Oliver Hazard Perry FFG whifs?

[Weaver]

Luxury super yacht.  Scratchbuild a swoopy new superstructure featuring a pool, bar, stables etc.
If you must have weapons then make it a Bond villain luxury super yacht with pop-up armament and a secret underwater submarine dock.

Tangent, but if I was in the super-yacht market I would ABSOLUTELY show my disdain for gin palaces by keeping every square inch of that gloriously functional flat-panel superstructure  .

My mods would be:

Nav radar and SATCOM domes all on one mast (but keep it a functional lattice mast), with all other masts/platforms removed.
Jacuzzi and sun-deck amidships in the  former 76mm/STIR area.
Diving room and stern platform in the former towed-array bay.
Extra luxury (not but flashy) accomodation in one of the two hangar bays (don't need two helos) and the former CIC and command spaces.
Raised observation lounge (something like a giant space station cupola) over the former Mk.13 position.
Fancier boats.

Couple more ideas:

Since we're saving a ton of topweight by losing most of the masts, we can probably afford to make the funnel taller to keep the exhaust above people on the upper deck.

It would be cool to replace the sonar dome with a clear observation dome.

[Weaver]

It was proposed recently to reactivate several of the class.  I've no idea of what the proposals were regarding equipment, but I guess you could use your own ideas and the advice above to bring it up to date.  Maybe add some stealth features to the superstructure.

I believe one of the stipulations for the Constellation class was to use an existing Hull, so you could start from scratch and design your own modern superstructure and equipment.

I think the idea was to use them as simple 'patrol and presence' assets in order to free up bigger warships for more important duties. In that case, they probably wouldn't get much in the way of new equipment, just a reactivation of their old kit. They'd only get new stuff if the old stuff was either completely unsupportable, or literally gone. For instance, the USCG 'harvested' a lot of 76mm gun system parts from the mothballed Perry fleet to keep their cutters going on the cheap.

[Scotaidh]

Weld two together side-by-each, as they say here, with another hull's worth of space between 'em, and fabricate a half-depth hull to fill the gap.  Now you've got a very stable, if a bit slower, hull with a lot of space for whatever you want - swimming pool for the yacht, crew quarters for the Naval versions, etc.

[sandiego89]

Lots of WHIF potential, with twin hangars, deck space etc. 

- Riverine mother ship, Brown water Navy
- Defense against swarm attacks.  Mini guns, Sea Cobras on the deck.
- Anti-piracy. 
- Special ops platform.  Small boats, Little birds.
- Platform for VTOL jet, or tail sitter.   

[Geoff]

Iranian with Russian or Chinese systems replacing US ones?

[Weaver]

Forgot about this thread but funnily enough, I've been working on a profile of a modded Perry for a story I'm doing. Should be ready soon.

Here's an interesting light on the issues for a poor 2nd hand user. The Phillipines have been offered Perrys repeatedly by the US since the late 1990s. However, they've always declined them on the grounds that since the ships lack diesel cruise engines, they'd be prohibitively expensive for them to run. They're not averse to gas turbines per se since they operate three ex-USCG Hamilton class cutters, it's the fact that the Perrys have to run their LM2500s at uneconomical revs to do, say, 12 knots that's the problem.

[sandiego89]

Forgot about this thread but funnily enough, I've been working on a profile of a modded Perry for a story I'm doing. Should be ready soon.

Here's an interesting light on the issues for a poor 2nd hand user. The Phillipines have been offered Perrys repeatedly by the US since the late 1990s. However, they've always declined them on the grounds that since the ships lack diesel cruise engines, they'd be prohibitively expensive for them to run. They're not averse to gas turbines per se since they operate three ex-USCG Hamilton class cutters, it's the fact that the Perrys have to run their LM2500s at uneconomical revs to do, say, 12 knots that's the problem.

Fuel burn is a huge issue.  The US Coast Guard looked hard at the US Navy LCS ships, which have been a ship without a mission, but fuel burn was atrocious for typical US Coast Guard missions.  Gas turbines are great for speed and maneuvering, not so much for endurance and cost.  The ex-Hamilton class were a good compromise, with the turbines only used for dashes. 

[Weaver]

Forgot about this thread but funnily enough, I've been working on a profile of a modded Perry for a story I'm doing. Should be ready soon.

Here's an interesting light on the issues for a poor 2nd hand user. The Phillipines have been offered Perrys repeatedly by the US since the late 1990s. However, they've always declined them on the grounds that since the ships lack diesel cruise engines, they'd be prohibitively expensive for them to run. They're not averse to gas turbines per se since they operate three ex-USCG Hamilton class cutters, it's the fact that the Perrys have to run their LM2500s at uneconomical revs to do, say, 12 knots that's the problem.

Fuel burn is a huge issue.  The US Coast Guard looked hard at the US Navy LCS ships, which have been a ship without a mission, but fuel burn was atrocious for typical US Coast Guard missions.  Gas turbines are great for speed and maneuvering, not so much for endurance and cost.  The ex-Hamilton class were a good compromise, with the turbines only used for dashes.

Well GTs can give decent fuel economy IF they're matched to the required speed, so they're in their natural powerband at the required prop revs. The RN adopted small Tynes for cruise and large Olympus for boost in a CODOG arrangement and was very happy with them. They then went first to Spey+Tyne in CODAG, then diesel-electric+Spey in CODLAG, although the latter was more about quietness for towed-array towing than fuel economy. The USN adopted a one-size-fits-all approach with the LM2500, which was fine when you had four of them in a Spruance and could run on one or two for cruise, but didn't give you many options in a 2xLM2500 Perry, where the choice was 0%, 50%, 100% or run off optimum revs.