The Adelaide- class is a class of six multi-purpose frigates in the Australian Navy (RAN) . The vessels are based on the Oliver Hazard Perry frigates of the US Navy . Four of the six ships built between 1977 and 1993 as the successor to the Daring- class destroyers were built at Todd in Seattle , United States , while the last two were built at the Australian Marine Engineering Consolidated (AMEC) shipyard. In the original version, the Australian units were practically identical to the US units. However, due to two modernizations, the Australian units today differ greatly from those of the US Navy.
The Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates were built in two versions: the first ships were 133.5 m long, while the later units were built with a length of 136 m to use a larger helicopter. While the US Navy decided to retire the smaller units in order to achieve a homogeneous fleet, the RAN decided to extend its three shorter units.
FFG program
The Mk. 41 VLS of the already converted Sydney
At the beginning of the 21st century it became increasingly clear that the frigates were no longer up to the new challenges. The US Navy therefore decided to completely remove the outdated Mk-13 rocket launchers for the SM-1 and RGM-84 Harpoon , but this meant that the ships were practically unarmed. However, Australia with its small navy could not afford to leave almost half of its surface fleet unarmed, which is why the FFG program was launched. Since modernization for all six ships was too expensive, it was decided to retire the oldest two units and only modernize the newer four. The program comprised extensive modernization of the electronics, a conversion of the Mk-13 starters from SM-1 to the much more modern SM-2 and the equipping of an eight-cell Mk-41-VLS for 32 RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles .
