Navy weighs foreign-built frigates to speed up fleet renewal
The US Navy is evaluating overseas frigate designs from Japan’s Mogami, South Korea’s Chungnam, and Turkey’s Istanbul under a White House national-security waiver that could allow initial hulls to be built abroad before U.S. production begins; only the first two frigates might be built overseas, with later ships produced domestically, a radical shift that faces congressional resistance and will be clarified by a November study alongside the existing FF(X)/Legend Cutter plans.