- The US Secretary of the Navy has cancelled the new Constellation-class guided missile programme
- Just two of the planned 20 frigates will be delivered, the latest in a growing list of US naval warship failures
- Focus appears to now be leaning towards a new Small Surface Combatant concept
The sudden collapse of the US Navy’s Constellation-class frigate programme amid a rethink in naval procurement towards smaller – potentially uncrewed – platforms, is a hammer blow to the service’s ability to maintain pace with China’s numerically superior fleet.
In a social media post late on 25 November, John Phelan, Secretary of the (US) Navy, stated the service would be “reshaping” its composition, outlining a “new strategic shift” away from the Constellation-class frigate programme.
The first-in-class vessel, the USS Constellation, is currently being manufactured at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, and will be followed by the second-in-class USS Congress. However, the remaining vessels, planned to be up to an additional 18 hulls at a cost of around $1bn per ship, have now been cancelled.
In a statement on 25 November, shipbuilder Fincantieri Marine Group said that it had reached an agreement with the US Navy “that provides for reshaping the future of the Constellation-class programme”, as it transitions towards a future model focused on “manned and unmanned vessels”.
As a result, the two warships under construction, USS Constellation and USS Congress, will be completed, while four follow on vessel awards have been cancelled. It was planned that the Constellation class would be acquired in two batches of ten warships, in part in replacement to the failures of the previous Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) programme.
Fincantieri Marine Group said it would “support” the US Navy, as it “redefines strategic choices in the Small Surface Combatants Segment, manned or unmanned”.
In effect, the US Navy will now receive two guided missile frigates, built at significant expense, as a mini-class of warships, similar to the reduction of the 2010s era Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers, of which only three were completed from more than 30 planned.
Indeed, the cancellation of the Constellation frigate programme follows on from the troubles of the LCS effort that has seen multiple vessels retire after a mere handful of years in service.
Constellation collapse a contrast to China’s success
In mid-2024, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated that as a consequence of delays in completing ship design, mounting construction issues would see the planned April 2026 delivery of USS Constellation as being unachievable.
Design instability has caused platform weight growth, the GAO stated at the time, with the frigate’s 3D design incomplete over one year after construction began. The basic design of the Constellation FFG is taken from the European FREMM frigate, variants of which have been in service for a number of years.
Given this, it was forecast that USS Constellation would be delayed by 36 months, indicating a delivery in the April 2029 timeframe. Construction began on the ship in August 2022, meaning a more than seven-year span between manufacturing start and delivery.
The systematic failures in consecutive and multiple US naval surface warship programmes is in stark contrast to the successes of its superpower rival in China, which manages to iterate through generations of warships in the same time as Washington starts, and fails, a single class.
Indeed, the growing gap between the US Navy and China’s PLAN, which is now by some distance the largest navy in the world, has prompted the US administration to seek to partner with non-US shipyards and companies to help deliver warships more quickly.
In addition, a shift from a guided missile frigate design, with all the associated complexity such platforms have built into the design, towards a potentially uncrewed or optionally-crewed arsenal ship, is likely a bid to bridge the growing gap to Beijing.
