Italian FREMM, the basis for the FFG-62 program. Fincantieri Marine Group Image
This story was updated to include a statement from a spokesman for Navy acquisition chief James Geurts.
The lead ship in the Navy’s next-generation frigate class could cost $1.6 billion, a figure that is 40 percent above the service’s projections for the first-in-class vessel, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
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The following is the Oct. 13, 2020 Congressional Budget Office report, The Cost of the Navy’s New Frigate. Read More
USS Constellation (FFG-62). Fincantieri Image
BALTIMORE, Md. – The Navy will name the first of its new class of frigates USS Constellation (FFG-62), in a nod to one of the original six frigates the Navy bought just after the Revolutionary War. Read More
USS Constellation (CV-64). US Navy Photo
American aircraft carriers at their peak are the queens of the high seas, outclassing even America’s nearest peer competitors. They’re the anchors of U.S. seapower, and have a commensurate price tag, costing billions of dollars to build and thousands of sailors to man.
But even the proudest ships outlive their military usefulness — and sometimes they’re barely worth the trouble to tear them down. Read More
Lt. j.g. Forrest “Zeke” Zetterberg disembarking from E-1B Vietnam mission. Forrest Zetterberg Photo
The following is a first person account of the events over the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964. Another view of the Gulf of Tonkin incident can be found in the August, 2010 issue of Proceedings.
At approximately 0355 on the morning of Aug. 4, 1964 in the South China Sea, the aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CVA-64), was steaming toward the Gulf of Tonkin at as high a speed as she could without losing her accompanying destroyers. Despite an attack by North Vietnamese PT boats two days earlier, the U.S. government had decided to send the destroyers USS Maddox (DD-731) and Turner Joy (DD-951), on a route similar to the one where that attack had occurred.
The carrier USS Ticonderoga was already operating in the area and Constellation, though still about 200 miles away, was rapidly moving into position to provide support. Read More
