After pulling into Thailand looking very much like it just spent 286 days at sea, the U.S. Navy’s supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln is now getting much-needed TLC. When the Lincoln arrived in the Thai port of Laem Chabang on Sept. 2, it had so-called “running rust” and algae caked all along the sides of the hull. Other parts of the ship, especially around the edges of the flight deck and sponsons on either side, also looked rough. The ship’s condition was a stark, visible reminder of the hardships endured by the carrier and its crew during a long deployment that included a key role in the war against Iran.

Video emerged on social media of local workers cleaning the carrier. Two of them can be seen on a scaffolding platform, dressed in silver-colored protective clothing, yellow helmets, face shields and black boots, spraying the side of the big ship. You can see that most of the rust, as well as all of the green swath of algae, was removed from the section where they are working.

The camera also pans across the ship, showing the extent of the work still needed. 

Those recent viral rust photos/footage of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) in Thailand overstated the story.

Yes, the hull looked rough in pictures, but the ship itself was never in question, that's the part the headlines skipped.

Today at Laem Chabang Port in Thailand, local… pic.twitter.com/b8SP2oyrJZ

— Comandante (@commandante_) September 4, 2026

It is unclear whether this work had already been scheduled as part of routine maintenance or whether it had been ordered after images of the ship emerged showing its rough condition. The ship was a huge focus of attention even before it got to Thailand.

Lincoln and Carrier Strike Group 3 took part in the opening salvo of strikes on Iran on February 28 as part of what the U.S. military dubbed Operation Epic Fury. Lincoln and the rest of the strike group continued to support Epic Fury and subsequent operations against Iran for months thereafter. The decision was finally made to rotate the carrier out of the region last month following a raft of reports of severely flagging morale and mental health among the crew. One sailor had to be rescued last month after deliberately jumping overboard. There were reports that at least one other individual onboard had attempted to do the same. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among others, have pushed back on concerns about mental health and other issues on the ship.

Interest in the Lincoln flared up anew after it arrived in Thailand due to its condition, as well as intense curiosity about how the crew would fare in a Thai port call after being at sea for so long.

As we noted in our initial story about the Lincoln’s arrival in Thailand, running rust on U.S. Navy ships has sparked criticism over the years, including from President Donald Trump. This is in part due to the negative optics of such visible wear and tear on American naval vessels, especially during calls in foreign ports.

“It’s terrible. I think they should be ashamed,” John Phelan told members of Congress at a hearing last year, when he was then-nominee for Secretary of the Navy, after being shown pictures of a very worn-looking Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Dewey, during a stopover in Singapore. “Would you want to go on that ship?”

One driving factor in the condition of ships like Lincoln is the operational tempo of deployments, a Navy official noted earlier this year.

“We know what to do, but we choose not to do it,” Mark Lattner, director of the Navy’s Ship Integrity and Performance Engineering, Naval Systems Engineering Directorate, said in January during a panel at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium that TWZ attended. “And we choose not to do it because there’s always some other problem I’ve got to fix. I don’t have time. Our corrosion can wait. And so we don’t implement the fixes.”

Finding a solution to the Navy’s rust problem became one of Lattner’s main missions in the wake of the fallout from Trump’s late-night texts to Navy officials demanding answers about the condition of the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Dewey after he saw pictures of it covered in running rust as it pulled into Singapore last year.

Port calls offer critical time to fix long-standing issues and resupply the ship of pretty much everything you can think of, from jet fuel to food. So it’s no surprise that the Lincoln would be swarmed with support personnel and supplies while much of her crew enjoys being on land once again for a few days.

It’s unclear how long the clean-up work on the Lincoln will last or how much of it will be finished by the time the ship and crew leave port. Either way, from what we have seen so far, it will look much better leaving Thailand than when it arrived.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

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Three foreign frigates – Japan’s Mogami class, the South Korean Chungnam class, and the Istanbul class from Turkey – are reportedly included in a study of ships the U.S. Navy could procure. The Trump administration has been openly pushing to leverage ships designed in friendly countries to rapidly bolster the Navy’s fleet while also working to rebuild America’s shrunken domestic shipbuilding capacity. So, it is worth examining what each design brings to the table, as well as the broader opportunities and major hurdles procuring any of them would represent.

