The Navy will own the frigate design, so it could opt to divide the future work among more than one shipyard. Following years of analysis and international competition, the U.S. Navy has selected Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri to build its FFG(X) “future frigate” design at the company’s Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin.The FFG(X) program is a Navy program to build a class of 20 guided-missile frigates (FFGs). Once construction begins, however, planners anticipate it will take only 48 months to build.A Pentagon proposal would slow the buying profile for both the new FFG(X) program and the Virginia-class submarine.Sign up for the Early Bird Brief, the defense industry's most comprehensive news and information, straight to your inbox.
That means that the first ship should be delivered to the fleet in July of 2026, and the second about three months later. "The frigate, we don’t want to have a repeat of some of the lessons of LCS where we got going too fast,” Crites said. The frigate will become the backbone of the navy’s future capability with 20 ships expected to be procured. Though the FFG(X)’s exact specifications have not yet been determined, the FFG(X) is a guided-missile frigate with an area-defense anti-air warfare system.
The future frigate of the U.S. Navy will be based on the Italian Navy FREMM in its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) variant (Virginio Fasan type but quite heavily modified, especially top-side). The second frigate is expected to be ordered in April 2021, and from there it should be delivered about 5 ½ years after the award date. This website uses cookies to manage authentication, navigation, and other functions. The vessel will have a length of 496 feet, a beam of 65 feet for a 7,500-ton displacement. The U.S. Navy has selected a Franco-Italian frigate design as the basis for its next generation guided missile frigate, FFG(X). Congress funded the procurement of the first FFG(X) in FY2020 at a cost of $1,281.2 million (i.e., about $1.3 billion).
On April 30, 2020, the Navy announced that it had awarded the FFG(X) contract to the team led by Fincantieri/Marinette Marine (F/MM) of Marinette, WI.
“Right now we’ll award one later this year, we’ll award one next year, and the plan is for one next year but that will get looked at.
The Future Surface Combatant is a project of the Royal Netherlands Navy and Belgian Navy to replace the ageing Multipurpose- or M-frigates (Karel Doorman-class). For the frigate, that means the cost should come in below the current target of $800 million, the program executive officer for small ships said here. The Navy’s proposed FY2021 budget requests $1,053.1 million (i.e., about $1.1 billion) for the procurement of the second FFG(X). The buy was supposed to be one ship in FY20, then two vessels every year until the full 20-ship buy was complete.
Of course, without knowing which ship the Navy intends to buy and what the final detailed designs look like, firm price estimates are impossible, but the Pentagon has some projections.
The Navy estimates that subsequent ships in the class will cost roughly $940 million each in then-year dollars.Four industry teams were competing for the FFG(X) program. The first ship ordered in 2020 is expected to cost $1.28 billion, according to budget documents, with the next ship in 2021 dropping to $1.05 billion. Then we’ll ramp up to two to three, with nine in the [future-year defense program].”Money Minute: Getting the Most When buying a Used CarBy giving us your email, you are opting in to the Early Bird Brief. The future frigates will be replacing HNLMS Van Amstel and HNLMS Van Speijk in the Dutch Navy and Leopold I and the Louise-Marie in the Belgian Navy. "As it is, we’re going to have eight frigates under construction when we deliver the first one in 2026. But the Navy wanted to make sure it staggered the buy more responsibly, said Rear Adm. Randy Crites, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget. The third ship, ordered in 2022, should see the price drop below $1 billion.
The Hunter class frigate is a future class of frigates for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) to replace the Anzac-class.Construction is expected to begin in 2020, with the first of nine vessels to enter service in the late 2020s.
Defence News articles Steel contract marks next step in frigate program – 19 June 2020 Suppliers sought for frigate program – 5 June 2020 Keeping the SEA5000 project on track – 27 May 2020 Digital diploma supports shipbuilding capability –29 April 2020 F/MM was awarded a fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract for Detail Design and Construction (DD&C) for up to 10 ships in the program—the lead ship plus nine option ships.Based on the Italian multimission FREMM (Fregata Europea Multi-Missione), the guided-missile frigates will be optimized for operations in both blue-water and littoral environments and will incorporate a number of design modifications for the Navy.The ship will be a multimission small surface combatant capable of conducting anti-air warfare (AAW), anti-surface warfare (ASuW), antisubmarine warfare (ASW), and electromagnetic warfare (EMW) operations.Compared to an FF concept that emerged under a February 2014 restructuring of the LCS program, the FFG(X) is to have increased AAW and EMW capability, and enhanced survivability.The ship’s area-defence AAW system will be capable of local area AAW, meaning a form of area-defense AAW that extends to a lesser range than the area-defence AAW that can be provided by the Navy’s cruisers and destroyers.The ship will be capable of operating either independently (when that is appropriate for its assigned mission) or as part of larger Navy formations.In terms of weapon systems, the frigate will be fitted with all the government-furnished equipment as outlined by the U.S. Navy requirements:The future frigate will be fitted with the future AN/SPY-6(V)3 radar by Raytheon and baseline 10 Aegis combat management system. David Axe, Defense Editor for … WASHINGTON – The Navy is expected to buy its first Lockheed Martin’s version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May.