After Constellation: Why the U.S. Navy Needs a Little Maple in Its DNA

The case for Canada's River-class as the best replacement after America's failed frigate program.

Author’s note: This piece was originally published prior to the selection of the National Security Cutter and announcement of the Defiant-class Battleship for the US Navy. This led to some sections being redundant, while the core arguments hold. For this reason, a new version titled “A River Runs Through It” has been published.

This piece has been left up for interest but, if you’re reading it for the first time, I’d encourage you to start with the updated version. -Hawk

The recent announcement that the US Navy’s Constellation-class frigate program would be cancelled, rather than rescued, has been met with a mix of déjà vu, relief, and frustration. Déjà vu, because once again a supposedly affordable, risk-reduced shipbuilding program spiralled into delays and cost overruns. Relief, because the fate of the Littoral Combat Ship, which continued to consume American treasure and time long after it was recognized as a failure, has been avoided. And frustration, because the United States still needs a capable surface combatant to fill the canyon between the “overkill for most missions” Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, and the “too little to be survivable” Littoral Combat Ships.

Almost immediately after the program’s cancellation, suggestions for what it should be replaced with started to circulate, led by the concepts Constellation had originally been selected over: A variant of Spain’s F-100, an upgunned version of one of the Littoral Combat Ship designs, or an adaptation of the US Coast Guard’s Legend-class cutter. New entrants to the conversation include Japan’s Mogami-class and South Korea’s Daegu or Chungnam classes.

Each of these options addresses some perceived short-coming of the Constellation-class program. However, none of them solve the core reason why the Constellation-class failed: Constellation sank under the weight of redesign.

As originally proposed, the Constellation-class was supposed to have 85 percent commonality with its FREMM-class parent design. By the time the project was cancelled, 85 percent of it had to be altered. The program simply didn’t have the resources, infrastructure, or time to manage that scope of work.

There’s a popular narrative that this spiral of redesign was created by choice. A self-inflicted wound by meddlesome (read: stupid) admirals who could not resist tinkering with a perfectly serviceable foreign design. While this caricature contains a kernel of truth, it is ultimately misleading. It reduces a complex industrial and engineering problem to a morality play and ignores the fact that large‑scale redesign is often driven by rational - and sometimes unavoidable - constraints rather than institutional or individual caprice.

Constellation required significant redesign from the outset. But redesign has a way of compounding. One change forces another, and another again, for reasons even the most disciplined program manager cannot fully control. Once a ship requires significant redesign, it is impossible to know the final scope of that work until it is well under way.

This is why, unless it is willing to significantly extend timelines and once again assume the risks that doomed the Constellation-class, it is vital that America selects a replacement with zero required redesign. Not merely because the US Navy cannot afford another highly visible failure, but because it cannot afford the time even a well‑executed redesign would require.

By that standard, the obvious alternatives begin to look flawed. Every ship proposed as a Constellation replacement would require substantial redesign to serve as a credible front‑line combatant for the US Navy - whether because it was never intended to be built by American industry, does not meet US survivability standards, or lacks an integrated, interoperable combat system aligned with US doctrine. All the obvious options require redesign.

Yet just outside the traditional American field of view, north of the border in Canada, there is an option that is very close to delivering what the US Navy wanted from the Constellation-class. Canada’s long‑delayed, but now accelerating, effort to replace its entire surface combatant fleet has reached full‑rate production on the River‑class destroyer. And, despite its own developmental scars, the River‑class would require no modification either to meet the US Navy’s needs or to begin construction in American shipyards.

The River-class is a variant of the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigate, which was conceived as an anti-submarine-warfare-first, general combatant, complement to the Type 45 air-defence destroyer. Canada, however, used the design’s generous growth margins to pursue a more ambitious goal: to create a surface combatant with credible capabilities across the full spectrum of naval warfare.

