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

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.
 
Relax...my use of the term Arsenal Ship maybe a big exaggerating, as it still got radar and more than self defense, but still much less capable than the Burkes. By updating with those APM tubes arming with LRHW and Tomahawk, they can be more capable than Burkes in land attack, thus my idea of Arsenal Ship

Btw did anyone know if they tested Tomahawk on Mk57 before?
 
DD-21 with it's 128 VLS would have been more capable than the Burke and the 96 VLS Zumwalt derivatives investigated as part of the Radar/Hull study would have been similar.
 
Relax...my use of the term Arsenal Ship maybe a big exaggerating, as it still got radar and more than self defense, but still much less capable than the Burkes. By updating with those APM tubes arming with LRHW and Tomahawk, they can be more capable than Burkes in land attack, thus my idea of Arsenal Ship

Btw did anyone know if they tested Tomahawk on Mk57 before?
Not "exaggerated". Just ignorant.
 
If it got the full set of DBR it will be an upper tier vessel, rather than a weirdo currently. A large hull with excellent sailing character, plenty of room for electronics and staffs, extremely large flight deck for Seahawk and VTOL UAVs, plenty of power, it is just a waste in its current form.
 
There is a more complex upgrade that would make it a very capable front line ship, but the problem is that there are only three of them.
 
Zumwalt was intended as a Sprucan for the 21st Century, 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.

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.
Not really worked out. For a ship facing a “vastly great and and missile threat” its inferior to the decades older AB design.

Its a good example of what happens when stupid requirements are left to run and become juggernauts. Two! gun systems, why? Is it a monitor or a destroyer? Yeah sure twice the firepower but why not thrice? And these are such super guns they never appeared.

Just as LCS reminds me of the original Type 19, DDG1000 reminds me of Type 82. The wrong ship in multiple ways, but built and now has to be manned and supported etc. and any work on the design costs all the (massive) overheads for a mere 3 units.
 
Not really worked out. For a ship facing a “vastly great and and missile threat” its inferior to the decades older AB design.
Superior to Spruance, and with separate X-Band and S-Band AESAs coupled to a more modern combat system than original Arleigh Burke. Originally intended to have greater magazine depth too, DD-21 had 128 VLS.

Two guns to meet rate of fire and reliability requirements, if one fails the other is still available.

Certainly a better hull to base future construction on than restarting the Burkes, with superior SWAP-C margins, and the original DD-21 and Radar/Hull Study show that it could have superior or comparable magazine depth.
 
Superior to Spruance,
Not really. They were able to build nearly 2 1/2 dozen of them. Cost effective to run and proved extrmeely useful all over the globe.
and with separate X-Band and S-Band AESAs coupled to a more modern combat system than original Arleigh Burke.
And how about actual AB II/IIIs?
Originally intended to have greater magazine depth too, DD-21 had 128 VLS.

Two guns to meet rate of fire and reliability requirements, if one fails the other is still available.
Or just fix the gun or dont have it break down.

Again, this is evidence of requirements extravagance that pushes up size and cost.

Great if you can afford it, but even the US with its largesse couldnt. That suggests the design/requirements are deeply flawed.
Certainly a better hull to base future construction on than restarting the Burkes, with superior SWAP-C margins, and the original DD-21 and Radar/Hull Study show that it could have superior or comparable magazine depth.
And yet wasnt. Because it was lunacy expensive for the benefits it offered.

This is the thing, you can pile on functionality, redundant guns, triple redundant guns, even more and bigger VLS and so on and so on.

But at some point someone has to sign the cheque to build it in numbers. They didn’t. Result = limited capability orphan class.
 
Not really. They were able to build nearly 2 1/2 dozen of them. Cost effective to run and proved extremely useful all over the globe.

They were planning for 32 DD-21s as well.

And how about actual AB II/IIIs?

Zumwalt has superior SWAP-C margins than either, and as can be seen in the Radar/Hull Study, can carry the same armament and radars.

Or just fix the gun or dont have it break down.

Spruances and Ticonderoga had two guns, and Zumwalt was to be both the Spruance replacement and the basis of the Ticonderoga replacement.

Again, this is evidence of requirements extravagance that pushes up size and cost.

Size isn't directly tied to cost, it's the systems that drive cost. SPY3 & 4 were probably the main drivers, but going with both was probably the right choice, something which seems to proven by other navies around the world adopting a mix of X and S-Band radars on their new surface combatants.

