DD(X) DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

Actually, they would probably need to face the A-222 "Bereg" self-propelled coast-defense gun; 130-mm SPG with 23 km range and 12 shots per minute.

They were intended to standoff 25nm offshore, so they wouldn't have to worry about the Bereg.

 

[TomS]

Actually, they would probably need to face the A-222 "Bereg" self-propelled coast-defense gun; 130-mm SPG with 23 km range and 12 shots per minute.

That was essentially baked into the standoff distance, but the total range was dependant on the need to strike the longest-ranged widely available field artillery that would be shooting at Marine forces during a landing. That meant the 122mm D-30. Remember that this is post-Cold War and the concern wasn't invading the Soviet Union, it was forcing a passage through the Strait of Hormuz or similar scenarios. Strategic raiding to defeat anti-access networks.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The requirements were largely imposed externally. The gun was basically required by the Marine lobby in Congress to support the Corps' NGFS "need" -- it's a combo of the requirement to counterbattery Russian D-30 howitzers firing at beach crossing point while staying far enough offshore to have some reaction time against ASCMs. The Navy had a (likely) more viable alternative to do that, in the form of Vertical Gun for Advanced Ships (VGAS), but Congress demanded a trainable gun for SuW. A better solution might have been VGAS plus a 5-inch gun, but that didn't happen for various reasons.

No, the vertical gun had an absolutely immense minimum range early on (mid 1990s, IIRC, in the tail end of Arsenal Ship and the early part of DDG21), because we didn't have good enough guidance/trajectory shaping to allow it to hit anything within like 14 nautical miles of the ship.

So you ended up with a requirement to have both VGAS and a regular gun due to the need to engage close targets. But that blows your stealth all to hell without someone getting really fancy with the gunhouses. So if you gotta have a gun turret anyways, put the ludicrous range gun in a turret and figure out how to stealth it.

Today? Not a problem, the guidance kit can do that from a vertical launch.

 

[Purpletrouble]

The question is why does this gun threat have to be dealt with by a gun?

This is the US with hordes, and I mean hordes, of helicopters and jets.

The answer to land arty fire is not to spend gazillions on some hyper exotic naval gun system - but add those targets to your air fleet. If indeed they aren’t already on it because they are significant targets.

Can anyone seriously imagine say at Tiran, the US raiding the Yemeni coastland and hinterland, and (a) the Yemenis having a battery of 130mm lined up somewhere (firing based on what targetting info?) and (b) that lasting longer than it takes a cab rank FA18 flight from the supporting CAG to reposition?

The answer to this question, when your standard 5” cant help (which it can much of the time so we’re into sub parts of the venn diagram), is air. Of which the US has plenty. Granted its busy but an arty batt is always going to justify air attention.

This is before you’ve also got air or sea landed 155 in support and your own AH1 and AV8 let alone F-35B which will simply look at the arty to kill it (or hover somewhere in the same hemisphere…).

The entire requirement is bunk imho, also evidenced by the lack of it not really affecting anything. It’s the age old “we can do it, but should we”.

 

[that_person]

Well, they did get nothing. “The best is the enemy of good enough” indeed.

A non Aegis dd/ff in the timeframe instead of DDG1000 and LCS would have saved a fortune and given a good fleet of GP ships that would last decades.

Now the US has this orphan class at extortionate expense, the LCS mess at extortionate expense and is having to build a GP FF anyway, except that wont carry much VLS or gun.

The only upside is it got hordes of ABs which seem to be very good ships.

There’s multiple reasons why a traditional destroyer and frigate were off the table, as I mentioned above.

The LCSs and Zumwalts have already or are close to hitting IOC, and will carry out missions the rest of the fleet isn’t equipped to do.

And I’d very much disagree, the continued building of Burkes is a time bomb. In a decade or two, their complete lack of growth potential and high operating costs will cause a ton of issues.

 

[Purpletrouble]

There’s multiple reasons why a traditional destroyer and frigate were off the table, as I mentioned above.

And that being the case is a major failing. I’d be worried about that.

