NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – Lawmakers on Wednesday questioned the Navy’s decisions on how it builds and maintains ships, with a top member of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) questioning if the Constellation
-class frigate program should just be scrapped given design delays.
“I think what we have to look at is making sure that we are very mindful of lessons of the past. Look at [Littoral Combat Ship] and what that turned into be two hull forms and all of a sudden, retiring a lot of those early…Constellation is another question. we are at a tipping point with Constellation,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), vice chairman of HASC, said here during the 2025 annual Sea-Air-Space expo.
Wittman reiterated the Navy started by adapting the French/Italian FREMM frigate concept, with plans to maintain 85 percent of the original design but it was reversed to being 15 percent original design and about 85 percent add-on changes so it is over time and over budget.
“I am fully in favor of having a frigate class of ships. The question is, are we at a point where we either quickly recover and get back on track with this? Get back to schedule, get back to budget, I don’t know that you can make up the schedule – Or do you say I think we’re too far off with this, we go in a different direction,” Wittman said.
Wittman argued the Navy has to make that decision now and they cannot push it off into the future. “The same question that should have been asked with LCS years ago.”
Fincantieri Marinette Marine won the initial $795 million frigate contract in 2020 (Defense Daily, Oct. 8, 2020).
Last year the Navy admitted the frigate is running up to three years late due to slow design completion and workforce issues (Defense Daily, April 3, 2024).
In February, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition Nickolas Guertin said part of the frigate problem is it was more difficult to modify the FREMM parent design than the Navy had planned and they needed to do more modeling and prototyping work upfront (Defense Daily, Feb. 20).
Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.), chairman of the HASC Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, agreed with Wittman’s sentiment.
He argued the Navy is generally better off executing a new ship with 85 percent of the capability it ideally wants rather than getting closer to 100 percent a decade past its plan or zero percent as older ships get too old to work properly or are retired.
“What we have to do is get a good idea, do it quickly, and then we have to invest in that and build it. And understand if you need something to fill that capability gap, you can build something to bridge that capability gap or either you can accept the risk of having 85 percent but you understand that risk, but still, that 85 percent is better than zero percent.”
Kelly emphasized the Navy “just have to really get just more agile” and when a ship is decided they cannot allow too many changes that drive up cost, time and might even lead to a product not being produced.
Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) concurred on the problems with the Constellation-class.
“I think my colleagues did a good job of mentioning that the consistency and planning is very frustrating, we keep changing our minds. You know, the LCS is a good example for the Constellation frigate class.”