The Navy can't gold plate surface combatant quantity and it should stop trying to do that.
The U.S. has a problem building small surface combatants:
The core issue is whether the U.S. Navy can be prevented from shooting itself in the foot for a third time. America’s ability to get the small surface combatants it needs depends solely on the U.S. Navy’s willingness to pick a design and leave it alone long enough for a shipyard to actually build it. This should not be such a difficult task to accomplish.
A big problem in achieving that focus is that we weren't designing small surface combatants to get quantity. With the now-truncated (at two) Constellation class frigates, we were trying to built Burke Lite multi-purpose warships to get quality with the mirage of affordability. Even that initial author pines for an efficiently built Burke Lite.
Pick a number and try again with truly small ships that can be mass produced and plugged into a networked fleet. Can a USCG Legend-class variant work to fill that Navy need? Will this ship deliver the failed promise of the Littoral Combat Ship for flexible payloads?
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: Illustration of frigate variant from the final link.