The LCSs and Zumwalts have already or are close to hitting IOC, and will carry out missions the rest of the fleet isn’t equipped to do.

Eh? The first commissioned a decade and a half ago and half are being binned having constantly cut back their capability. The second commissioned nearly a decade ago and amounts to 3 ships that dont do anything special except consume money.

And I’d very much disagree, the continued building of Burkes is a time bomb.

Maybe the FIIIs, but the ones built in the last 2 decades are fundamental to capabilities in use right now in Europe and the Middle East. Would that we all had such great ships- my nations are a little weak in the power dept…

In a decade or two, their complete lack of growth potential and high operating costs will cause a ton of issues.

That’s what you get for the madness of LCS/DDG1000. Build a sensible GP FF/DD in that timeframe and things could have been different.

 

[sferrin]

There’s multiple reasons why a traditional destroyer and frigate were off the table, as I mentioned above.

The LCSs and Zumwalts have already or are close to hitting IOC, and will carry out missions the rest of the fleet isn’t equipped to do.

And I’d very much disagree, the continued building of Burkes is a time bomb. In a decade or two, their complete lack of growth potential and high operating costs will cause a ton of issues.

It will make the -688 and F-16 recap look like a walk in the park.

 

[that_person]

And that being the case is a major failing. I’d be worried about that.

Eh? The first commissioned a decade and a half ago and half are being binned having constantly cut back their capability. The second commissioned nearly a decade ago and amounts to 3 ships that dont do anything special except consume money.

Maybe the FIIIs, but the ones built in the last 2 decades are fundamental to capabilities in use right now in Europe and the Middle East. Would that we all had such great ships- my nations are a little weak in the power dept…

That’s what you get for the madness of LCS/DDG1000. Build a sensible GP FF/DD in that timeframe and things could have been different.

I want you to explain to me how procuring a traditional DD/FF would’ve been possible given the strategic environment. Please, by all means, tell me how dozens of Navy and independent studies reached the wrong conclusions time and time again. Something like DDG(X) and FFG(X) did not at all meet the doctrinal requirements set in the mid-90s.

The Zumwalts are also the only ships with the capability of launching LRHW, and are the only LSCs with a modern powerplant and automated machinery. All of that is being recycled for DDG(X).

The Burkes are incredibly restricted with what they can do in the future. Flight III and DDG Mod 2.0 are squeezing out everything they can, and it won’t end well. They lack the power generation, cooling margins, and weight to effectively support those systems. To make matters even worse, they’re stuck using Mk41s, which are equally limited in their growth potential. The next decade or two will very much demonstrate their inadequacies.

 

[Kat Tsun]

It should be noted that Zumwalt also has a significant amount of IR signature reduction, it should certainly be much less vulnerable to being acquired by anti-ship missiles with combined radar and IR guidance than any other existing surface combatant.

It has an exhaust suppressor...

A hyperspectral, or even imaging infrared, doesn't really care about "infrared signature" in the conventional sense though. They can track things depending on the chemical compositions of their hull paints, or within a couple degrees of ambient, so any amount of "infrared signature reduction" is going to not really help you at all.

Taking a cue from the world of AFVs, Zumwalt could incorporate a multispectral infrared paint to try to match the background, or dissolve its contrasts, but this would probably only work against very old imaging infrared sensors and might increase a hyperspectral signature at the same time. I'm not even sure if those types of paints work against autonomous sensors and aren't just confusing for human gunners looking through periscopes, either. I'm sure they could work against contrast matching algorithms like the old Javelins but who knows what future sensors are doing.

There's no real easy way to defeat either threat besides a deep magazine and Zumwalt has 10 fewer cells than the Burke.

Zumwalt was intended as a Sprucan for the 21st Century,

...kind of? It was supposed to replace the Spruance 1:1 but its mission was gunfire support for landing operations and escort of ATFs. Which is what the Spruance turned into, only after the Soviet submarine threat had diminished, and they received the VLS for TLAM.

