Navy Hopes for Commonality – Or at Least Interoperability – With Frigates in Australia, Canada, U.K.
By: Megan Eckstein
July 12, 2018 6:10 PM
CAPITOL HILL – The U.S. Navy is in talks with Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom in the hopes that all four navies will design and field frigates with common combat systems – or at least interoperable ones – the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for ships told USNI News.
Jay Stefany said the four navies have quadrilateral talks every six months, and a recent focus of those talks has been the navies’ upcoming frigate procurement efforts.
The U.S. Navy is in the midst of conceptual design work with five companies, ahead of buying the first frigate in Fiscal Year 2020 to take the place of the Littoral Combat Ship in the service’s small surface combatant procurement. The Navy’s frigate design and builder is yet to be selected, but the Navy will provide the COMBATSS-21 system as government-furnished equipment to whichever builder wins the contract.
https://news.usni.org/2018/07/12/navy-hopes-commonality-least-interoperability-frigates-australia-canada-u-k