USNI News was first to report on Tuesday that the Japanese, South Korean, and Turkish frigates are included in an ongoing Navy study, citing anonymous sources. The review is in direct response to one of the provisions in a larger memo President Trump sent out last month, titled “Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base.” This also comes amid strong opposition in Congress to the basic idea of buying foreign warships for the Navy.

Per that memo, the Secretary of the Navy (currently Acting Secretary Hung Cao) was directed to “submit a plan to the President … that includes timelines and resourcing requirements, for a new competitive acquisition approach for surface combatants with sufficient inherent capabilities to perform anti‑submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties.” The memo also said the “plan should address meeting the requirements for Consolidated Cargo Replenishment at Sea (CONSOL) Tankers and — separately — Roll-On, Roll-Off Vessels.”

The study could lead to “an international warship competition [that] could include building up to two of the ships in foreign shipyards before transitioning to domestic yards as part of the Trump administration’s push to rapidly expand the fleet, three industry sources familiar with the deliberations confirmed,” according to USNI News‘ report. The outlet also said the Navy declined to “directly address the potential for an open competition for a new frigate” when asked.

The acquisition approach described here is in line with what the Trump administration is currently calling the “Finland Model,” which entails construction of an initial batch of ships overseas before moving further production to yards in the United States. The name comes from a partnership the U.S. and Finnish governments announced last year regarding the construction of new icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard. Canada’s Seaspan Shipyards is also involved in that plan.

Broader plans to explore foreign surface combatant designs for the U.S. Navy, and potentially more to acquire one of those ships, were mentioned in the Pentagon’s 2027 Fiscal Year budget request released earlier this year. President Trump, former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, and other U.S. officials have also openly raised the possibility of cooperation with shipbuilders in Japan and South Korea, specifically, including with regard to surface combatants. USNI‘s report says that the Istanbul class was included in the current review after it came up in discussions between Trump and Turkish officials on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara in July.

Many questions remain, but there are clear signs the Trump administration wants to move in pursuing the acquisition of foreign naval vessels. The particular focus on frigates also aligns with a clear Navy need for new ships in that size class.

Why frigates?

Before exploring the specific designs the Navy is now said to be reviewing, it is worth taking a step back to understand why frigates are so important to the service’s shipbuilding plans, in general. The United States has not technically operated frigates since the retirement of its last Oliver Hazard Perry class type in 2015. The expectation had been that the Freedom and Independence class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) would fill the resulting gaps. However, those ships struggled for years with a variety of major issues over the years and still have not lived up to their promised potential, despite certain strides having been made in expanding their operational employment in recent years.

The Navy’s announcement of a new frigate program in 2019, dubbed FFG(X), was widely seen as a rebuke of the core concepts behind the LCS. This, in turn, led to the Constellation class frigate, which became a debacle unto itself and was finally cancelled last year. It is important to point out the Constellation design was based on the established Franco-Italian FREMM frigate. The expectation was that only relatively minor changes would be made before putting the ship in American service. In the end, the U.S. derivative had only 15 percent design commonality with its European ‘parent,’ which directly contributed to the demise of the program.

A new FF(X) frigate program has since emerged. Through that effort, the Navy is now in line to get ships derived from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Legend class National Security Cutter (NSC), with the goal being to have the first one in the water by 2028. However, those frigates, at least the ones built in the initial tranche, will lack a Vertical Launch System (VLS) and certain other features that were seen as critical for the preceding Constellation class. This has immediately raised questions about the operational utility of these new small surface combatants, as TWZ has previously explored in detail.

None of this diminishes the Navy’s current desire for new frigates, and more of them, to provide smaller, lower-cost platforms that can be used to bolster larger surface action groups or operate more independently in roles that do not require larger, more capable designs. When fielded in sufficient volume, they can also free up other types of surface combatants for other, higher priority duties or similar help to relieve strain on those fleets.

