partially includes the development costs of the systems, which were also an joint project between nations, so the developemnt costs were shared.
- this does not include the funds that went into the development of the M frigate, of which the hull shape, propulsion system and stabilisation system were reused on the LCF
- this does not take into account that the LCF became cheaper in the final development of the ship because they chose an different construction method resulting in an larger ship, the original LCF designs, the original design being only 4400 tons
- this does not take into account the inflation since 2005, the year the last LCF was commissioned
- this does not take into account the fact that the LCF was one of the cheapest ships coming from the NFR-90 line, the LCF being 525 million euro apiece, while the horizon was 1.35 billion and the type 45 was 1.2 billion euros
- construction only of the LCF is 375 million euros.
- while not true for the LCF, all ships after it are build at least partially in romania and this presses costs down a bit as well.

your analisis of the legend might well be correct. however. for the frigate version, these costs no longer need to be incorporated, as they are already paid for the cutter:
- development of hull shape
- development of the engine system
- training routine and operating experience

apart from that, all weapon systems were to use off the shelf systems, so no development costs for these either.
the frigate version might thus be not very much more expensive then the legend class + the cost of the weapon systems.

an new design is thus quite a bit more expensive then any of the eurofrigate designs, unless an (partial) of the shelf design is used.
(on the IRC just now, we discussed this a bit, and estimations around 1.5- 1.7 billion dollars a ship were called.)
this cost of course depends on the type of ships, but the cheapest other option is to use an euro design (something I don't see the USN doing, and as all these are basically 10 years old designs or more the legend class seems an better idea) or use an burke as base (for example, DDV-1)

I also have not seen very much export potential in the recent years for USN designs, so I highly doubt doing a all new generation design for an second line frigate (the burkespam will keep doing fleet escort, any new frigate will be merchant escort, showing the flag etc, in other words second line) would really be the way to go.
development on an burke replacement, as is planned, and then put the results of this study into an new frigate design seems to be an way better idea, but that would be at least 30 years or more because these will be in the water.

I would ask of you to disprove any of my above statements, but I think they are better defined then the ones in the quoted post.

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I prefer waiting the next drawing's of Karle

I could make a small vessel with minimal everything to keep costs down, but at the same time, have good enough equipment so as to keep the ship an actual effective weapon system.

if we play around with that drawing above. modifies it as an entire new design, then we get something like this. But my bet is that US either:

1. Redesign an existing design they have.
2. Get access to an ally project but redesign and build it in their own shipyards.
3. or just take an Perry class and redesign the entire ship after modern needs, as stealth, weapons, etc.

Heuhen, that doesn't look half bad, but I don't see the US building a ship without a 3D radar (even if it is short ranged). I don't know how many SPS-48Es are left in storage (after the NTU ships were retired, but then the radars were placed on the LPD-17s), but if you're going to have a rotating radar, that's the likely unit - not the SPS-49.

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Yes 3D noted and will be fixed in the morning. (oh I am not going to finish this drawing, I just drawn some line... to plant some ideas)

at that time period a new US frigate is launched. I'm wondering if US is going to use SPS-48E or an upgraded version or... there might have come a totally new cheep 3D radar.