As the holidays loom, it appears the US Navy is getting a couple of new denizens for its island of misfit toys. Last month, Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan took to X to announce the cancellation of the FFG-62 Constellation-class guided-missile frigate program. Two hulls are partly complete and will be delivered to the Navy once finished, in large measure to forestall a brain drain from the workforce at the Martin Marinette shipyard in Wisconsin. Secretary Phelan paid tribute to Wisconsin and Michigan shipwrights, declaring that “keeping this critical workforce employed and the yard viable for future navy shipbuilding is of foremost concern.”

The two Constellations will join the three-ship DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyers—and, to a lesser degree, the Freedom– and Independence-class littoral combat ships (LCS)—among warship classes truncated prematurely. These rump classes came about for different reasons, furnishing a variety of lessons for the new frigate the US Navy and industry will evidently now design and build.

Cost was the overriding concern with DDG-1000. The Zumwalts’ upfront price tag got out of hand, and their gun ammunition proved unaffordable. So the production run dwindled from 32 hulls to three over the years, further spiking unit costs. Now, the US Navy should wring some value out of the remaining vessels once the yards finish backfitting them with large vertical launch tubes able to disgorge hypersonic surface-to-surface missiles. Still, three hulls is an extraordinarily lean fleet contingent. Considering the rhythm of maintenance and overhaul, training and workups, and overseas deployment in a ship’s life, it is doubtful the Navy will have even one Zumwalt available for fleet duty at all........

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