CDR Salamander - The Italian Navy Will Get a Cruiser

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of Japan’s yet-unnamed cruiser, the ASEV. I put my thoughts down about it 18 months ago. You can click here to review if you wish.

Like I said to more than one person, “So, the Japanese are going to get the CG(X) we should have already in the fleet?”

Well, now the Italians are making me green with envy too.

Europe’s Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (OCCAR) has issued a €3.7 billion ($4.2 billion) contract for the production of two Italian Navy DDX destroyers to the Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN) joint venture, made up of local firms Fincantieri and Leonardo.

“The DDX programme is set to redefine the Italian Navy’s capability profile in the field of air and missile defence through a significant generational leap” at both a platform and combat systems level, said the two manufacturers in a joint statement today.

…

The DDX measures 180 meters (590.5 feet) long and features a 13,500-tonne (14,881.2-ton) displacement, in addition to a range in excess of 4,000 nautical miles, according to the joint statement.

The statement added that the surface ship will provide an “unprecedented” integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) “capability against missile, ballistic and hypersonic threats” courtesy of a SADOC 5 C5I system, a digital S-band AESA radar and MBDA-made weapons.

In line with a first quarter financial results and a business outlook update, Fincantieri indicated in May that it expected to seal near-term orders worth around €5 billion, including the DDX deal. The shipbuilder noted then that two units from the Italian Navy’s Joint Maritime Mission System (J3MS) program would be contracted within months.

Beyond domestic business, the firm “plans to finalize major contracts with several foreign navies both for the supply of surface vessels, including FREMM frigates, and for the provision of services in the Middle East and other key geographic areas,” reads the Q1 summary.

Back in my post last year, I included this handy comparison that included the South Korean cruiser (and yes, I know they are calling these destroyers, but my Aunt Fanny, these are cruisers) and the Arleigh Burke Flight III for comparison. I’ve added in the Italian ship. (NB: depending on sources, numbers can vary slightly, and the comparison below includes the ASEV’s higher displacement).

I don’t want this to degenerate into a discussion about BBGN and the mothballing of the DDG(X) program. No. On a very serious note I want to point again to a marker I put down years ago: NAVSEA and our entire military shipbuilding infrastructure have yet to produce an effective surface warship design since the Cold War ended three decades ago.

We have a whole series of outright failures like LCS, DDG-1000, FFG-62, and programs that never left the PPT like CG(X) and DDG(X).

Other nations with significantly smaller bureaucracies and industries out-think, out-manage, and out-lead our Navy when it comes to the design-build corner of maritime power.

We have great weapons. Superior electronics. But they’re all being shoe-horned and spot-welded onto designs two generations old.

A fix is supposed to be in. Let’s hope it is. However, we won’t really know until we have more new ships being built, and the only new clean-sheet design with funding, BBGN, is displacing water. Years. It will take years.

Until then, well, Arleigh Burkes until the crack of doom, and we can watch other nations do what we were once world leaders in.

Has anyone been held accountable? Has a name-and-shame story been told that lets the American people know the who and why?

Why not?

We know the who and why of the Ford Pinto. We know the who and why of the DC-10. We know the who and why of AMC.

…but still. Here we are.

Where is our Navy’s Richard Feynman? Feynman is one of your humble blogger’s heroes. He’s the one who famously demonstrated how the cold compromised the Challenger’s O-rings and helped explain why the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up.

That is what we need.

Again, reform is great. Perhaps some of the changes we have recently made will bear fruit—but that will be for nothing if we do not have a clear, blunt, and open discussion about how this nation’s greatest gift from prior generations—its Navy—was allowed to drift into serial incompetence and bureaucratic self-indulgence.

If we do not pull out the truth and hold it up to the light for all to see, then the system and the people in it will drift back to their prior state; the dog will return to its vomit.

Until then, congrats to our Italian and Japanese allies. Take whatever number you are planning to build and double it. Make no mistake, it will increase your nation’s security, your collective security with your allies, and I will bet good money that one day if the balloon goes up the U.S. Navy will come begging for you to help escort our CVN and ESG.

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