A "Spruance for the 21st century" in the real sense of Spruance, deep ocean escort of CVBGs, is the Constellation.

taking into account the vastly greater air and missile threat, signature reduction, and having a NGFS mission tacked on to ensure it survived the late 90s and early 2000s.

Which is probably when it should have been appearing in the fleet, honestly, but it was based on Navy observation of a 1970's designed bomber against 1950's designed air defense systems and going "WHOA COOL" mostly.

I certainly think it is far closer to the ideal future surface combatant than any other ship in existence, not withstanding the 100nm-ranged rocket-guns.

It was ideal in the 1970's. By the 2010's it's looking very much like an F-117, its inspiration, for somewhat obvious reasons.

It's an okay boat but it's not "ideal" for anything besides littoral actions and protection of amphibious task force shipping during their shore runs and delivery of assault troops to the beach. Nothing else needs to look like Zumwalt, because nothing else needs that level of radar reduction, and suggesting that Zumwalt needs that level to begin with is debatable given how it turned out.

Even then, it was rapidly outstripped by anti-ship missile systems. It would have been great to have a couple dozen in Desert Storm because then the Navy could have bombarded Iraqi positions without worrying about Silkworms like what happened with Missouri though.

The 100 mile requirement was a pipe dream. Even now it is proving to be unworkable - SLRC and ERCA fell by the wayside. I think Congress mandated that it should be a gun, but honestly they just should have adopted some kind of rocket. The specialized 155mm was such an obvious dead end.

It's only dumb because the U.S. can't make anything besides 105mm and 155mm these days.

If it could make 175mm or 203mm guns still it would be fine. It would need an entirely separate supply chain but a particularly high pressure smoothbore 175mm or 203mm (to avoid the banding issues at high pressures/barrel lengths that killed ERCA), firing an HVP derived shell, can probably hit 80 nmi without too much issue.

That said 155mm with a HVP alone did the threshold 67 nmi with an L/39 without issue if you listen to BAE.

 

[Purpletrouble]

I want you to explain to me how procuring a traditional DD/FF would’ve been possible given the strategic environment. Please, by all means, tell me how dozens of Navy and independent studies reached the wrong conclusions time and time again. Something like DDG(X) and FFG(X) did not at all meet the doctrinal requirements set in the mid-90s.

Doesn’t that suggest the “doctrinal requirements” were wrong? That the process and the people who produced them were wrong? It would to me.

How is that a surprise or a shock? In the same time frame the Army got obsessed with “light”, spaffed billions on FCS and so on. The UK did the same with FRES.

The result of all this was the appalling LCS and the orphan DDG1000s, all at vast cost. How is that a success?

The solution is quite obviously a more conventional FFDD like everyone else has built. Less extravagence = more actual capability. The Chinese of course building scores of them…

The Zumwalts are also the only ships with the capability of launching LRHW,

Which is an accident and wasnt a requirement. Any surface ship in the same period could have the same VLS.

and are the only LSCs with a modern powerplant and automated machinery. All of that is being recycled for DDG(X).

You could design that powerplant at any time for any ship, its not something that only DDG1000 could produce.

The Burkes are incredibly restricted with what they can do in the future. Flight III and DDG Mod 2.0 are squeezing out everything they can, and it won’t end well. They lack the power generation, cooling margins, and weight to effectively support those systems. To make matters even worse, they’re stuck using Mk41s, which are equally limited in their growth potential. The next decade or two will very much demonstrate their inadequacies.

Exactly. Why? Because the successor surface combatant was a flop. So much so they stick with those limitations rather than revisit it. Doesn’t that tell you all?

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

There's no real easy way to defeat either threat besides a deep magazine and Zumwalt has 10 fewer cells than the Burke.

As pointed out before, DD-21 had 128 VLS cells, the Radar/Hull study derivatives had 96, and the Northrop Grumman CG(X) brochure from the early 2010s had Zumwalt hull with 162 cells. A Zumwalt, or something like it, can accommodate as much or more than a Burke if necessary.

