Constellation frigate redesign and the cost of U.S. crewing assumptions

What problems do U.S. Navy requirements create for the Constellation-class frigate program?

U.S. requirements, especially its crewing practices, turned an ostensibly common foreign-derived design into a much more extensive redesign.

A frigate advertised as 85 percent common with an existing design can become a very different ship once U.S. Navy manning, automation, and system requirements are applied. The comparison then turns to American carrier crews and much smaller British complements. Automated equipment does not always reduce staffing when procedures still assign large teams to operate it. Damage control needs substantial manpower, but these examples raise doubts about whether redundancy and automation are producing smaller, sustainable crews.