Today, the Navy’s fleet of Arleigh Burke class destroyers “gets used with a very high demand signal combatant commanders. The Navy can’t operate with only one size of ship,” Rear Adm. Brian Metcalf, the Navy’s Deputy Portfolio Acquisition Executive Maritime for Combatants, said in an official video in June. “The [FF(X)] frigate will fill that gap. They can be used in less contentious waters. They can be used as high-value escorts. There are all kinds of things the frigate can fill the gap for and allow destroyers to execute the high-end mission set.”

With all this in mind, it is not surprising that the Navy would be seeking to further bolster its future frigate fleets on a shorter timetable by leveraging foreign shipbuilders. There are also clear benefits to taking advantage of capable, in-production designs, which leads us to the Mogami, Chungnam, and Istanbul classes.

The Mogami class

Japan’s Mogami class, with its stealthy design characteristics, has long been a standout among modern frigates currently in production globally. The ship is designed as a multi-mission platform with anti-air, anti-surface, anti-submarine, and mine warfare capabilities, the latter of which includes both mine-hunting and mine-laying.

TWZ has covered the ship in detail in the past, writing:

“The original Mogami class design (also known as the 30FFM), the first of which only entered Japanese service in 2022, is already a very modern design with its shape featuring some stealthy characteristics. The 436-foot-long, 53-and-a-half-foot-wide, 5,500-metric-ton displacement frigates have a combined diesel and gas (CODAG) propulsion system that allows for fuel-efficient normal cruising operations and an additional burst of speed in combat. The ships have an active electronically scanned array (AESA) main radar, as well as a host of other advanced sensors and mission systems. One of the Mogami‘s most distinctive features is its NORA-50 UNIted COmbined Radio aNtenna (UNICORN) mast on top of the main superstructure, which contains various antennas. The frigates also have especially futuristic-looking Combat Information Centers (CIC)…”

“Armament-wise, the baseline Mogami class frigate has two four-round launchers for Type 17 anti-ship cruise missiles, a SeaRAM close-in defense system loaded with RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM), and a five-inch main gun in a turret at the bow. There are also two remote weapon stations, each armed with a .50 caliber machine gun, on top of the bridge for additional protection against close-in low-end threats.”

“The Mogami design was originally slated to feature a 16-cell Mk 41 launch system array, but the seventh ship in the class, the JS Niyodo, which was commissioned in May, was the first to be fitted with it. The first six of these frigates were delivered without this capability, but they are expected to be back-fitted with it in the future. Mk 41 cells on Mogami class frigates are expected to be primarily filled with domestically-developed A-SAM or U.S.-designed RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles. Four ESSMs can notably be loaded in a single Mk 41 cell.”

The Mogami class frigates also have a flight deck and hangar designed to accommodate a single Seahawk helicopter. The ships can also deploy uncrewed underwater and surface vessels (UUV/USV), as well as rigid-hull inflatable boats (RHIBs), via a ramp at the stern.

MHI in Japan has also developed an enlarged derivative that is close to 466 feet long, almost 56 feet at its widest, and displaces some 6,200 metric tons. This version also features a 32-cell VLS array, along with an upgraded radar, other improved sensors, and updated mission systems. Last year, the Australian government announced it would be acquiring a fleet of these ships with certain unspecified country-specific features as part of its SEA 3000 program.

The Australian deal is one of, if not still the most significant foreign arms sale for Japan since the end of World War II. It also helps ensure that the Mogami production line will remain hot for years to come. For the U.S. Navy, sharing a frigate with two of America’s highest-profile allies in the Pacific, and which could therefore be readily serviced in those countries, would be very advantageous.

The Mogami is also a contender to become New Zealand’s next frigate, and there have also been discussions about sales to Indonesia. The Japan Maritime Self Defense Force only has two more of these frigates on order, the last of which is expected to be commissioned into service by March of next year.

The Chungnam class

The Chungnam class (also sometimes referred to as the FFX-III or FFG-III) is the latest frigate for the South Korean Navy, and features a mix of anti-air, anti-ship, and anti-submarine capabilities. The first example entered service in that country in 2024. These ships are just over 423 feet long, approach 49 feet at the widest point in the hull, and displace some 4,300 tons with a full combat load. The design is based on the earlier Daegu class, which was itself an evolution of the preceding Incheon class that traces its roots back to the late 1990s.