...kind of? It was supposed to replace the Spruance 1:1 but its mission was gunfire support for landing operations and escort of ATFs. Which is what the Spruance turned into, only after the Soviet submarine threat had diminished, and they received the VLS for TLAM.

It has significant acoustic signature reduction, a Multi-Function Towed Array, and Helicopters, it could do ASW and CVBG escort.

A "Spruance for the 21st century" in the real sense of Spruance, deep ocean escort of CVBGs, is the Constellation.

Constellation is more of a DEG equivalent.

It's an okay boat but it's not "ideal" for anything besides littoral actions and protection of amphibious task force shipping during their shore runs and delivery of assault troops to the beach.

It's a 13,000 ton hull with 78MW of power, it could form the basis of a much more capable combatant than a Burke.

 

[that_person]

Doesn’t that suggest the “doctrinal requirements” were wrong? That the process and the people who produced them were wrong? It would to me.

I really want to hear you explain how From the Sea was irrational. I assume the alternative would be continued refinement of the Forward Maritime Strategy? Which was only useful against the Soviets?

Which is an accident and wasnt a requirement. Any surface ship in the same period could have the same VLS.

Except for the fact that you can't fit it on anything smaller than a CGBL hull. You definitely won't be fitting VPM tubes on a Burke or Type 45.

You could design that powerplant at any time for any ship, its not something that only DDG1000 could produce.

Correct, but designing IEP plants with no prior experience takes a lot of R&D money, which you've been railing against to no end. Realistically, the most expensive parts of Zumwalt (DBR, MFTA, automation, and the new ASW suite) would've been unavoidable even for a "traditional" destroyer.

Exactly. Why? Because the successor surface combatant was a flop. So much so they stick with those limitations rather than revisit it. Doesn’t that tell you all?

This one takes the cake. How exactly is the Zumwalt a "successor" to the Burkes? The two were expected to operate side-by-side, in completely different roles. Suggesting otherwise only shows your ignorance of the subject at hand.

 

[Purpletrouble]

I really want to hear you explain how From the Sea was irrational. I assume the alternative would be continued refinement of the Forward Maritime Strategy? Which was only useful against the Soviets?

Because (some of) the ships you built from them were failures? Isnt that obvious? Just as “go light” and FCS were. There were good aspects but as claimed these led to DDG1000 and LCS (which I know is not the full picture) then surely the flaws are obvious in hindsight, if not to everyone at the time?

Uber LR guns requriing exotic R&D when youve the worlds greatest ever aviation arm? Two of them? Huge effort for low RCS despite being a constantly radiating unit?

Except for the fact that you can't fit it on anything smaller than a CGBL hull. You definitely won't be fitting VPM tubes on a Burke or Type 45.

Or any large hull for that matter. Does it need tumblehome R&D, two useless guns? LPD17 seems a better baseline, but not as sexy.

Correct, but designing IEP plants with no prior experience takes a lot of R&D money, which you've been railing against to no end. Realistically, the most expensive parts of Zumwalt (DBR, MFTA, automation, and the new ASW suite) would've been unavoidable even for a "traditional" destroyer.

But you can do that R&D and design an IEP and/or automated ship that isnt a DDG1000 with its useless guns and would be affordable enough to build in numbers. The radar thats being proposed to be replaced? Unremarkable ASW kit that has hardly been tested? Those aren’t major cost components either.

This one takes the cake. How exactly is the Zumwalt a "successor" to the Burkes? The two were expected to operate side-by-side, in completely different roles. Suggesting otherwise only shows your ignorance of the subject at hand.

Not successor as replacement - successor as “the next surface combatant project”, quite literally it was intended to suceed AB builds just as AB suceeded Sprucan/Tico builds, its failure has led to continued AB builds.

Perhaps moderate your own cake taking…

 

[Kat Tsun]

I really want to hear you explain how From the Sea was irrational.

Unaffordable, overly optimistic, and narrowly considered when seen in hindsight of the rapid growth of the PLAN threat. Duh.

