Convoy escort and the value of a frigate's radar signature

Should the US Navy revive a low-high mix for convoy escort missions?

The discussion centres on the escort's mission: merchant ships, carriers, and airborne radar can reveal the formation regardless of a frigate's individual signature. Its explanation of procurement bureaucracy is explicitly tentative.

A convoy escort shares a formation with merchant ships that have much larger signatures. In a carrier group, the carrier and airborne radar emissions can likewise reveal the force before a frigate is detected. The discussion uses those mission conditions to question how much individual signature reduction contributes to an escort's task. It considers a standard light frigate within a mix of smaller and larger warships. The suggestion that current programmes are working upward from a lower baseline to overcome bureaucratic resistance is explicitly a tentative, 'charitable read' of procurement behaviour, rather than an established account of institutional intent.