The search for a new US frigate is becoming a test of whether allied shipyards can buy enough time to rebuild the country’s shipbuilding industrial base against China.
This month, USNI News reported that the US is evaluating guided-missile frigate designs from Japan, South Korea and Turkey as part of a new class of warships intended to rapidly expand the US fleet.
Under an August 2026 directive from the Trump administration, the US Department of Defense (DoD) is reviewing Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Mogami class, South Korea’s Chungnam class, and Turkey’s Istanbul class to bridge critical capability gaps in surface forces following the cancellation of the Constellation-class program.
The initiative breaks with over a century of domestic naval construction policy by invoking a national security interest waiver to bypass statutory prohibitions against foreign-built combatants entering naval service.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao ordered a formal review due in November 2026 to explore a “Finland model” in which allied yards could build up to the first two hulls before transferring technology, investment and serial production to US yards. The approach seeks to put ships in the water sooner while seeding follow-on production capacity at home.
However, the proposal faces steep pushback from the US Congress, where draft versions of the Fiscal Year 2027 defense policy bill in both chambers seek to eliminate the executive waiver and restrict funding for foreign-manufactured warships.
The US Navy designed the Constellation-class frigate as an affordable, general-purpose combatant to relieve overburdened destroyers and rapidly expand fleet mass against China by adapting Italy’s proven FREMM design.
However, US redesigns to meet strict survivability standards backfired, triggering acute design instability, weight growth exceeding 10%, and severe workforce bottlenecks at the Marinette Marine shipyard.
With projected unit costs inflating to US$1.5 billion and delivery delayed by three years, the US Navy canceled four of the six planned hulls in November 2025 to prioritize faster acquisition, redirecting funds into uncrewed vessels and amphibious craft.
After the Constellation-class cancellation, the US Navy launched the FF(X) frigate program, based on the US Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter (NSC), with a planned procurement of 50 to 65 units.
But the first FF(X) version trades combat depth for speed: its baseline design lacks an integrated VLS and instead uses an aft modular payload area that can carry up to 16 Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) or other containerized weapons.
That limits organic air defense and anti-submarine options, while adding VLS and higher survivability standards on later flights could recreate the design churn that plagued the Constellation-class.
Japan’s upgraded Mogami class, South Korea’s Chungnam class, and Turkey’s Istanbul class reflect diverging allied naval design philosophies in size, automation, and combat punch.
Displacing 6,200 metric tons at 142 meters in length and a 17-meter beam, the upgraded Mogami class is substantially larger than South Korea’s 4,300-metric-ton, 129-meter Chungnam class and Turkey’s compact 3,000-metric-ton, 113-meter Istanbul class.
Despite its greater mass, the Mogami class achieves the leanest manning profile with an automated crew of 90, compared to 120 sailors on the Chungnam class and 123 aboard the Istanbul class.
The Mogami class also leads in long-range endurance and magazine capacity, offering an 18,500-kilometer cruising radius on combined diesel and gas (CODAG) propulsion, a top speed of 56 kilometers per hour, and a 32-cell vertical launch system (VLS), while both regional competitors carry 16-cell configurations.
South Korea’s Chungnam class uses a 16-cell K-VLS-II, a 127-millimeter main deck gun, and combined diesel–electric or gas (CODLOG) propulsion to reach 56 kilometers per hour and achieve an 8,330-kilometer range.
In contrast, Turkey’s gas-and-diesel Istanbul tops out at 54 kilometers per hour on CODAG propulsion, with a 10,556-kilometer range, and mounts an indigenous 16-cell Midlas VLS, a smaller 76-millimeter naval gun, and 16 canister-launched Atmaca anti-ship missiles boasting an operational range exceeding 222 kilometers.
The industrial context is starker. China fielded an estimated 395-ship fleet in 2025, against 294 US battle-force ships, while Chinese yards produced more than 53% of global commercial ship tonnage, with US output effectively zero.
That disparity gives China far greater capacity to replace losses, expand fleet numbers and sustain serial warship construction over time. It is not merely a fleet-size gap but a sustained gap in industrial mobilization.
China’s Type 054 has been one of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) workhorse ships, with incremental design improvements since it first entered service in 2005. As of January 2026, China is estimated to have 40 Type 054 hulls in service.
The Type 054B variant displaces roughly 6,000 metric tons and measures around 146 meters long with an expanded beam, representing a substantial size increase over its predecessor to anchor fleet escort missions.
Armament includes a bow-mounted 32-cell VLS system, while satellite imagery of a newer hull suggests that subsequent ships may receive an expanded 48-cell configuration, alongside a 100-millimeter main naval gun, an 11-barrel 30-millimeter H/PJ-11 Gatling gun and a hangar-mounted HQ-10 missile launcher for close-in defense.
The stealth-shaped warship integrates a rotating dual-sided active electronically scanned array (AESA) primary radar, twin 24-cell Type 726 decoy launchers, and a comprehensive acoustic suite featuring bow, variable-depth, and towed-array sonars designed to support Z-20F anti-submarine warfare helicopters.
As China iterates a mature frigate family, the US is still trying to settle on an affordable workhorse of its own. Importing an in-production allied design could narrow that gap quickly, but only by accepting technical, political and strategic trade-offs.
On the technical side, the Mogami, Chungnam and Istanbul classes were designed around the doctrines, construction standards, combat systems and supply chains of their home navies.
Bringing any of them into US service could require substantial retesting, redesign and recertification for US standards and equipment, potentially recreating the customization spiral that contributed to the Constellation class’s failure. Continued dependence on overseas components and suppliers could also complicate maintenance, repair and wartime sustainment once the ships enter US service.
Politically, foreign construction cuts both ways. Allied yards could deliver proven hulls faster and ease near-term fleet pressure, but US yards already possess much of the technology, infrastructure and know-how to build capable warships. The harder problem may be political will: sustaining demand, workforce investment and cost discipline over decades.
If foreign procurement becomes a substitute rather than a bridge to domestic production, the US could further weaken its industrial base and trade one shipbuilding bottleneck for a strategic dependence on partners for future construction, maintenance and wartime replacement.
Ultimately, whether the US chooses a Japanese, South Korean or Turkish design or comes up with a new frigate will matter less than whether it can turn that stopgap into a durable shipbuilding model that produces capable warships at scale before China’s industrial advantage becomes effectively irreversible.
