The Three Foreign Frigates Being Studied For Possible U.S. Navy Service

The War Zone | Joseph Trevithick

Japan's Mogami class, South Korea's Chungnam class, and Turkey's Istanbul class frigates are under official review for potential United States Navy procurement to urgently expand surface fleet capacity. Initiated under a White House memorandum, the study evaluates an acquisition approach known as the "Finland Model," which would construct two initial hulls in foreign shipyards before transitioning production to domestic facilities.

American naval planners face severe capacity shortages following the 2015 retirement of Oliver Hazard Perry frigates and the cancellation of the Constellation class program. Foreign shipyards build fast. The service currently relies on overworked Arleigh Burke class destroyers to perform routine escort duties, high-value convoy protection, and secondary surface warfare operations. Adopting a proven foreign surface combatant design aims to deliver fully capable anti-submarine and vertical launch missile platforms rapidly. However, congressional opposition and domestic shipbuilding protection laws present significant statutory hurdles for foreign naval purchases.

Comment

Executing initial hull builds overseas under the proposed Finland Model exposes a severe structural bottleneck within the American naval industrial base, where domestic yards cannot match required surface combatant replacement schedules. Attempting to accelerate fleet mass by adopting existing designs like Japan's Mogami-class or South Korea's Chungnam-class reveals that domestic capacity constraints stem less from hull fabrication than from specialised workforce shortages and sub-tier component delays. The cancellation of the Constellation-class frigate programme demonstrated how Americanising European FREMM blueprints added 759 metric tons through mandatory survivability and structural modifications.

This integration friction recurs because U.S. Navy standardisation mandates integrating domestic combat management systems, radar architectures, and standardised Mk 41 Vertical Launch Systems onto foreign hull frames. Modifying the internal electrical architecture and structural bulkheads of the Istanbul-class or Mogami-class to accommodate these heavy military-grade components forces substantial redesigns of machinery spaces and topside weight distribution. Consequently, domestic shipyards end up rebuilding foreign digital models from scratch rather than achieving rapid assembly-line reproduction.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If U.S. Navy survivability and combat system modifications on foreign designs repeat the redesign issues of the Constellation-class FREMM adaptation, which factor will ultimately determine project success — offshore shipyard delivery speeds or domestic systems integration timelines?

The pattern of U.S. naval acquisition suggests that domestic combat system integration timelines will consistently override any speed advantages gained from offshore hull fabrication. My assessment is that mandatory integration of proprietary U.S. sensors, network architectures, and survivability standards will inevitably force extensive redesigns, absorbing the lead time gained by building initial hulls in Japanese or South Korean shipyards. Until the Navy accepts foreign combat management systems without substantial domestic alteration, foreign hull procurement will offer limited schedule relief.

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