Navy says Flexibility is the name of the game in ship design

[paxamericana]

Looks like future requirements are going towards modularity. Why, because we need a flexible navy to move at the speed of relevancy. This concept is not new and stems from many weapon system specifically small arms. Special Ops unit value flexibility more than anything on the battle field because it allows you to adapt, overcome and survive. The same could be said of larger weapon system such as a navy destroyer. The real challenge is how do you modernize ships built in the 70s and 80s when modularity was not a requirement without breaking the bank. Time for some creative engineering by our men and women of the Millitary Industrial Complex. 

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/06/21/upgrading-us-navy-ships-is-difficult-and-expensive-change-is-coming/

[AngusThermopyle]

The Germans have been doing it for years. The Meko class Frigates are of a modular design that allows quick changes in weapons, sensors and other systems to be made easily. Way back in the early eighties I thought these ships would be a good fit for Canada rather than our own Canadian designed ones. They would have been cheaper too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEKO

[paxamericana]

38 minutes ago, AngusThermopyle said:

The Germans have been doing it for years. The Meko class Frigates are of a modular design that allows quick changes in weapons, sensors and other systems to be made easily. Way back in the early eighties I thought these ships would be a good fit for Canada rather than our own Canadian designed ones. They would have been cheaper too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEKO

Back then the US was more concern with survivability by cramming in as many tool kit as possible, with the space it had. 

"We were told to value survivability and density because we were trying to pack maximum capability into the space that we have. That’s why you have what you have with the DDG-51 today. And they are hard to modernize because we valued survivability and packing the maximum capability into the minimum space. And we achieved that because that was the requirement at the time.

"

The requirements of the US navy currently is based on the littoral environment of the south china sea and missile defense. One of the reason they canceled the DDG1000 program other than cost was that they needed to field as many missile for the amount of space they had and the DDG-1000 was found inadequate. 

Edited July 18, 2018 by paxrom