Who has the best frigates

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EW3 RE:Who has the best frigates 3/10/2005 11:47:38 PM

You're on to an important notion. But first, while it may appear the US wants to be #1 at everything, we can't afford it. We want to be #1 against the most likely enemy. That is why for the longest time we were a deep water Navy. The big threat was the USSR. Now things are changing. We are reducing the number of deep water ships we are building. No more Seawolves, less carriers etc. But at the same time I expect we are cranking up the VA class sub, and are working on development of more littoral ships. I suspect they will be more like stealth corvettes. FWIW - the term frigate is very ambiguous. My ship originally designated a DE was redesignated a FF (frigate). But it's job, regardless of designation was deep water. Chasing a sub in deep water is a lot harder than chasing a sub in shallow water.

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boer RE:Who has the best frigates 3/11/2005 12:19:45 PM

The dutch "zeven provinciën" is a relativly new fragate (2001) which has a steahlty design , and if I have to believe the dutch navy site it was the first in it's class to use Advanced Phased Array Radar. the armament is : Oto Breda-kanon 127 mm, Vertical Launch System (VLS) Mk 41 for Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile and Standard Missile 2, Block III Harpoon Missile, Goalkeeper, Oerlikon-mitrailleurs 20 mm, Mk. 46 Torpedo-weaponsystem, NH-90 helikopter. for some photo's go to the link( it's in dutch): link

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perfectgeneral RE:Saudi or Singapore frigates? 3/11/2005 1:10:42 PM

I don't think the Singapore one is ready yet so, currently, the Saudi (french build) frigate has the most bells and whistles. Navy-technology has a treatment on both.

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fitz RE:Saudi or Singapore frigates? 3/12/2005 7:16:18 AM

But they are still both based on the cheap and crappy La-Fayette design.

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addo RE:The Visby 3/13/2005 9:56:42 AM

Is just a corvette, even if it fields an impressive arsenal of weapons for it's size. The Swedes are working on a "Visby stealth class" Frigate tho. Think it was called "Ytstridsfartyg NY" or something like that.

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shawn RE:Saudi or Singapore frigates? 3/13/2005 12:14:28 PM

I'm not sure that the La Fayette derived Al Riyadh's or Formidables are "cheap and crappy". Granted, the Taiwanese got a pretty raw deal with the Kang Ding Class, which I think has a pretty obselete SAM system in the Sea Chaparral (unless they figured out how to mount AIM-9M seekers on their missiles), and there was all that hoo-haa about bribes, but the later derivatives could be a different type of fish altogether. The Formidable Class, for example, was 'purchased' for US$1 billion for 6 ships. This seems pretty cheap, at about US$160 million a ship, especially when you compare it to the DDG51 Aleigh Burke Class (which are almost 3 times heavier in displacement, carries 1 more helo and 60 more missiles) that comes to just over US$1 billion each for a class of 64! However... bear in mind that only one Formidable was built at DCN - the rest are being built in Singapore, and that the 'quoted' price most likely does not include a lot of the electronics and weapons systems, which will be fitted out in Singapore. These ship's Bridge, Ship Systems Management and Combat Management Systems are all developed in Singapore. The total price of the program will probably never be fully revealed.

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fitz RE:Saudi or Singapore frigates? 3/13/2005 4:45:40 PM

A few years ago when "Streetfighter" (I can say that name in public, right) was still a big deal DCN made a presentation to a group of USN officers pitchign a La Fayette derivative for the Streetfighter mission. A certain admiral bought the sales pitch and asked Forecast International to conduct a study on the design. Forecast came back and essentially said that most of DCN's claims about the design were BS, it's signatures were higher than claimed, the design suffered from unacceptably high stress levels and its damage control features (particularly the long uninterupted central passage) were horribly inadequate. As for costs, you admit the Formidable's costs don't include weapon and combat systems but the DDG-51 price does (but is also slightly high) so your comparison is instantly meaningless. You'll have to at least double (probably triple) your unit cost figures for the Singaporean ships. My best guess is $4-500m each in real total dollars. If you want to talk about value for money though, see my very recent post in the DD(X) thread comparing the Norwegian Nansen to the DDG-51 on a cost vs. capability basis.

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Bluewings RE:LaFayette frigates 3/14/2005 12:08:30 PM

Quote : "based on the cheap and crappy La-Fayette design." ?? I am sorry but you are mistaking . LaFayette Frigates are of an excellent design , and it doesn 't come "cheap" . See there : link Cheers .

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shawn RE:Saudi or Singapore frigates? -fritz 3/14/2005 1:25:49 PM

Fritz, I was responding to your quote "cheap and crappy," in that I thought you felt that the US$1billion deal for 6 Formidables is considered cheap, and was elaborating that this quoted price was most likely for manufacturing license and without weapon systems and electronic fittings. I have also heard of the stress level and damage control reports on the La Fayatte class before. As I mentioned, the Al Riyadh and the Formidable Classes are derivitives, and so you cannot apply the preceived faults of the baseline class too literally. As I do no have as much source materials for the Al Riyadh class as the Formidables, I will confine further comments to the latter. In particular, the Formidables for a start looks significantly modified, with a reduced and reprofiled superstructure. the local shipbuilder, ST Marine, has not only experience in commercial and military shipbuilding, but has also has the resources and experience of its subsidary, VT Halter Marine to draw upon. The project is overseen by Singapore's Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), which has a solid reputation for military systems integration.

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fitz RE:LaFayette frigates 3/14/2005 2:53:23 PM

Naval-Technology is an advertising web site so information gleaned from there must be taken accordingly. As for my opinion of them as "cheap", I was referring to quality, not cost. Why anyone would bother with these when they can have an infinately better MEKO derivative is beyond me. Graft?

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