The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: Arleigh Burkes are more expensive

And here you present the exact sort of "mission creep" that drives up costs and kills things.

The manned platform only requires sufficient air defense for itself. The unmanned "magazine ships" it controls will have "missiles galore." There is already an option to stick a laser on an LCS, if that were part of it. So, you do not need all the stuff you claim on a small platform. Sensors themselves will be dispersed, and the necessary data comes from networking. Every single ship forms part of a "super sensor." All their sensors collectively networked together. And the loss of one does not completely blind the others. (That requires cumulative losses.) Due to current technological abilities, a small platform, especially paired with a collection of unmanned ones and networked to others like this, forms a "sum of its parts" that is greater than any individual warship could be made into. And at less cost per individual vessel.

Per "good old Wkipedia," a Mogami costs in the hundreds of millions of dollars, not billions. It is the closest model I can think of off the top of my head for what fits the thinking, though it might not be "optimal." Cost and ease of construction will be top priorities. The Navy will--like with the LCS--have to accept a ship that only meets its minimum survivability standards. (IIRC, LCS is survivability level 1.) For the unmanned platforms, it doesn't even have to be that. There are already preliminary designs from several companies for the unmanned platforms. For the unmanned one, "good enough" must be rigidly adhered to. Gold plating will kill it. It should only have what's necessary.

It is possible to do this. I am not here promising it will be done. Yes, we certainly can screw it up. But, it is indeed possible to mass produce an inexpensive small combatant meant to control unmanned ones, and the unmanned ones. We will have to lose some "old bad habits." But, the technology is all there, and we have done testing.

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However, there is still a lack of design for the new "Small Surface Combatants" (I don't care if they are called "frigates", "LCSs" or anything else).

Developments over the last few decades have demonstrated that small vessels without proper air defence (including defence against missiles and drones) are easily destroyed. This was first demonstrated by missile-armed helicopters in 1991, and has been demonstrated again recently by Ukraine in the Black Sea.

This requires a ship with the proper sensors and sufficient size to carry different layers of air defence, as well as powerful engines to generate enough power for future laser and railguns. It should also be able to control and launch different unmanned drones. Will that be a small, cheap ship? I am not sure. For example, the Japanese Mogami class displaces 5,500 tonnes, the next class 6,200 tonnes, and the Singaporean Victory class MRCV 8,000 tonnes.

Using modern shipbuilding methods would certainly help to reduce costs. It would also have been cheaper to buy a design and build it as is, rather than changing it to a completely different class.

But now, a new design for a new purpose will be developed — hopefully a general-purpose design that will be more useful than overly specialised designs such as the LCS. Otherwise, it will likely the next failed design, stopped by the next government...