What a USN Corvette Might Look Like

The image is the latest of the Baynunah class corvette being built by UAE. For those who aren't familiar, I quote from the page dedicated to the ship from Naval-Technology.com

The Baynunah programme is a successor to the LEWA 1 programme to replace the six 175t full displacement, 33.5m Ardhana class large patrol class.

The corvettes are named after the Baynunah region of Abu Dhabi. Construction of the first vessel began in May 2005 for launch in early 2009 and commission in 2010.

ADSB is the prime shipbuilder and Constructions Mecaniques de Normandie (CMN) of Cherbourg, France, is a further major contractor. A sister ship is being built at CMN's shipyard in Cherbourg. It will launch in the summer of 2009 to undergo months of tests and trials. The programme includes a technology transfer arrangement between CMN and ADSB. A CMN subsidiary, CMN Divisions Systemes, will carry out the combat system integration in France.

See the link for more information. What the article does not mention is that the original price for 6 corvettes was $500 million, but the latest news suggests the price is now around $877 million, and the price could go higher. As a starting place, the Baynunah class corvette is a good baseline for what I would be looking for in a US Navy corvette, with slight modification.

If we swapped the 76mm on the Baynunah class for a 57mm, and swapped both 27mm guns for 30mm guns, or put another way put the standard 57mm, 30mm, and RAM system the LCS has on the Baynunah stealth hull, one could suggest the Baynunah class is a mini-LCS without the module bay. For a US Navy corvette, I would basically remove the ASMs, the hanger, and shorten the flight deck and replace with a small module bay, extra berthing space, a ScanEagle launcher, and an UNREP station with a small flight deck for receiving. I would keep the ESSM launchers (2x4 I think), which can be seen under the white tarp coming off both sides near the RAM.

The Baynunah class has a 600 ton stealthy hull, 15 knot cruise speed, greater than 30 knot max speed, and is expected to have 2400nm endurance. I do not know if 64 hulls of a similar ship design with the metrics I describe could be produced for $100 million in a US shipyard, obvious they couldn't keep the costs down in Abu Dhabi, but this is the largest warship ADSB has ever produced so that could be why their costs have become so high. The idea would be to keep it simple and function for deploying specialized manpower into theaters for the manpower intensive operations at sea we see required for facing asymmetrical challenges in the maritime domain. Supported by the LCS as a C2ISR platform and using JHSVs as complimentary platforms, I believe this type of corvette would complete the littoral requirements for the US Navy today, enabling a total solution instead of the partial solution represented in the LCS.

Picture is hi-res for those wanting to take a closer look.