Great if you can afford it, but even the US with its largesse couldnt. That suggests the design/requirements are deeply flawed.

And yet wasnt. Because it was lunacy expensive for the benefits it offered.

DD-21 died because Rumsfeld felt it was too conservative and that LCS was a better choice. It was pared back slightly and resurrected as DD(X).

GAO certainly criticised the choice of going with a Burke Flight III over a Zumwalt derivative, and having seen the ship-impact of SEWIP Block 3, I think they're right in hindsight.

This is the thing, you can pile on functionality, redundant guns, triple redundant guns, even more and bigger VLS and so on and so on.

Not much more functionality was piled on. Size primarily came from signature reduction requirements, a combination of X and S-Band was selected due to the complementary nature of the frequencies for horizon-search, missile illumination, volume search and BMD, and the guns firing 97nm-range rocket assisted ammunition was to support US Marine airheads.

But at some point someone has to sign the cheque to build it in numbers. They didn’t. Result = limited capability orphan class.

Better to spread the R&D costs across 32 Destroyer hulls and 14 Cruiser hulls. If the US could persevere with F-35 and Gerald R. Ford despite their numerous problems, then Zumwalt could have had the same reprieve.
 
Last edited:
ArShip was still a totally different concept, a floating remote magazine with hundreds of missiles and no on-board targeting capability of its own aside from limited self-defense. How much self-defense varied, but never beyond SSDS -- the images with SPY-1 or similar radars and battleship hull numbers were contractor inventions, not program reality..
This is something that always annoys me. The idea that anything with large cells is an Arsenal Ship is completely ridiculous.
 
7 Tomahawks per VPM.
6 in the VPMs in the forward MBTs, because you need access to plug the umbilicals into the ship systems.

The midships added VPMs get 7 because there's access inside the ship.

Besides, I'm deliberately lowballing for conservative estimates of capabilities.



If anything LUSV seems far closer in concept to the Arsenal ship, but dispersed across multiple hulls rather than concentrated on one.
It's much closer in concept, most of the Arsenal Ships were supposed to be nearly disposable hulls in terms of survivability.
 
Not really. They were able to build nearly 2 1/2 dozen of them. Cost effective to run and proved extrmeely useful all over the globe.

And how about actual AB II/IIIs?

Or just fix the gun or dont have it break down.

Again, this is evidence of requirements extravagance that pushes up size and cost.

Great if you can afford it, but even the US with its largesse couldnt. That suggests the design/requirements are deeply flawed.

And yet wasnt. Because it was lunacy expensive for the benefits it offered.

This is the thing, you can pile on functionality, redundant guns, triple redundant guns, even more and bigger VLS and so on and so on.

But at some point someone has to sign the cheque to build it in numbers. They didn’t. Result = limited capability orphan class.
So many things wrong with this. Where to begin?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not really. They were able to build nearly 2 1/2 dozen of them. Cost effective to run and proved extrmeely useful all over the globe.

TLDR: @A Tentative Fleet Plan is correct.

By the late 90s, the Navy was undergoing 2 major changes. The first being Peace Dividend and the results of that, namely the decommissioning of Cold War vessels without replacement (specifically the NTU vessels and ASW frigates), and the change from the Forward Maritime Strategy to From the Sea. The latter put a heavy emphasis on littoral operations to support interventionist policy, whereas the former severely hampered the Navy's ability to follow through on From the Sea. The reduced budgetary environment meant that the Navy would be severely limited in the number of hulls it could operate, while having to undergo massive doctrinal changes, completely reversing decades of R&D work, and having to cope with an entirely new mission set.

The remaining surface fleet consisted of Flight I and II Burkes (albeit the DDV studies had already been completed, and Flight IIA production began in the late 90s(?)), the Ticos, Spruances, and Perrys. When examining procurement programs, there's two "types" of replacement to consider,

A) Numerical replacement (Flight IIAs replaced the Spruances, despite one being an AAW vessel and the other being a ASW/Strike platform)
B) Role replacement (the Columbia-class SSBNs are replacing Ohio-class SSBNs)

The recent advent of Burke-class and their continued construction meant that any future LSC program would not replace the Burkes either numerically or from a role perspective. If anything, Burke production was expected to continue until Zumwalt production finally became doable on a mass scale. Let me repeat, the Zumwalts are not a Burke successor in any form, they share completely different mission sets, and were expected to operate side-by-side. Elaborating on that last comment, it was expected that the Burkes would remain with the CVBGs and provide area AAW and BMD defense for the "littoral navy", namely what would become the Zumwalts and LCS. The same situation also applies to the Ticos.