What resulted reads like an aspirational statement for the Constellation-class. The River-class is an ~8,000-ton warship capable of 28-plus knots, with credible capabilities for anti-submarine, anti-surface, and anti-air warfare - including the ability to intercept ballistic targets and provide true area-air-defence. While similar to early flight Arleigh Burkes in size, it trades some of that design’s enormous missile magazine depth for enhanced capabilities in areas where the Burke-class is weak, while also requiring a smaller crew - a non-trivial advantage for a navy wanting to man and sustain a larger fleet.

It’s in this similarity to the Constellation’s vision that the River-class will gain some supporters and critics. At 2,300, 3,500, and 4,600 tons respectively, both of the two Littoral Combat Ship designs and the Legend-class cutter which are also in contention as replacements are much smaller than the Constellation’s planned 7300 tons. While the River-class is slightly bigger.

There’s a split opinion on whether the best complement to the Burke-class is a “mini-Burke”, which maintains most of the Burke’s capabilities, but is less resource intensive than the Burke thanks to smaller magazine depth and crew size. Or if a much smaller ship is the better complement, since it will be much cheaper to operate, even if it’s able to assume a much more limited set of the Burke’s missions.

History offers some guidance. In the late Cold War, the US Navy found it necessary to operate Ticonderoga‑class cruisers, early‑flight Arleigh Burke‑class destroyers, and Oliver Hazard Perry‑class frigates simultaneously.

Since that time, the Perry-class has left service, replaced only imperfectly by the smaller, less capable, and deservedly maligned Littoral Combat Ships. While the Ticonderoga’s inevitable march towards retirement, now almost complete, has forced the later flights of the Burke-class to bloat and take on the cruiser’s role. The result today is a capability gap between the Littoral Combat Ships and the Flight IIA‑and‑later Burkes - a gap that two distinct ship classes once filled because it includes two distinct niches.

This context suggests that the best answer isn’t either concept, but both. There’s room in the US Navy’s force structure for a mini-Burke and a smaller, specialized, combatant. If that’s the case, and if resources and urgency make it impossible to pursue both simultaneously, the real question becomes which one should come first.

The intuitive answer is that the smaller, less capable, combatant should be built first, because it can be built sooner and with less risk. However, practical issues invert this logic.

The challenge with Littoral Combat Ship and Legend‑class returns, again, to redesign. Neither platform, as designed, incorporates the combat systems required to meet the US Navy’s needs.

Capable combat systems are not bolt‑on accessories. They require deep integration with a ship’s structure, power generation, cooling, sensors, and survivability features. Retrofitting them onto a platform not designed for that purpose is neither quick nor low‑risk — particularly when the underlying hull has fundamental flaws.

If there ever was a fundamentally flawed platform in US Navy service, it is the two Littoral Combat Ship designs. While these ships were designed with some combat systems, and the US Navy is bravely trying to get some utility out of the existing hulls, their absence from the Red Sea during the recent missile exchanges with the Houthis confirm that these systems are insufficient for even low-intensity modern combat. Even if redesigned, their small size caps their upgraded combat potential, and the decade-long effort required to resolve the existing designs’ basic structural and engineering flaws after entering services suggests that process won’t be straightforward. The Littoral Combat Ships don’t just fail to be a “zero redesign option”, they’re a particularly risky one with low potential returns.

The Legend‑class offers a more promising, but still risky, alternative. Larger than either Littoral Combat Ship design, it was marketed as “designed for but not with” additional weapons and sensors, which sounds promising. In practice, this typically means that buoyancy and electrical margins were included to support future growth but the detailed engineering conducted after specific systems are chosen for integration has not been done. Whether those margins remain available is questionable for several reasons.

The original Legend‑class design was structurally under‑engineered. Post‑commissioning analysis of the first ships suggested an expected service life of just three years. Extensive reinforcement was required, consuming buoyancy margins that might otherwise have supported combat systems. Adding combat systems will increase weight further, which could require additional reinforcement, implying a deeper redesign might be necessary than would be on a platform without this issue. Moreover, the electrical demands of modern combat systems are far higher than those envisioned when the design was completed nearly two decades ago. Electrical margins sufficient then may not be sufficient now. Finally, the US Navy’s survivability standards are far more demanding than those of the Coast Guard. Waivers are possible - as happened with the Littoral Combat Ships - but it’s hard to blame the US Navy for wanting a ship that can protect its sailors and avoid becoming combat ineffective due to minor damage. There’s going to be a strong temptation, if any redesign is happening at all, to increase the scope of that work to make any US Navy variant more survivable.

