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 Hormuz, 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.