That left the Spruances and Perrys. While neither class was going to hit their designed service life by the time Zumwalt production started, they'd only be a decade off, and Zumwalt production was expected to continue into said decade. So based on the way the timeline worked out, and the continuing need for AEGIS vessels, it was determined that the Zumwalts would replace both the Spruances and Perrys. Let's consider the role of both classes.

The Spruances were originally designed in tandem with what would become the Kidds-class DDGs. The Spraunce stemming from the DX program, and the Kidds from the DXG program. Both were meant to share common hulls and machinery to save cost. The Spruances would be centered around ASW, replacing the aging WW2-vintage FRAMcans, whereas the Kidds would make up the AAW portion of the fleet. The DXG program was ultimately rolled up, and more or less succeeded by what became the Ticos.

Because of the designed commonality between the Spruances and Kidds, that left the former with tons of SWAPC margin. Namely, the entire ASROC slot could be filled in with a Mk26 launcher. Funnily enough, the Mk41 was designed to fit the Mk26's footprint. This was also around the time that TLAMs began entering the fleet in large numbers, so in the mid-80s the Spruances' ASROC launcher was ripped out in favor of a 61-cell TLAM-packing Mk41. Not only did the Spruances now serve the ASW niche, but they also took on the strike role, something that became extremely prevalent following the retirement of the Iowas and the doctrinal shift towards From the Sea. This in turn meant that DD(X) would have to take on both the ASW and the given land attack role. The plan was to replace Spruances 1:1.

The Perrys on the other hand were in even more of a pickle. Being SSCs, they were only designed for 25 year service lives, not the 35 years of LSCs. This meant that the class would begin to expire between 2005-2015. This is also what happened in reality. For reasons outlined in the 1988 Surface Combatant Force Requirement Study (SCFRS), the Brass determined that it would not be in the Navy's financial interest to procure a new class of frigates, even under Reagan-level budgets. Because of this, no replacement effort was taken seriously, as this line of thought continued up until the early 2010s. I also suspect that the reduced budgetary environment and the collapse of the Protection of Shipping role put further doubt on the need to procure a new traditional frigate.

Ultimately though, the Perrys filled both the ASW and AAW niche, the latter being accomplished by SM-1MR. Seeing as the Zumwalts were already being tied to the ASW role, and the equipment needed to carry out the strike role overlapped with that of medium-range AAW, putting SM-2MRs in the VLS only seemed logical. This is not to mention that the littoral threat environment necessitated AAW regardless. Ultimately, the Zumwalts were supposed to replace the Perrys on a ~1.5:1 basis. This never came to fruition obviously.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, this is evidence of requirements extravagance that pushes up size and cost.
Ironic because the Zumwalt requirements were actually toned down on several occasions. The Zumwalt requirements were fairly well thought out, and made sense given the environment they were written in. They seem like lunacy from our perspective because we're looking at it through a modern lense. Ultimately both the Zumwalts and LCS were designed in a radically different time period, necessitating totally different ships from what we're used too. Had From the Sea not been overtaken by current events, we'd be having a very different conversation.

The issue with the Zumwalt program is not unit cost either. If we are to create entirely new production lines for only 3 hulls, utilizing all new machinery and equipment, exorbitant costs are to be expected. Had the total cost been divided by a larger denominator, it would look better. I also suspect most of the actual expense was R&D work, not just construction, as so many of the technologies had no evolutionary base. Where you could previously track the Burke's lineage all the way back to the Leahys, tracking each technological development, just about everything for the Zumwalt had to be done from the ground up. The fact that it produced anything is beyond amazing. The Zumwalt design is functional and mass-producible, the issue is we built just three of them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am also very confused by your comment suggesting we use Burkes over Zumwalts in the littoral strike role.

I also find it funny you're fixated on the guns and their redundancy, especially considering those were virtually the only pieces that came in on time and on budget. The only notable thing about them is the automated magazine and hex barrel shape. They're just normal guns.
 
I also find it funny you're fixated on the guns and their redundancy, especially considering those were virtually the only pieces that came in on time and on budget. The only notable thing about them is the automated magazine and hex barrel shape. They're just normal guns.
The ammo is kinda fancy.

