With the all-hand-on-deck effort to come up with ideas to get us to 355 ships, one of the more interesting ones is bringing back in to service the few Oliver Hazard Perry frigates we have in mothballs. There aren’t many left, but enough to give us a bump;
Navy brass are seriously examining the possibility of pulling seven or eight of its Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates out of retirement as the service works to surge its numbers.
Speaking Tuesday morning at a current strategy forum hosted by the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said the move was under consideration, though it would likely entail significant effort to modernize the older ships.
“We’ve got to be thoughtful about this,” he said. ” … Those are some old ships and the technology on those ships is old. And in this exponential type of environment, a lot has changed since we last modernized those. So it will be a cost-benefit analysis in terms of how we do that.
There are 10 OHP to choose from that may be candidates for modernization depending on condition. They are old. On average, they have 30-yrs of commissioned service; HALYBURTON, KLACKRING, DEWERT, VANDEGRIFT, ROBERT G. BRADLEY, CARR, ELROD, SIMPSON, KAUFFMAN, & RODNEY M. DAVIS.
First things first; if we are just going to bring them back with the same capabilities we put them up with, then don’t bother. Once we removed the MK-13 “One Armed Bandit” launcher, it just became the world’s most expensive self-propelled 76mm gun with attached helo pad.
No, even if we can only squeak out a decade from them until a replacement for the LCS/FF begins to displace water (yes, we’re late on that) then we should do it. If feasible to bring them back, then let’s do it right and benchmark the best of breed.
The Australian version of the OHPs is the Adelaid Class. They had a rather significant modernization earlier this century. They are now capable of firing SM-2MR and Harpoon missiles from the Mark 13 launcher. Even more importantly, they now have an 8-cell Mark VLS that among other things can pack up to 32 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles. Other ship’s weapons were also upgraded to the best existing off-the-shelf.
The Turkish modifications of former USN OHP are the “G-Class” frigates. In some ways they are similar to the Australian modernizations. They have the 8-pack MK-41 VLS, but appear to retain legacy capabilities with the MK-15 and were more modest with other more budget-minded improvements.
Somewhere between the Australian and Turkish modernization should be our entering argument if the OHP are to return to the fleet. If so done, the minute they get underway, these 30+yr old hulls will be more capable than the newest construction LCS making its way to the fleet.
