PARIS — Tucked away in a dark corner of a French suburban convention center, a British company may hold the next design for America’s newest warship.
A model of the Type-31 Arrowhead sailed onto a display table at the Babcock International stand at Euronaval 2026 last week. He was one of a half-dozen contenders in the U.S. Navy’s foreign frigate competition designed by the White House to kickstart a new wave of shipbuilding and investment in the United States.
As the Trump administration continues its efforts to design and build foreign warships, several European defense companies at the biennial conference were eager to discuss the options they might offer in a possible international competition if the United States came knocking.
The US Navy currently has two frigate designs under construction in the United States. Fincantieri Marinette Marine is still building the first two Constellation-class frigates at its Wisconsin yard after former Navy Secretary John Phelan canceled the program a year ago. Meanwhile, HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding has a long-term contract to start the FF(X) frigate, based on the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Security Cutter.
While a successful frigate program has eluded the U.S. Navy for decades, the service is working to use a foreign design for a new class of ship in the coming years, according to USNI News.
Work requirements for a new frigate are largely complete, according to Hudson Institute naval analyst Bryan Clark. Now the Navy is prioritizing frigates capable of escorting other ships instead of conducting anti-submarine warfare, which was the primary mission of the now-canceled Constellation-class program. The service wants a platform that can impose a blockade and protect against mid-level threats like those the Army currently faces in U.S. Central Command, according to Clark.
“A frigate could defend itself against the kind of threat of magnitude that we’re seeing from the Iranians,” Clark told USNI News ahead of Euronaval. “Not really (anti-submarine warfare) – it’s more about carrying out this type of maritime control and maritime security mission.”
To that end, six designs from around the world have emerged as potential candidates for an international competition that would adhere to that called for by President Donald Trump in a memo on shipbuilding in August. The White House document called on the Navy to follow the so-called “Finnish model,” in which construction could begin in a foreign shipyard for the first two hulls before foreign investment in U.S. shipbuilding infrastructure. The White House is using the Finnish model to restart the Arctic Security Cutter program by building two separate models at shipyards in Finland, Texas and Louisiana.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has spoken in favor of using the same model for small surface combatant and auxiliary ships. But Congress resisted that effort by including draft language in the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, which would prevent the Navy from purchasing foreign-built warships. Congress is more open to purchasing auxiliaries from abroad.
Despite congressional resistance, an August memo laid out a plan for that competition — developed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao. The plan was to be presented to the White House on Thursday.
The suitors
Since 2023, Babcock has maintained a partnership with leading US shipbuilder HII under the AUKUS security pact. The British company is also working with HII on the unmanned surface ship Romulus, which the British Royal Navy is purchasing.
Sir Nick Hine, managing director of Babcock’s maritime division, said he believed the Type 31 frigate could meet the US Navy’s need for a small surface combatant. This platform should be capable of “performing anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort tasks,” according to the White House memo.
The Type 31 frigate could function as a command ship in a fleet comprising a mix of manned and unmanned ships, according to Hine. Babcock has already worked with Lockheed Martin, meaning the platform could integrate the AEGIS combat system and AN/SPY-7 radar. The design also includes a Mark 41 launcher with 32 vertical launch system cells, but Hine says it could potentially take additional cells.
“Marines are still short of two things, even yours, money and manpower,” Hine, making the case for the Type 31, told USNI News on the sidelines of Euronaval last week.
“You need a cheaper frigate because the cost of some of these platforms is insane, and you need a platform with fewer people because you don’t have enough people. The Type 31 was designed to be more adaptable, more affordable, more available, and it was designed to have fewer people on board,” he added. “It was designed for a crew of 100 people, not to exceed 100 people. It weighs 6,000 tons and 140 meters long, and so it was designed for operations in the North Atlantic, so it is designed to operate in high seas states for extended periods of time.”
To deploy the platform into the U.S. fleet more quickly, the hull could be built overseas to the point where it would be ready to sail while the combat system would be integrated stateside, Hine said.
Another option is that of Spain’s Navantia, which is working on an export version of its Bonifaz-class F-110 anti-submarine warfare frigate.
Navantia, which partners with Lockheed Martin on the F-110, plans to submit a bid if the U.S. Navy issues a request for proposals, Navantia Chief Commercial Officer Juan de la Cueva told USNI News during a wine and tapas reception at the convention center.
“All Navantia ships have an American heritage because we come from a very long-standing relationship with the United States,” de la Cueva said. “We learned from Bath Iron Works, Gibbs & Cox how to build ships. So these ships meet… (Naval Sea Systems Command) standards.”
De la Cueva highlighted the long relationship that Navantia has with major American shipyards such as General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and HII. The company has already provided some information to the US Navy and is waiting to hear about the next steps in the competition.
A U.S. variant could feature Lockheed Martin’s Aegis combat system and the SPY-7 air and defense radar, de la Cueva said.
Besides the British and the Spanish, the Italians also have an option against the United States if they launch an international competition. The Italian Fincantieri, which has its own American subsidiary at Marinette Marine in Wisconsin, could offer the FREMM EVO. This platform is an updated version of the FREMM multi-mission frigate that the United States used as the parent design of the Constellation class.
“I would say we have untapped potential,” George Moutafis, CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine, told USNI News in September.
The yard is still completing construction of the Royal Saudi Navy’s multi-mission combat ship, while building the first two Constellation-class frigates and preparing to build the Marine Corps’ Landing Ship Medium.
“This is an evolution of the original version, which means all the benefits are still there,” Moutafis said of the FREMM EVO.
“The hard lines that work well for a (anti-submarine warfare) mission are all there, and they’ve worked on the areas that one would think would be most attractive – you know, making it more lethal, preparing it to accommodate future growth in energy for future missions, bringing in capabilities that again have to do with the ASW mission – and at the same time identifying ways in which it can integrate well with deployment, recovery and management of unmanned elements in all the domains.”
The Wisconsin shipyard currently has about 2,200 employees and is expected to hire about 500 over time if it wins a contract to build more frigates.
Other possible models could come from Japan, South Korea and Turkey, USNI News previously reported.
Following a discussion between Trump and Turkish leaders on the sidelines of the July NATO summit, the Istanbul-class guided-missile frigate built by several Turkish shipyards entered the list, two sources told USNI News.
Perhaps the country most closely associated with ongoing discussions over foreign shipbuilding is South Korea, which has pledged to invest $150 billion in the U.S. shipbuilding industry as part of an ongoing trade deal with the Trump administration. The Chungnam-class guided-missile frigate, built by several South Korean companies, is an option under consideration, USNI News has learned. At the same time, the export version of the FFM Mogami-class guided-missile frigate from the Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is also on the table.
While the Trump administration has repeatedly made known its preference for international competition, the Navy has experienced setbacks in pursuing foreign projects.
By modifying the FREMM’s parent design for the Constellation-class program, Gibbs & Cox made so many changes to meet NAVSEA’s requirements that the commonality between the FREMM and FFG(X) dropped from 85 percent to less than 15 percent, USNI News reported in 2024.
“What will stop Constellation 2.0 is to stop changing the requirements. If you set the requirements and leave them alone, and just let the industry build it, whatever it is, that will stop Constellation 2.0,” Babcock’s Hine told USNI News.
“Don’t even change the color of the curtains. Just build them,” he added. “It’s this kind of constant tinkering, and I know, having been in the (British Royal) Navy for most of my life, that we can’t help it.”
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