The latest annual report from Pentagon’s chief weapons tester said the Navy’s upcoming Constellation-class frigate (FFG-62) has design risks to its three primary mission areas.
The report from the office of the Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) specifically noted Fincantieri Marinette Marine’s Constellation-class frigate design “presents risks to operational effectiveness in each of its primary mission areas: air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and surface warfare.”
DOT&E said it previously released a classified “early operational assessment” that identified design risks to operational effectiveness and opportunities for design changes to mitigate the risks in a March 2023 report. That was based on evaluations from February to July 2022 and detailed in the fiscal year 2022 report.
However, the current report said the unclassified risks include the frigate design “does not have a tracker illuminator system, which is typically installed on other Aegis platforms, and that the design crew size will be highly reliant on currently unproven system automation and human system interfaces.”
The report also said the Navy acknowledges the risk of the current crewing strategy for FFG-62 and “is working with the appropriate stakeholders to mitigate and eliminate the associated risk to mission performance.”
Separately, the report confirmed additional delays in delivery of the first ship. DOT&E said FFG-62 is expected to be delivered in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, by December 2026.
Last month, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro directed a comprehensive analysis on Navy shipbuilding, particularly concerning programs like the frigate (Defense Daily, Jan. 12).
During a briefing at the January Surface Navy Association annual symposium, frigate deputy program manager Andy Bosak admitted they have an unspecified “challenge in the schedule” related to Fincantieri being hundreds of workers short in the shipyard. Media reports at the time said the Navy thinks the frigate could fall a year behind schedule, delivering in 2027.
This comes after earlier changes in the predicted frigate delivery schedule. The fiscal year 2021 budget request documents said the first ship would be delivered in July 2026, then the 2022 budget request expected delivery in April 2026, then the 2023 and 2024 budget requests said it would be in September 2026.
DOT&E also reported the Navy’s frigate program office said they have sufficient access to technical information on the Thales CAPTAS-4 to effectively integrate it with the AN/SQQ-89(V)16 Surface Ship Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Combat System.
The frigate is due to field the Combined Active Passive Towed Array Sonar (CAPTAS-4) to perform an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission after the Navy canceled the ASW mission package for the Littoral Combat Ship using the RTX [RTX] Dual-mode Array Transmitter (DART) sonar system due to technical challenges (Defense Daily, Sept. 1, 2022).
The DART and connected ASW cancellation on the LCS were the major reasons the Navy decided to seek to retire nine Freedom-variant LCSs early in the fiscal year 2023 budget request (Defense Daily, April 25, 2022).
CAPTAS is made by Advanced Acoustics Concepts, a joint venture between Leonardo DRS and Defense and Security. It is fielded on the Constellation-class’s parent design, the French and Italian FREMM frigate.
The report noted it cannot determine frigate survivability yet due to the ongoing Live Fire Test and Evaluation (LFT&E), but the service continues to close outstanding vulnerability knowledge gaps and support validation of survivability modeling and simulation via more large-scale underwater exploding testing in fiscal year 2023.
This DOT&E update made two recommendations: the Navy should provide an update to the FFG-62 Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP), including the strategy to test anti-air warfare mission capability and also continue to monitor development of the “mission system autonomy/automation components in the ship design to minimize risk to mission performance and system maintenance capability.”
DOT&E first approved the TEMP in June 2020.
The report also said that, if necessary, the Navy should “complete a reassessment of the adequacy of crew sizing to allow opportunity to incorporate modifications of the ship design, should additional crewing be required to support all intended missions.”