Important trends and junctures in warship design

Abstract

Concerns about risks associated with new conceptual designs of surface warships have led many decision-makers to rely on the parent-design approach. For example, the design of the Oliver Hazard Perry Class (FFG-7) became the standard of surface warship design for 71 subsequent vessels in three Navies, e.g. Australia, Spain and Taiwan, even though the FFG-7 was initially considered under-armed and vulnerable. This paper finds that following warship designs remain derivations primarily of limited parent designs and that generally warship design is now increasingly costly, yet mostly stagnant, and with fleet numbers in steady decline. By contrast, submarine-build programmes generally show regularly refreshed conceptual designs, new modularised build and construction, usually improving affordability and proliferation. Approaching a modern Synthetical Age, this paper submits that a reconceptualisation of the surface warship design space, shipyards and build techniques are arguably at a critical design juncture. As such a revolution in warship design, like the FFG-7 design was, is overdue. This paper provides insights into the ship designs that are necessary and possible from today's emerging technologies. Such revolutionary design could inject greater usability and affordability to naval surface fleets and build more political, economic and military affordability of ships and potential warfare losses. This new approach is called ‘Versatile modularisation’.