By Moderator, 15 April 2026
In Canada we tend to focus on the problems with our own shipbuilding but we’re not the only ones who
have issues. The US Navy has had a few bad years. Aside from the problematic Littoral Combat Ships, the
Constellation-class frigate replacement program was cancelled in November 2025.
To summarize the birth and death of the Constellation-class project, in 2020 the French-Italian FREMM
design was selected by the USN for the program. The plan was that relatively few changes – 15% was
the number – would be made to the design. But things went off the rails and after a few years it seemed
that only 15% of the original design had not been changed. There were delays, cost increases and
multiplying problems. After the program was cancelled, the USN announced that it wanted a new design
quickly, and one that was not a paper design but actually existed. The decision to go with the US Coast
Guard National Security Cutter as a basic design was made within a month. This would mean a smaller
and less capable ship.
There’s an interesting article by Jonathan Cassels, “A River Runs Through It: The River-Class as an Option
for the US Navy.” He argues that there is a better choice for the USN. And that’s the River-class
destroyer that Canada is in the process of constructing. Because Canada and the United States militaries
have worked so closely together over the years, the adoption of a Canadian design would (in theory)
need less work to ‘Americanize’ it. He makes a good argument. He concludes that “The case for the
River-class is not that it is perfect, cheap, or tailor-made for the US Navy. It is that it can be built now,
meeting urgent fleet needs, while preserving the option to pursue greater ambition later.” You can read
the article starting at p. 36, https://www.navalassoc.ca/naval-affairs/starshell/.
Image: A photo of the latest large-scale model of the River-class Destroyer. Credit: Royal Canadian Navy
4 thoughts on “Exporting the River?”
At least one U.S. organization appears to endorse the idea of relying on allies to circumvent U.S. shipbuilding woes. See: https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/pier-review/
However, where Canada would find the spare capacity to undertake this, and how the U.S. would overcome its traditional Not-Invented-Here aversion are moot points.
Canada does not have the capacity to build more River-class destroyers; if we did we should be building more and faster for our own needs.
The United States could borrow the design. But if the US wanted to take an outside design unchanged, it could have done that with Constellation and saved itself many problems. Indeed it still could. The FREMM design still exists and is still being made in Europe.
Nope. The Legend is the way forward until something ‘better’ could possibly be designed. USN wants dozens. Yesterday. Canada will struggle to meet its own timelines to supply itself with no slack in the schedule to get the Halifaxes replaced. That’s not a slam on Canada or Irving shipyard. They make quality product, but they’re not scaled to build the quantities the USN needs.
That’s before you get into the whole ‘can’t build it in a foreign yard’. In reality, no USN ship will ever be built in a foreign yard. Irving would have to find a partner in the US to make this work.
And then there’s the reality that the River Class has the wrong radar (SPY-7) and deliberately chose non-US systems, so it would still need to be ‘Americanized’. It’s also much too big, being essentially a weaker destroyer (24 VLS tubes) when the US already has the Burkes at similar size and cost.
Jomo. You may want to rethink your statement “deliberately chose non-US Systems”. If you have noticed the latest RCD model, you will see that most of the RCD systems are either American made or Australian/American made/designed, including the SPY 7 Radar system from Lockheed Martin (LM) and in my own opinion, the best option for the RCD that Canada has ever acquired (and it can also be upsized as needed-future proofing). Take a look at the “ground/land based version of the SPY 7 and compare the characteristics vs the SPY-6 (V1) which are comparable. Pair it with the CMS 330/Aegis System (which is also a LM product) for CEC and fitted for, but not with, a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) capability. Batch II RCDs may very well have a more AAW/ASuW component with the BAE proposed (plug and play) MK 41 VLS & 4 X 4 “Trainable” NSM systems midships for future Australian Hunter class ships. This would bring the number of missiles loaded to 96-128 for Batch II RCDs. This would however, mean that the Multi-Mission Bay (MMB) would be replaced with this new proposed BAE system. The Batch I RCD is being built by Irving shipyard now. In my opinion, the USN could quickly switch to an LM/RCN designed River Class Destroyer for their future “Mid-Sized” Destroyer needs which would all be made in the USA.