Zumwalt would have been good if it had started development in the early 1970's and was entering service in the 1980's instead of giving the Spruances got VLS cells. It was made to match the threats of the 1960's and 70's of shore defenses, where the RCS reductions were more important, and emphasizes RCS reduction for that reason. The D-30 and Termit missile are the main anti-landing force methods, after all, and much like Osprey and EFV they are products of the OTH landing operations conceived in the late 1980's.

Unfortunately, these developments were nearly 5-10 years too late to keep pace with increasing anti-landing force threats. Now, landing forces face things like the 2S35 Koalition, Bastion-P/Oniks, and CX-1, while things like Zumwalt are barely 8 years old.

By the mid-2000's you have dual mode seekers in Saccade, and other anti-ship missiles, that have become the new standard to build against, and those would require a different ship than the Zumwalt to properly counter. Instead the U.S. Navy built the Arleigh Burke, and was constantly looking for a cheaper Burke, until it decided it could just build 100 Burkes without any trouble at all.

Rocket launchers/VLS/aviation are great for shock action and poor for suppression, but the Marines expect to fight short sharp landings on islets rather than major forcible entries these days, so Zumwalt isn't even well suited to the modern planning factors discounting the threat advancement.

That said given the paucity of missile stockpiles, bombs, and rockets in general (as well as a dwindling quantity of JSF and Super Hornet available for target tasking), versus shells and shipboard guns, there's a strong argument for naval gunfire in just being able to fire for literally dozens of minutes on end and reload within several hours. A missile magazine expends itself in seconds and needs days to reload, so it's not a pure replacement.

A return of the MCLWG's original 175mm caliber (-ish) or a BAE TMF-style mount for a Rheinmetall L/60 or whatever would be good.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Unaffordable, overly optimistic, and narrowly considered when seen in hindsight of the rapid growth of the PLAN threat. Duh.

And hindsight is 20/20.

At the time, what indications were there that China was going to go into a massive naval expansion instead of their typical "spend 5 years analyzing options, spend 5-10 more building some prototypes and working the bugs out, then spend the next 5-10 years in slow production"? 15-25 years later, they'd have a pretty decent fleet, but by then the USN is looking at replacing the Zumwalts!

Rocket launchers/VLS/aviation are great for shock action and poor for suppression, but the Marines expect to fight short sharp landings on islets rather than major forcible entries these days, so Zumwalt isn't even well suited to the modern planning factors discounting the threat advancement.

That said given the paucity of missile stockpiles, bombs, and rockets in general (as well as a dwindling quantity of JSF and Super Hornet available for target tasking), versus shells and shipboard guns, there's a strong argument for naval gunfire in just being able to fire for literally dozens of minutes on end and reload within several hours. A missile magazine expends itself in seconds and needs days to reload, so it's not a pure replacement.

I'm not sure that AGS can reload that quickly, but otherwise it's a very valid point.

A return of the MCLWG's original 175mm caliber (-ish) or a BAE TMF-style mount for a Rheinmetall L/60 or whatever would be good.

203mm, you mean?

Though I'm thinking 203mm or larger barrel with HPV or LRLAP in a sabot these days. Like the Alaska-class 12"/50 Mk8 guns, but MV of 1500m/s. Barrel some 15m long.

 

[Kat Tsun]

And hindsight is 20/20.

Yes but that's what the poster is asking about?

At the time, what indications were there that China was going to go into a massive naval expansion instead of their typical "spend 5 years analyzing options, spend 5-10 more building some prototypes and working the bugs out, then spend the next 5-10 years in slow production"? 15-25 years later, they'd have a pretty decent fleet, but by then the USN is looking at replacing the Zumwalts!

Not at all at the time. The PRC wasn't even on the radar as a main threat, at least not like today, that's for sure.

The main threats in 1992 would have been Iraq, possibly some former Soviet Union countries, and North Korea. Secondary threats were Japan, Iran, the PRC, the emerging European Union, Brazil, and India because they all possessed military ballistic missile programs, near or actual nuclear capability, and do things the U.S. dislikes. This changed rapidly, but instead of staying the course with Burkes, the Navy decided to invest in a long shot gamble and lost big.

That said trying to link Zumwalt's failures to "doctrine" is probably a losing battle so I'd agree with the sentiment in broad strokes. A vaguely worded paper of mostly poetic and vapid statements from 1990 isn't going to make Zumwalt a trainwreck, but being starry-eyed about Nighthawks breaking open civil defense bunkers with Paveways in downtown Baghdad will, for sure.

After all, the types of amphibious landing operations that the Navy emphasized with the continued development of JVL, EFV, and DDX were all from 1988 or earlier, and intended to smash open the Soviet Union to bring a new front to relieve the NATO Central Front. From the Sea tried to answer the main question of being how to redirect all this continued developmental inertia towards a new and more chaotic era.

Littoral combat focus didn't suddenly emerge from the aether after all. From the Sea was mostly about cutting off the tail of carrier battlegroups, to fund the legs of the amphibious task forces, so the Fleet could still run where it needed to. Whereas Forward Maritime was about maximizing sea control capability to land those same ATFs on Soviet shores but against an enemy that could actually fight back, and potentially win, in the first place.

I'm not sure that AGS can reload that quickly, but otherwise it's a very valid point.

There's an auxiliary store room that holds enough rounds for a single AGS magazine IIRC. It's probably a gym now or something.

203mm, you mean?

No, the original Dahlgren gun was 175mm on the basis of the M107 then the 203mm came later. I forgot the reason but it's probably in Friedman's U.S. Amphibious Ships or something which is sort of a grail book for me at the moment. Somewhere I had the chapter on the latter age of fire support ships (San Antonio and pals) and the Vietnam LFS scanned from my uni library from a book loan but I lost the pdf otherwise I'd post a lowres of it.

Though I'm thinking 203mm or larger barrel with HPV or LRLAP in a sabot these days. Like the Alaska-class 12"/50 Mk8 guns, but MV of 1500m/s. Barrel some 15m long.

That's too big. It wouldn't need to be much larger than Crusader's gun if you use new barrel bands as Crusader itself showed everyone, XM282 before Crusader, and ERCA after Crusader.

 

[Firefinder]

No, the original Dahlgren gun was 175mm on the basis of the M107 then the 203mm came later. I forgot the reason but it's probably in Friedman's U.S. Amphibious Ships or something which is sort of a grail book for me at the moment. Somewhere I had the chapter on the latter age of fire support ships (San Antonio and pals) and the Vietnam LFS scanned from my uni library from a book loan but I lost the pdf otherwise I'd post a lowres of it

The reason for the Change from the 175 to 203 was cause the Army Dropped the 175 from active duty in 1974 then in total in 1978. That was due to multiple reason range from accuracy to issues with the early barrels giving them a crew killer rep in Nam.

Once tge Army Drop it and literally gave its it ammo away the Navy saw no point in keeping with tge 175. They had literal weahouses full of 203 tubes and shell from the ww2 heavy cruisers plus it was a known naval caliber.

And it was compatible with the Army's still serving 203 guns ammo. Which included both RAP and Basebleed Shells that push the range out pass 40km due to the longer Barrels, L55 to L30s

Made all the sense to go 203mm.

As is Watervliet Arsenal Still does have 175mm and 203mm construction capabilities. And Rock Island still has the ability to make the Ammo. That was a hard no negotiating Requirement on every refit and future of those factories the Army put on them. Hell Watervliet Arsenal just made a batch of 203mm tubes for the M110s still in service a few years back. Rumor has it it also made some for Ukraines Pions, but haven't been able to track down a decent source so theres you Salt.

Only reason tge Army still keep trying to push the 155s is due to not wanting ANOTHER Artillery caliber to feed and move. Especially in like of Ukraine issues again. The Brain Bug of Universal calibers is strong in this day.

Also doesn't help that we'll need to design a whole new chasis to fit the Tubes, which be expensive as heck.

 

[Josh_TN]

Well in any case, those guns are dead now and so is anything beyond 155mm for land use.