Constellation Train Wreck Gathers Steam
1st June 2024
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report on the Constellation class frigate construction program delays and it’s an eye opener even for ComNavOps who predicted exactly these kinds of problems long ago.
To review, the contract delivery date is April 2026. Current estimates by the Navy put delivery sometime in 2029, three years late and seven years after the Aug 2022 start of construction (seven years to build a frigate?!), and you know that date is going to continue to be pushed further out with more delays.
As with all sizable ships, the Constellation is being built in sections, called blocks (although the Navy now calls them ‘Grand Modules’ in their typically PowerPoint-ish, pointless churn style; someone undoubtedly got a promotion for coming up with the phrase, ‘Grand Module’) and, according to a diagram in the report, the Constellation has 31 blocks. Of the 31 blocks, 11 are currently being manufactured despite not having completed design documents