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Keep in mind that literally all the FFG(X) competitors are much larger than the Fletcher class destroyers that devoured the Japanese Navy - and the current DD-1000 destroyer class is actually larger than some *battleships* that fought in WW2.

Also keep in mind that any surface combatant at a minimum has to be able to fight in datalink with its peers or in conjunction with a CBG if it wants to survive in a modern peer or near-peer fight - that requires a lot of capability.

I know, I was a contractor systems engineer for navy surface ships combat systems for 25 years until about 10 years ago. So my info is stale. But I'm very well aware of the missions and capabilities of modern warships. The thing about a small ship is that there are some things you can't shrink. Missiles are one of those things. So inevitably you will have fewer of them on frigates. With the the current threats, I'm not even sure it's fair to call other navies "near peers", maybe WE are the near peers now.

It feels to me like the Navy would be well suited to cut the Littoral Combat Ships off, build more destroyers and frigates so we always have lots of missile platforms available to deploy to places where we will likely be needing to take lots of shots to knock out these newer threats.

But I'm probably wrong. Like I said, I'm an engineer, not a military strategist.