What makes a class of warship a success, a failure, or a missed opportunity? What fundamentals consistently result in a success, and what common threads need to be avoided in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past?

What decision and results we have seen in previous classes of warships are we seeing repeated now, and what are some options for the Navy going forward?

For warship classes from right before WWII to the present, to discuss this and more will be returning guest, Dr. Norman Friedman.

In addition to numeral articles through the years, Dr. Friedman writes a monthly column, "World Naval Developments" in the US Naval Institute's magazine, Proceedings and is the author of many books including U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History; Unmanned Combat Air Systems; and Naval Weapons of World War One.

As a starting point for our discussion we will be using Dr. Friedman's article in the latest edition of the US Naval Institute's magazine,Naval History,Judging the Good from the Bad.