9/28/2023 0 Comments Us frigate![]() The question of whether arming an unmanned vessel with Tomahawk before a manned one causes program risk is open for discussion, but the engineering and costs associated with adding it to FFG-63 and forward are more concrete. The committee believes that jumping directly to Tomahawk-capable USVs without first having ensured that the FFG–62 class is Tomahawk-capable presents excessive technical risk in such USV programs.” The committee believes the FFG–62 class should include optimized Tomahawk Weapons System hardware and software, which would both provide a necessary lethality increase for the FFG–62 class and serve as a key technical risk reduction advance in realizing Tomahawk-capable USVs. “The committee notes the Navy is developing and fielding ‘virtualized’ weapons control system technology, including systems to support its vision for Tomahawk-capable unmanned surface vessels. The reason given by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) for the change was that it was concerned that the Navy was rushing to arm unmanned ships with Tomahawk before ensuring it was available to all manned ships. Any future fight with the Chinese or Russian navies will require large numbers of capable ships, not just a handful of high payload-producing platforms, and more frigates are needed to swell U.S. needs more frigates and ought to be building more FFG-62 class ships than DDG-51 Flight III ships. surface fleet toward all high-end ships that are more costly to maintain over time. Adding these capabilities to a ship that some observers have said is already too large and capable further imbalances the U.S. ![]() The FFG-62 class ship can conduct air defense and surface attack without those weapons. The Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles are also outside the role of the FFG-62 class as a lower-end surface combatant. While it sounds good on paper to increase the armament of any vessel, making such changes at this stage in the program is hazardous as it will delay the scheduled builds of FFG 63 and follow-on ships, and open the class to a potential flood of other upgrades that would increase the overall cost of the program. 131), is a demand to up-arm the Constellation class frigates after the initial unit (FFG 62 USS Constellation), with Standard Missile 6 surface to air missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contains a number of naval provisions, one of which (Sec.
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