Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2026)

Back to the Drawing Board

Italian Navy Carlo Bergamini-class FREMM frigate ITS Carlo Margottini (F 592).

Photo credit Italian Navy

CONSTELLATIONS OF DISASTERS

By Rik van Hemmen fter spending about 3 billion dollars, the Constel- whipping boy for a system that develops naturally when large lation frigate program has now been shut down amounts of time and money are available in a risk averse en- with absolutely nothing to show for it. The New vironment with too many cooks spoiling the broth.

AYork Times produced an Op-Ed titled “America The US Navy simply no longer is an environment for ex- can’t make what the Navy Needs.” perimentation and innovation. It has gotten too large, risk

That title may indicate the United States does not have the averse, bureaucratic and beholden to its contractors to go from technical ability to build ships for the US Navy. However, the a concept to an actual ship in a reasonable amount of time at article itself clearly shows that the issue relates to the Navy a reasonable cost.

not being able to ? gure out what it wants US shipbuilders to In wartime these obstacles disappear, but decades since last build. The Navy wanted US shipbuilders to build a stan- actual naval combat has resulted in a massive counterproduc- dard design. They contracted with a US builder who had tive morass. To describe the morass would take too long for proposed a standard design and then the Navy proceeded this column, but note that for the Italian job the Navy was to modify the design to death. required to run the design through their proprietary CREATE-

The article has an excellent animated graphic that shows SH computer aided design system. This system, developed how the design changed, and to an engineer it is scarier than over decades at massive cost, was supposed to simplify Navy

Jack Nicholson screaming “Here’s Johnny” in the Shining. ship design, but it actually makes ship designs grow out of

I posted the article on LinkedIn and it received a personal control. It is rumored that when the Arleigh Burke design was record amount of comments, likes (actually expressions of run through that CAD system it required over 30% additional shared disgust), and reposts. displacement to carry the same combat systems.

From the comments it appears that at the outset hardly any- It is easy to criticize, but it is much harder to come up with one thought this was a good idea, which leaves one to wonder solutions. I am sure that there is no single answer (short of why the decision to adopt a foreign design for US Navy con- becoming involved in a war that requires naval combat), and sumption was ever made. It might have been a desperation the resistance to change will be immense because there are too move, noting that recent attempts at native designs had been many players that bene? t from the system’s disfunction. How- deemed failures. ever, if there is motivated leadership for change, they may

I actually feel bad for our Navy. They have become the want to listen to those who actually know how to design Navy 8 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • February 2026

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