The Last Frigate

The USS Kauffman is about to become the last of its breed.

When the ship leaves Naval Station Norfolk on Thursday for a six month deployment to the waters off Central America, it will mark the final deployment of a Navy frigate. The Kauffman will be part of a multinational, counter-narcotics operation known as Operation Martillo.

When the warship returns, it will be the last frigate in the Navy's inventory to be decommissioned later this fall.

Destroyer escorts/frigates have been serving the Navy for the last 74 years. The Navy has gotten rid of them, because DE/FFs were primarily ASW-oriented warships (the Battle off Samar notwithstanding).

To some extent, the Navy is replacing frigates with the Little Crappy Ships, because no other navy, at the current time, poses the sort of threat that the German and Japanese navies did during the war, or the Soviet Navy did during the Cold War. Other nations, however, don't seem to agree that frigate-sized warships are no longer useful. But those navies are looking at a larger naval power in their maritime neighborhoods, one with a submarine capability, and they may feel a need to prepare.

As maybe so should we. But navies are very expensive to build, train and maintain, and we're too busy chasing around tribesmen armed with rusty Kalashnikovs to worry about what may happen in the next decade or so.