As was the case on the Daegu class, the Chungnam class uses combined diesel–electric or gas (CODLOG) propulsion, which offers benefits for power management and efficiency, as well as when it comes to reducing maintenance requirements and operating costs. The design features a prominent integrated mast structure with four fixed-face arrays for the main multi-function AESA radar near the top. The ships have additional radars and other sensors, as well as an electronic warfare suite.

Each one of the Chungnam class frigates has a 16-cell K-VLS array. Domestically developed K-SAAM surface-to-air missiles and Haeseong I anti-ship cruise missiles (also called the SSM-700L or C-Star), as well as K745A1 Hong Sang Eo (Red Shark) vertically-launched anti-submarine rockets, can be loaded into these cells.

The armament package on these ships also includes a five-inch main gun in a turret at the bow, a pair of triple torpedo tubes, and a Close-in Weapon System II (CIWS II) armed with a seven-barrel 30mm Gatling-type cannon.

The Chungnam class frigates also have a flight deck and hangar for a single helicopter at the stern.

As it stands now, the South Korean Navy has two Chungnam class frigates in service and has plans to acquire four more over the next few years. The lead ship in the class was built by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is also one of the principal designers of the ship. A different shipbuilder, SK Oceanplant, built the second ship in the class, ROKS Gyeoungbuk, and is now working on the third and fourth examples. Hanwha Ocean is reportedly in line to build the last two ships in the class for South Korea. Hyundai and Hanwha have pitched export designs based on the Chungnam class, with both firms notably in the running to supply new frigates to Thailand.

Hanwha has already been making steady inroads in the shipbuilding industry in the United States, including the acquisition of the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2024. Hyundai has reportedly been working to do the same. Just last month, Hanwha publicly announced a new $1.2 billion bid to buy out Australian shipbuilder Austal’s U.S. subsidiary, Austal USA. Austal notably built the Independence class LCSs for the U.S. Navy and continues to supply that service with other vessels. Austal subsequently said it was considering the South Korean offer.

The Istanbul class

Turkey’s Istanbul class (also known as the Istif class or just I class), developed under the country’s MILGEM national warship program, is not a design that has typically come up in previous discussions about potential foreign-made frigates for the U.S. Navy. It is described as a multi-role frigate with anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine capabilities. The lead ship in this class, TCG Istanbul, entered Turkish Navy service in 2024.

At around 371 and a half feet long and with a beam of just over 47 feet, as well as a displacement of some 3,000 tons with a full combat load, the Istanbul class is notably smaller than either the Mogami class or Chungnam class. Like the Mogami, it uses CODAG propulsion. The Turkish design is understood to have leveraged lessons learned from the Project GENESIS program to upgrade the country’s second-hand ex-U.S. Navy Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, as you can learn more about here.

TCG Istanbul is armed with a 16-cell MiDLAS VLS array, with past reports saying it is primarily configured to fire Hisar short-to-medium-range surface-to-air missiles. However, just in August, it was revealed that the second ship in the class, the future TCG Izmir, which is undergoing sea trials now, has a new 16-cell version of MiDLAS with visibly longer cells. This would allow the ship to fire larger weapons vertically, such as the Siper medium-range surface-to-air missiles, Atmaca anti-ship cruise missiles, and/or Gezgin land-attack cruise missiles. MiDLAS is a scalable VLS design developed in Turkey as an alternative to the U.S.-made Mk 41.

The initial Istanbul class design already had four deck-mounted launchers that can be loaded with up to 16 Atmaca missiles, in total. The frigates also have a 76mm cannon in a turret on the bow, a Gokdeniz CIWS with a twin-barrel 35mm cannon, two 25mm cannon-armed remote weapon stations, and a pair of twin torpedo tubes.

The main sensor on the Istanbul class is a rotating AESA radar mounted on top of the ship’s main integrated mast structure. It has additional radars and other sensors, as well as electronic support measures and electronic countermeasures systems.

