The US Navy is planning for its new frigate to be a workhorse

Using sub ops as a template, dry docking occurred every X patrols and painting, etc. Now having retired most of our repair/tender assets, this could be painful for the USA. But...if worse comes to worse, just having the ship come back home would suffice. After all, we're not in a hot guns-at-the-ready Leyte Gulf style war.

PO3 Donald Murphy - True, and I totally agree. My issue, from a CHENG standpoint, is that we had a lot of new fangled electronics stuff start to break. Some of it was not replaceable or repairable at sea or anywhere but an IMA in homeport. Don't get me wrong, I watched sailors perform some very creative stuff to keep things going, but the hours they spent on crap we should have had spares, was time they could have spent sleeping or keeping in touch with family. Plus, with the mentality of CO's to never say you can't get underway, leads to a lot of problems. Look at the material condition of Fitzgerald as an example.... It can definitely be done, but big Navy has a tendency to see the forest and miss the trees...