A vestige of the Biden era is cancelled, the hurriedly ordered, poorly planned Constellation Frigate
The U.S. Navy needs to grow much larger than the current size of just under 300 ships. China has already blown by this number and continues to expand.
The Constellation Frigate was badly needed by the U.S. Navy. It was ordered in record time during the Autopen years, supposedly based upon an existing European design.
There was just one problem. The design was roughly 70% complete when the contract was awarded. The rest was going to be worked out after the award.
One small problem with that logic from the Autopen Administration, 30% is a lot to work out before something goes into production. The Navy kept making changes to that 30% plus the agreed upon 70% of the design.
100% of the design should be approved before things go into production. Setting up an assembly line, sub-system orders, workflow, etc. for a 70% design is downright irresponsible. Of course there are going to be schedule delays and cost growth.
The much better way to handle matters like this is freeze the design as is, reserve space and weight for weapons and systems, get the hull form and propulsion correct, build a few, and concurrently incorporate design changes into future models of the ships.
But no, the order was given to start building when 30% of the design was still unclear and changes were numerous.
This was not an issue with the contractor, this was a Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) culture issue combined with the deranged, DEI Autopen.
Department of War’s former motto was, “we never have enough time to do it right, but we always have enough time to do it over”.
Let’s get it right the first time when we do this over again, we’re running out of time.