The Istanbul class design also features a flight deck and hangar at the stern, sized around the Seahawk helicopter.

As mentioned, the second Istanbul class frigate for the Turkish Navy is now in sea trials, and the country plans to eventually acquire eight of these warships in total. They are being built through several shipyards in Turkey. Last year, Turkey’s TAIS Shipyards also secured a contract to build at least two Istanbul class frigates for Indonesia.

Growing U.S. roadblocks to any foreign warships

Much remains to be seen about how the U.S. Navy might proceed with the acquisition of new frigates, or any other naval vessels, via foreign shipbuilders. Whether any other relevant, in-production designs are being considered, or could be in the future, is unknown. USNI News‘ report says the current study is scheduled to wrap up in November.

Furthermore, what the Navy might want to do could well turn out to be moot. Members of Congress on both sides of the political aisle have been very vocally pushing back on any plans to acquire foreign warships amid concerns about negative impacts on the U.S. shipbuilding industry.

Current U.S. law would already require the Trump administration to issue a national security waiver to pursue foreign-made naval vessels. A draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2027 Fiscal Year now making its way through the Senate would eliminate the ability to issue such a waiver. In June, members of the House Armed Services Committee separately moved to outright block any spending on foreign-built warships in a separate draft NDAA.

The aforementioned Finland Model, as outlined in Trump’s August memo, is clearly intended to try to assuage Congressional concerns. Under the stated plan, foreign shipbuilders would be required to make major investments in U.S. shipbuilding enterprises and hire American workers as part of any future contract, even if an initial tranche of vessels is built overseas.

“The Administration strongly opposes section 1025, which would prohibit the use of funds for procurement of initial battle force ships to be built in a foreign shipyard, especially while, in accordance with the ‘Finland Model’ first employed with the Coast Guard’s medium icebreaker program, long-term investments are being made in an American brown or greenfield shipyard,” the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) wrote in a statement of Administration Policy in July, specifically in response to provisions in the the House’s NDAA draft. “This prohibition fails to seriously address the challenges posed by current shipbuilding backlogs across six major programs in our ‘prime’ shipyards.”

This latter point here speaks to an already worrisome and still-widening gap between U.S. shipbuilding capacity and that of chief global competitor China. The U.S. government has tried to take steps in recent years to revitalize the American side of the equation, but workforce retention and other factors have continued to present serious hurdles. There are additional concerns now about how the addition of work on the Trump class battleship program will affect America’s naval shipbuilding ecosystem, which the Trump administration has separately pushed back on.

Continuing U.S. shipyard capacity and quality issues raise their own questions about the viability of the Finland Model. The construct inherently limits the U.S. government’s ability to make use of yards overseas and is heavily contingent on the shipbuilding industry in the United States expanding at a rate where it will be able to absorb the additional production demands. With the naval shipbuilding deficit already becoming extremely problematic, buying examples of relevant classes with minimal changes and having them built where production is already established could arguably be the priority, especially in light of the failures of the LCS and Constellation programs.

Ensuring that any U.S.-specific changes to the design are minimal will also be critical for any such plan to be successful. As mentioned, the Constellation class was undone in large part due to a near-constant stream of changes ordered by the Navy, which negated the benefits of choosing a derivative of an in-production design. The service has stressed its intention to avoid any similar pitfalls with its existing FF(X) frigate program, which also has to be factored into the larger domestic shipyard capacity question.

“The President has directed the Navy to aggressively increase domestic shipbuilding capacity, including leveraging the proven shipbuilding skills and industrial expertise of our allies,” Navy Capt. Ron Flanders said in a statement on Tuesday, according to USNI News. “We are actively developing options to fulfill the President’s intent to deliver ships faster while ensuring long-term investment, technology transfer, and workforce expansion within United States shipyards.”

Signs are certainly growing that the Navy is moving closer to kicking off a formal process to acquire foreign-designed warships, which could include Mogami, Chungnam, and/or Istanbul frigates, to help grow its fleets, especially in the face of growing challenges posed by China.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

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