They look like they will be fairly capable ships. In fact I think it may be overkill for what was being discussed for the low end in the Carrier VLS thread. I wonder if you could mount a 5 inch gun in the bow, mount an eight cell VLS in place of the three inch gun on the deck house and mount a Evolved sea sparrow or RAM launcher in place of where the CIWS used to be. Also maybe put a .50 caliber or two on each side of the ship as well. Keep the helo facilities and upgrade the sonar.

Can't mount a VLS at midships due to centre of gravity and space intrusion issues.

Something tells me if you cannot mount the VLS up there then you cannot mount a 5 inch gun up there either.  For this mission I really think the gun may be more important than missiles so I guess I would look into mounting a 5 inch gun in the bow where the Mk13 used to be, upgrading the Otto Malera on the deck house to something better and going with a RAM launcher or ESSP in place of Phalanx. I would  also look into trying to fit a harpoon box launcher between the gun mount and the bridge.

Different volumetric and spatial mass issues...

Or dust off the Knox, give it diesels, and repackage it to 21st century standards?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2346/2262496986_117bcbf7e1_o.jpg">Herald

I remember that we built Liberty ships to a pre WW I British freighter design that we pocked for its ease of fabrication and its cargo efficiency. We chose cheap and effective, because we needed numbers in a big hurry.

The Knox design is EFFECTIVE and it is cheap.
Its a classic frigate design layout. We still have the plans around somewhere gathering dust. Diesels aren't as noisy as they used to be though they still send one heck of a sound short into the water, but that can't be helped if you want speed, economical cruising and range in a cheap 5000 ton hull. You should be using a thermo-electric drift engine if you use hull sonar anyway. Short Mk 41 VLS behind the forecastle gun is acceptable. pack it with ESSMs and mount a couple of RAM launchers and your  helo UAV/UUV facilities on the back end, put in a SPY1A and your done. $750M frigate.

Save 70% of the detail design work. Remaining 30% is diesel electric propulsion, all electric control systems, cable running the ship electronics [Boy did the Russians screw up the Indian carrier bid when they didn't estimate that one properly!], and automation to reduce crew size to a manageable 100 men; but the point is that you do the detail design changes in the computer for new build hulls . That is why an ostensible  $400M frigate through the first four units costs so much. After the bugs get worked out in cutting hull metal, then we can start selling them to the allies for $400M a pop and build them for ourselves in the 50 or so I think we need for the surface fleet.

Herald

The trouble with buying second hand is that then end user has to inspect thoroughly and understand exactly what is on the blocks. The Canadians should have found the Upholders to be excellent, but you know that you second source tech or try to modify that things you planned never work out as planned. It never ceases to amaze me that people don't understand .that a US identical product in Israeli service will eventually be modified by a radically different tech tree than one in Australian service. Each end user tweaks his model to his own version of tech.

So when the Canadians truied to incorporate some "American" technology into a "British" boat using the Canadian "tech tree", they ran into all kinds of problems.

Its one of the reasons that if the US does decide to build a cheap frigate we should grab one out of own tech tree and tweak it as OUR general purpose frigate instead of trying to fit someone elses design into our mission footprint.

Its why I'm surprised that Australaia didn't look at the Dutch or British when she examined AWD candidates.as well as US and Spain. Just stay the heck away from ASTER! That piece of no-growth technology  rubbish was a dead ender from day 1.

You know the RN will be tearing their hair out when they see what replaces Standard 2, 3, and 6. And we have our friends the Australians to largely thank for it.

Herald