It's an interesting project given the bureaucratic gunfight over various "high-low" concepts from the 1950s on. The USN basically gave up on frigates under John Lehman with an emphasis on getting AEGIS into the fleet and producing destroyers with long range. A frigate like this would have been an attractive export product.
Ok, Let's make an assume, that Zumwalt got his ships, not just the O. H. Perry class vessels. I have spent about four hours working up a Harpoon entry on this ship, and then a friend and I put her into action as part of a convoy that was heading in the North Atlantic around 1980. I looked at her sonar and well it would appear from the unit under this ship it would most likely have been SQS-26\53, and this would have given her a better range then the SQS-56 mounted on the O. H. Perry. So the right choice was made there, but this sonar is going to make her a crowded hull. But given the choice of the 76mm gun being carried the smaller magazine area is going to offset that a bit.
This isn't the first US modern era frigate to be over crowded. When Bronstein went to sea, she had a similar outfit of weapons and sensors even on a smaller hull. Even though she was considered crowded and in some measures unsatisfactory, she did do an adequate job.
So there is reason to believe that this ship could make it into the fleet.
So when we tested the ship it performed well. It was able to make the intercepts and it was able to push the enemy away from the convoy.
Good job on the ship.
This ship fights well for a frigate.....