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On my USN destroyer replacement post above.
The USN classes included:
16 Garcia/Brooke class
46 Knox class w/ 10 canceled
31 Spruance class
16 Strike cruisers never built
6 California/Virginia class others planned but not realized
51 OH Perry class 24 others planned not built
4 Kidd class
27 Ticonderoga class
So with nominally 250 destroyers and 18 cruisers to replace the USN had plenty of programs planned and/or realized.
Albeit these ships werent built in a timely enough manner due to cost constraints, or in the case of the Strike Cruisers built at all, along with the fact that some of the 1950s built ships were also decommissioned before some of these programs even started and the other 1950 era programs were decommissioned before their replacements, the Burkes, were constructed.
I discount DE replacements as post-WWII saw this category reduced from 361 to 10(all school ships) by 1950.
And relatively few were reactivated during Korea and many of those were converted to radar-pickets(DER) on the DEW line rather than normal/regular USN fleet duties.
And by 1960 all but a few school ships and the DEW ships remained active with all of those planned to be retired by 1965.
However some former DERs were spared as they were seen as useful for duty in the Vietnam coastal Operation MarketTime.
Shades of LCS?
In addition the Dealey class were what started the USN to consider DEs as destroyer replacements rather than WWII DE replacements. Relatively fast but costly while being a bit underarmed. But could and did escort the Essex class ASW carriers. In particular the 1958 of the USS Wasp MED deployment in which her screen was entirely made up of this class. But with the demise of the DASH program their continued usefulness came to an abrupt halt although with the FRAM program IMHO they were already redundant.
The four Jones class was an aborted effort to develope a mobilization escort design to eventually replace supplant the WWII DE types in reserve alos this type of slow, underarmed ship was overtook by events ie they could not possibly cope with the future submarine threat much less the envisioned future war at sea.
Although it is true that WWII DEs served in the NRF through the 1960s.
The Bronsteins too were experimental but had long lives.
The Garcia/Brooke/Knox/OH Perry classes were all concieved as destroyer replacements albeit with severe limitations due to mostly cost issues.
However I reiterate the USN tried to hide this fact by a variety of means as best as possible lest Congress limit the USN to building only these types of ships vice the more capable, multi-purpose ships the USN sought.
And even though as the USN 1967 MFE study acknowledged ASW drove escort requirements the USN remained institutionally fixated on AAW and ASuW capabiliies.
Even though this should have been quite obvious to begin with after all the ASW efforts like the recent FRAM/DASH/SQS 23/SQS 26/ dedicated ASW carriers and aircraft both carrier and land based efforts but also going back to WWII and late 1940s destroyer conversions that emphasised ASW IMHO.
But in reality FRAM was the only real alternative to a massive decommissioning of the Fletcher/Sumner/Gearing class destroyers due to block obsolescence so while the USN surface force institutionally refused to embrace an emphasis on ASW they were more or less forced to by expedience, practicalities, pragmatism and reality.
And this fixation on AAW/AsuW also accounts for much of the slowness of the USN surface force to adopt the passive sonar means of submarine detection.
Well at least this is the conclusions Ive come to although they certainly arent original or unique but a synthesis based on what I have read.
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