None of this disqualifies the Legend‑class as a potential lower‑tier combatant. It may well be the best mid‑term option for that niche. But it is not a zero‑redesign solution, and the redesign risk is far greater than it initially appears. The only way it can be a near-term solution is if construction begins before the design work needed for combat system integration is complete. That means assuming that combat system integration will be smooth and not overly invasive, which would be an extremely risky assumption to make.

Contrast these challenges with the River-class in the “mini-Burke” role. Not only does it already have the combat systems needed for that role, the systems that form its combat backbone are ones that are sourced from America. That includes an AEGIS combat system incorporating the USN’s Cooperative Engagement Capability, a Lockheed Martin AN/SPY-7(V)3 as its radar system, and Raytheon’s AN/SLQ-32(V)6 electronic warfare suite.

This is not because the River‑class avoided redesign. The Type 26 parent design incorporates none of these systems. The difference is that the River‑class has already passed through that redesign phase. It sits on the far side of the risks that threaten to doom or delay the other options.

This UK lineage does provide another significant advantage, however. While many navies have far lower survivability requirements than the US Navy, with some requiring nothing more than commercial ships, the Royal Navy’s experience in the Falklands makes it the one navy that might actually have stricter requirements than the US Navy. This doesn’t mean that every specific metric the US Navy uses is satisfied by Royal Navy ships. The specific metrics differ, but the outcomes - ships that remain afloat and fightable after damage, and crews that return home to their families - align closely with US Navy priorities. The River‑class inherits these characteristics, eliminating another pressure that pushes for redesign.

Of course, the River-class does contain non-American sub-systems. But these are generally either UK systems where Canada has already resolved the supply chain issues, or Canadian systems which, while they might be new to the US Navy, are products of the joint US/Canadian manufacturing base, meaning they also don’t rely on electronic widgets or raw materials which aren’t available to to US manufacturers. American industry can copy Canadian homework in a way which doesn’t apply to designs from anywhere else.

This highlights what gives the River‑class a fundamentally different risk profile from other non-American designs under consideration. Some of those designs also integrate US combat systems, but the ships themselves were not designed for construction within the American industrial base. That mismatch introduces enormous redesign risk.

Ships are designed around the materials, components, and fabrication practices available in the industrial base where they will be built. When a design is transferred to a different industrial ecosystem, some of those solutions cease to be available, forcing redesign.

In some cases, these changes are manageable. Substituting a slightly different steel plate thickness may require analysis but, assuming the thickness provides the needed strength and is within the ship’s buoyancy allowances, little else.

In other cases, the consequences cascade. A specialized component made from an unavailable alloy may present a tremendous challenge. Importing the component, or the raw materials to make it, might be an option if America is willing to accept the higher costs and supply chain risk. But it also might not be an option at all, if the country of origin doesn’t have the slack manufacturing capacity to meet the need, and no manufacturer in America has the experience needed working with the material to create a component to the necessary tolerances. This can force redesign, altering dimensions and interfering with adjacent systems, which in turn require redesign themselves. Many mechanisms can cause this and it is how the scope of redesign can grow unpredictably.

It runs counter to the “meddling (read: stupid) Admiral” trope, which is blamed for the failure of the Constellation-class. But many of Constellation’s redesigns probably began this way - with additional tinkering only happening once some level of redesign was required. Any non‑American design originating outside the US industrial base must successfully navigate this process before construction can begin in American yards. And that takes time.

