When it comes to building warships for the United States Navy, oversight and accountability are crucial. Taxpayer dollars need to be spent wisely and programs must be managed carefully to ensure our naval assets are seaworthy and capable of carrying out their missions.

Unfortunately, a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed serious issues with how the Navy has handled a $22 billion program to develop a new class of guided missile frigates. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into what has been dubbed the “frigate scam” and what led to these troubling findings.

A Brief History of the Frigate Program

To understand the full context of the frigate scandal, we need to go back to when the program first started. In the late 2000s, the Navy began developing the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as a smaller, cheaper vessel intended for operations in coastal waters.

However, the LCS program soon faced numerous problems, including cost overruns, delays, and criticism over its capabilities and survivability.

Seeking a replacement for the troubled LCS, the Navy launched the Frigate program in 2015 with the goal of producing a multipurpose guided missile warship.

The new frigates were intended to have improved lethality, survivability, and be capable of supporting the full range of fleet operations.

In 2020, the Navy awarded an initial $15 billion contract to build the first ship and an option for nine more to a team led by Fincantieri Marinette Marine.

This seemed like the start of an important new program to enhance the fleet. However, unbeknownst to the public at the time, the GAO would later uncover that the Navy moved forward with the contract without a stable design for the frigates.

Design Flaws and Requirements Creep

In its June 2022 report, the GAO outlined serious issues with how the Navy managed the design and requirements for the Frigate program. Specifically, the watchdog agency found:

The Navy approved the initial contract award even though the frigate’s design was still immature and incomplete. Significant questions remained about weight, stability, and other engineering details.

As the design evolved, the ship continued experiencing weight growth well beyond expectations. At one point, it was over the established limit by 121 metric tons, which raised serious safety concerns.

Important combat systems and other key subsystems selected by the Navy ended up exceeding allotted space and weight allocations on the ship. Some may not fit or function properly as designed.

Requirements kept changing and new technologies were added without a solid plan to control cost, schedule, and performance impacts. This contributed to swings in weight and overall requirements creep.

The Navy did not fully assess the technical or programmatic risks of proceeding before stabilizing the design. Their oversight failed to identify and address design deficiencies in a timely manner.

In other words, by moving ahead with the initial contract before the frigate design was mature, the Navy ended up in a situation where the ship struggled technically, grew well beyond specifications, and faced uncertainty about whether critical systems would work as intended. This placed the entire program at risk.

Impacts on Cost, Schedule, and Performance

Naturally, these extensive design flaws and poor oversight by the Navy have manifested in serious impacts on the Frigate program across the board:

Costs are soaring far above initial estimates, even as only a few ships have been funded. The total program price tag is now projected to exceed $26 billion for just 20 frigates.

Construction is well behind schedule due to redesigns aimed at fixing weight issues. The lead ship’s delivery has already been delayed by two years, with more setbacks likely.

Performance remains in question as systems are crammed into a design that is over capacity. This raises the prospect of reliability problems or mission capability gaps at sea.

Navy officials have struggled to convince Congress that the frigates will meet key requirements given open technical uncertainties. This threatens future funding.

In essence, by prematurely locking in a contractor before the design was mature, the Navy has now sunk billions further into a program facing major cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance risks – all of which compromise national security. Taxpayer money has been wasted, and the fleet is without these new assets.

How Did the Oversight Fail So Badly?

The trillion dollar question is – how did the Navy’s oversight of such an important new warship program go so wrong? Based on the GAO report and input from industry insiders, here are some of the likely factors:

Pressure to quickly replace the troubled LCS contributed to prematurely approving the initial frigate design, contract, and industrial base plan without due diligence.

Overreliance on immature computer models and simulations rather than physical prototypes understated technical and weight risks that only manifested later in construction.

Shifting requirements and addition of new technologies were not properly evaluated or controlled in a formal process to manage costs and impacts.

The Navy’s acquisition workforce faced experience and staffing gaps that hindered thorough technical analysis needed for proper design maturation and risk management.

Unlike programs of record, as an informal initiative the Frigate lacked the oversight framework and senior leadership attention to catch problems early.

Contractors focused on winning the award had incentives to understate challenges and be overoptimistic rather than ensuring a solid technical and production baseline.

In the end, it seems a concert of factors – from unrealistic schedules to inadequate oversight processes to self-interested contractors – all contributed to a major failure by the Navy that put the program, sailors, and taxpayers in a deeply compromised position.

Oversight was not even at the levels one would expect for an acquisition of this scope and priority.

Wrapping Up

The troubling situation with the new Frigate program holds several important lessons that the Navy, Congress, and other stakeholders would be wise to apply going forward:

Programs must not move ahead contractually until designs achieve technical maturity and risk is substantially reduced. Immature designs invite later problems.

Capability needs, budgets, schedules, and risk thresholds must be rigorously addressed and balanced from the start – not shifted arbitrarily later.

Independent review authorities like the GAO are essential for maintaining accountability, catching failures early, and upholding integrity in the acquisition process.

Realistic operational testing of prototypes is vital before bulk production to avoid embedding technical issues that blow up costs later.

Requirements creep must be stringently managed through a formal review board process informed by engineering analysis rather than subjectively loosened.

Workforce shortfalls in critical acquisition skills need addressed through initiatives like recruiting and retention bonuses, expanded training programs, flexibilities for industry talent.

Looking ahead, getting the Frigate program back on track to deliver critically needed capabilities for the fleet within a revised cost framework will require commitment and action on these fronts:

• Aggressively rebaseline the program to a design that is demonstrably stable from an engineering perspective. Remove all concurrency to fix issues in production.
• Fully fund and staff the program office to strengthen oversight, systems engineering, and risk management functions. Ensure proper authority and attention from top Navy brass.
• Mandate greater transparency into technical problem areas and the industrial base through regular selection of an independent construction agent.
• Negotiate contract restructuring with industry that realigns incentives for early identification and fixes rather than band-aids and delays.
• Ask Congress for assistance through additional appropriations or multi-year authority to smooth the rebuild – but only if coupled to strict new controls and reporting requirements.

With determination and honesty about the shortcomings uncovered, the Navy can put the Frigate back on track and redeem this important program.

But it will take sustained reform and leadership focus to rebuild confidence after this cautionary case of a major acquisition gone terribly wrong due to oversight failures. Our sailors, security, and taxpayers all deserve better.

In summarizing this unfortunate saga, it is clear the “frigate scam” originated from a systemic breakdown of responsible management, technical rigor and accountability in the acquisition process – not from any single wrongdoing.

With openness to lessons learned and commitment to remedy vulnerabilities revealed, hopefully this case study can help strengthen how the defense establishment delivers vital capabilities to the fleet for years to come. The stakes are simply too high to repeat such an oversight failure.

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