The United States Navy recently announced that they plan to replace all their Oliver Hazard Perry frigates with Ticonderoga Cruisers...
They're being replaced with Arleigh Burkes.
And yes, this is for real. Most of the first-flight and second-flight Perrys have been sent into the reserve. The third-flight Underwoods are the majority of the remaining active ones. They will be replaced by the next class of DDGs. I haven't heard diddly about the Littoral Combatant in years and have good reason to believe the project is either on hold or canceled in favor of the new DDGs.
Understand this very clearly: The Ticos are going
nowhere. There are no plans to phase them out, they remain the primary escorts of a carrier and they are still the most capable surface warships afloat. At most they might drop the Blk 1s, which don't have VLS launchers, but this is unlikely. There are also still ships from the Belknap and Leahy classes in service.
Mad, you forgot the Spruance class DDs. They don't get any of the press since they're not as flashy but they're still some the best antisubmarine ships out there, and they have Mk41 VLS launchers to boot now. Perhaps people are confusing them with the Ticos. They use the same hull.
France has the
Charles De Gaulle, which is a CVN like US carriers but has only about half the air group. Germany intended to buy a conventionally-powered De Gaulle but I don't know if that ever went through. I suspect not.
Russia has a single CVN of similar size to the De Gaulle. The
Varyag was never completed. The
Kiev and its three sisters are not properly classed as full CVs; they are more comparable to Britain's jump-jet carriers and in any case have the front end of a CG bolted on. Only the
Minsk remains in service in any case. Everyone from India to China to Iran expressed interest in buying a slightly used Kiev but ultimately no one did.
The Brits have the Invincibles which are not full CVs either and have pathetically small airwings. They are however the only major power besides the US and Russia that could hope to muster a decent group of escorts. (The French have no AA shooters worthy of the name and their ASW ships are out of date.)
The Indians have two carriers but both are relatively small (one is the ex-British Hermes and the other they built themselves) and operate only jumpjets. The largest combatants in the remainder of the Indian Navy are modified Russian Kashin-class destroyers and they would be horribly outmatched by a modern combatant.
Rounding out the world the Italians have a pair of hybrid cruiser-carriers that are very respectable combatants but operate only helicopters at the moment (perversely, the Italians too could muster a respectable escort group), and Spain has the
Principe de Asturias, which is very similar to the British Invincible.