Canada is the exception. Canadians buy two‑by‑fours, not 50‑by‑100 millimetre lumber - even though Canada officially uses metric measurements. This mundane example reflects a deeper reality: For all practical purposes, the Canadian and American industrial bases are one and the same. There are effectively no raw materials or industrial components available in Canada that are not also available in the United States, and vice versa. This means that a design which can be built in Canada can skip the redesign phase when building in America too.

And that’s what the River-class represents. Like Constellation, it is derived from a foreign parent design. It required redesign. However, it’s already in full-rate production - a milestone the Constellation never reached - which means that the scope of the River-class’s required redesigns is known, and largely complete.

This does not quite mean the US Navy could purchase the design tomorrow and begin construction in Wisconsin the next day. Even transferring a proven design between American shipyards requires some engineering work. But that work is fundamentally different - faster, cheaper, and far less risky - than redesigning the ship itself.

Some have proposed bypassing redesign altogether by waiving the requirement that US Navy ships be built domestically, allowing designs like the Mogami‑class to be constructed overseas. Two issues with this: One is that this merely moves the problem. Unless the United States is prepared to rely on foreign shipyards for maintenance and modernization throughout a ship’s service life, the redesign work still has to be done in order to maintain the ships. Second, it only reduces the amount of redesign, it doesn’t eliminate it. Even just changing the voltage and shape of crew-accessible electrical outlets to work with US electronics is a redesign project that can cascade and grow in scope. Taking on any redesign is a task that’s begun without knowing its scope.

While all of this solves problems with other options, none of this should allow us to ignore the River‑class’s weaknesses. Cost is the most obvious.

According to Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer the acquisition of 15 River-class destroyers is estimated to cost over C$80 billion or C$4.6 billion per ship. This figure includes taxes, which are commonly left out of government estimates. Though, adjusting for this, and converting to US dollars, still gives a direct conversion cost estimate of over US$3 billion per ship. Yikes.

Looking a little deeper, the picture does get somewhat better. Prior to the River-class, Canada hadn’t laid down a true warship in over 30 years. This lack of experience has direct impacts on cost which won’t be a factor in US shipyards, which have significant and much more recent experience. This gap in production also meant no Canadian yards could begin construction on the River-class before being largely rebuilt and much of that cost, which won’t be duplicated in the US, is built into the project’s cost.

Even allowing for that, a River-class built in America would likely not cost much less than an Arleigh Burke - which is roughly US$2.5 billion. That raises a legitimate question: Why build a mini-Burke for the same cost as a real-Burke?

The simplest answer is lifecycle cost. Acquisition is only a fraction of a warship’s total expense. The cost of fuel dominates lifetime cost, followed closely by crew. The River‑class’s combined diesel‑electric and gas propulsion system is inherently more fuel‑efficient than the Burke’s older gas‑turbine arrangement, and its crew of roughly 200 is far smaller than the Burke’s 300–350. Over decades of service, the savings will be significant.

But even that defence of the River-class’ price tag is shallow. To begin to explore it more fully, we need to acknowledge one of the River-class’s other shortcomings: The fact that it has an underwhelming 24 VLS cells.

This statistic is sometimes used in a misleading way when comparing to European designs which may have more cells, but either don’t use quad-packable Mk 41 cells; or which rely on their VLS cells to hold their point defence and anti-ship missiles - both of which the River-class has dedicated launchers for. However, compared to the Constellation-class’s hoped for 32 Mk 41 cells, which were also going to be complemented by dedicated anti-ship and point defence launchers, it’s clearly a step down.

Yet Constellation-class isn’t getting built precisely because it tried to engineer too much capability within too tight tolerances without having the time, resources, or or infrastructure to make it work. Expecting an alternative to achieve everything the Constellation wanted to achieve but couldn’t is unrealistic.

The Royal Canadian Navy has acknowledged this shortcoming in the River-class, and stated that it too would prefer more VLS cells on the platform. However, the time crunch created by the looming retirement of the Halifax-class has convinced the Royal Canadian Navy to proceed with building its first River-class ships “as-is” and use the time that buys them to do the design work properly for a “Flight II” version with more VLS cells.

