FREMM Bulks Up

If it means they have to paint the FREMM pink and call the first in class the USS BARACK OBAMA (FFG 62), then so be it.

No shock for the Front Porch here that I've been TEAM FREMM from the start. It is, really, the best choice.

Do what needs to be done. I've already accepted the sub-optimal 57mm main gun in the hope that there will be a Flight II that will put a proper 5" up front - but one step at a time.

Let's do this sooner more than later.

To meet the U.S. Navy’s famously high survivability standards, the FREMM frigate design has had to hit the gym and pack on hundreds of thousands of pounds of muscle in pursuit of wining the Navy’s FFG(X) competition.

U.S. Navy ships are built like linebackers: able to take hit upon hit and stay in the game. But that comes at the cost of extra steel. And in the case of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri’s FREMM, it meant adding hundreds of tons of steel,
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“[The extra steel is] going into scantling, ballistic and frag protection, the way the spaces are laid out: We’re as compliant as a DDG. That’s a lot of steel. The compartmentation, the toughness of the ship, the U.S. requirements that are different from the European ships — we moved around some of that extra space; it gets classified very quickly.”

What hasn’t been compromised has been the modularity of the ship that creates routes for major equipment to be brought in and out of the hull so that replacing, for example, major engine or computer components doesn’t require cutting a hole in the ship, Hunt said.

The berthing compartments are also the same: four- to six-person staterooms with private showers for each room.

The last part there? That should seal the deal for everyone.