It seems glaringly obvious that this is an approach that the US Navy should at least consider emulating. Begin construction now on an available design which meets most of the force’s perceived needs, and use the cushion of time created by those ships to do the redesign work properly that’s required to create an ideal variant for the future.

There is ample room within the River‑class to support that evolution.

It’s too early to know for sure, but Canada’s future Flight II River-class will probably land between 30 and 36 Mk 41 VLS cells. This relatively modest increase over the 24 VLS cells in the base configuration isn’t an inherent limitation of the River-class’s design. The Royal Canadian Navy is extremely enamoured with the River-class’s “multi-mission bay”, which is a reconfigurable space directly forward of the helicopter hangar which can be used to increase the ship’s capacity for helicopters or unmanned aerial vehicles, deploy unmanned underwater vehicles or large boats, or carry cargo and support humanitarian and relief efforts, among other things. Keeping this space puts a limit on how many VLS cells the Royal Canadian Navy can add to the design.

There’s an argument that this is an excellent feature for the US Navy as well. Especially given the rapid changes in drone technology, and the impact they’re having on warfare, as well as the expectation that this ship will be used for taskings the Burke is overkill for - like humanitarian work. However, if VLS cells are the priority for the future, there are concept designs (based on the Type 26 parent design, not the River-class specifically) which suggest that replacing the multi-mission bay could allow for as many as 96 Mk 41 cells - or even 128 if the main gun were sacrificed.

These are only concepts. Their existence shows that the Type 26 has the basic space, buoyancy, and power requirements for this to work - nothing else. Realizing these concepts would require extensive detailed design work - exactly the type of work this piece cautions against undertaking. It’s also possible that engineering challenges would be discovered that make the practical limit for VLS cells somewhat lower than this theoretical maximum. But the fact that such growth is plausible underscores an important point.

The River-class isn’t really a “mini-Burke”. As it’s been configured for the Royal Canadian Navy, it can fill that role and it will save money compared to operating the same number of Burkes. But it’s more accurate to think of the River-class as a Burke with different priorities, and with a modern systems architecture which leaves room for a broad range of configurations and whatever advancements the next 30 years of naval warfare bring.

This is important, because the Burke is at the absolute limit of what can be integrated into its 1980s architecture. It needs replacement to deal with what the future may bring. And while the Navy is pursuing the DDG(X) destroyer, which is meant to be that replacement, the same institutions responsible for Constellation, LCS, and Zumwalt will shape that effort. A River‑class in US service could provide a compelling fallback if DDG(X) slips or fails. Even if the DDG(X) is fully successful, it’s more of a replacement for the Ticonderoga-class Cruiser that later flights of the Arleigh Burke were bloated to fill in for, than it is a replacement for the niche the Arleigh Burke was truly meant to fill. At a monstrous 13,000 tons, the DDG(X) will leave a vast capability gap if the next largest combatant in American service is a 4,500-5,500 ton Legend-class.

An 8,000 ton River-class fits naturally into that space, however it’s configured.

This returns the discussion to cost. A ship with the potential to become a more modern, more adaptable successor to the Burke - with more room for future growth - should be expected to cost something similar to a Burke. That’s what Constellation was becoming and is simply the price of a survivable, full‑spectrum surface combatant in an era of drones, hypersonic weapons, and dense sensor networks.

In the end, the Constellation-class did not fail because the Navy asked for too much capability, nor because it chose a foreign parent design. It failed because the Navy tried to compress ambition, redesign, and urgency into a single program - and discovered, once again, that naval shipbuilding does not forgive that kind of optimism.

The case for the River‑class is not that it is perfect, cheap, or tailor‑made for the United States Navy. It is that it can be built now, meeting urgent fleet needs, while preserving the option to pursue greater ambition later. It offers the Navy a way to sequence its priorities rather than gamble on satisfying them all at once.

This appealing and unique proposition is enough to wonder whether the best future for the US Navy is one that has a little bit of maple in its DNA.

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