It's a unique shape aerodynamically, very long for caliber. Very, VERY long for caliber, about 2.5-3x longer than typical 155mm shells, and pretty much purely caused by the big rocket booster in the back. That projectile length had follow-on issues for sideways-compatibility with NATO 155mm artillery ammo, the AGS couldn't load something like Excalibur rounds or even basic M107 HE for some cheap short range rounds. At least not if you wanted the round to land in the same zip code as you planned.

But when you go from needing some 40,000 rounds just to fill the onboard magazines to making some 250 because some idiot politician cut the procurement program, of course the cost per round goes through the roof. No point in building the assembly line to make those rounds for cheap.
 
As for the gun system: it was a stupid idea then and a more stupid idea now to make a billion dollar ship a fire support vessel for an absolutely fantastic marine landing. The marines have wasted more money than any other service with their bullshit opposed landing operations in a modern era than any other service.

Can we just admit finally that in the age of drones, the USMC barely fucking matters? Maybe-35 units can hop around and surprise people but the idea they need a new fleet of ships to be relevant is stupidity ?
 
As for the gun system: it was a stupid idea then and a more stupid idea now to make a billion dollar ship a fire support vessel for an absolutely fantastic marine landing. The marines have wasted more money than any other service with their bullshit opposed landing operations in a modern era than any other service.

Can we just admit finally that in the age of drones, the USMC barely fucking matters? Maybe-35 units can hop around and surprise people but the idea they need a new fleet of ships to be relevant is stupidity ?
Congressionally required.

Lots and lots of expensive stupidity happens because a law demands it.
 
As for the gun system: it was a stupid idea then and a more stupid idea now to make a billion dollar ship a fire support vessel for an absolutely fantastic marine landing. The marines have wasted more money than any other service with their bullshit opposed landing operations in a modern era than any other service.

Can we just admit finally that in the age of drones, the USMC barely fucking matters? Maybe-35 units can hop around and surprise people but the idea they need a new fleet of ships to be relevant is stupidity ?
As Scott said, a lot of it was Congressionally mandated by the Battleship Lobby. Recall we were only able to strike the Iowas from the NVR in 2006, on the condition they could be "recommissioned" (whatever the fuck that means in this case). But AGS wasn't intended solely to support Marines ashore, a lot of it has to do with coastal infrastructure. Some studies were saying that 80% of Third World infrastructure is within 100 miles of the coast, well within Zumwalt's gun range. I do agree they severely overestimated the effectiveness of guns though. I would definitely recommend reading up on From the Sea.
 
I it is a dead issue now…the working range is more like a thousand miles, and that still is DF-26 fuckable.

The Congressional hard on for the USMC has wasted a vast amount of money.
 
I it is a dead issue now…the working range is more like a thousand miles, and that still is DF-26 fuckable.

The Congressional hard on for the USMC has wasted a vast amount of money.
This is precisely what I mean by the Zumwalt and LCS being designed in a different era. The 1990s and early 2000s was a completely different geopolitical environment, thus necessitating radically different defense policy and armaments. I think this is lost on most people while discussing the two programs.
 
I it is a dead issue now…the working range is more like a thousand miles, and that still is DF-26 fuckable.
So you need air defenses for your Tomahawk launcher (hello Aegis), or you throw an SSGN at the problem and dare the Chinese to shoot at a missile sub.



The Congressional hard on for the USMC has wasted a vast amount of money.
The military need is still there.

You need something able to put counterbattery fire on whatever is shooting at the Osprey LZs. That is the requirement.

Can't put enough bombs on an F35 to do that without breaking stealth, and I'm not sure an F35 can carry that load off an LHA even with a 600ft rolling takeoff. So now your Marine deployment requires a carrier group on top of the Amphib Group.

Whereas the plan for the Zumwalts gave 3x Zs per Amphib Group. I'm assuming one actively firing, one en route to the reloading point, and one reloaded and on the way back.

The modern threat picture has required vastly better defenses on whatever the next DD class is. Of course, even the FFG has to pack Aegis these days. The modern-threats destroyer/cruiser needs Aegis and SM3/SM6 for AShBM defense, enough electrical power for DEW/HPMs, then the usual ESSMs and ASROC for self defense. It desperately needs about 80 VLS cells just for the defenses, then another ~80 for the offensive load.
 
Might have been a better idea to build dedicated monitors to haul the AGS around and keep it separate from the Zumwalts.
 
Might have been a better idea to build dedicated monitors to haul the AGS around and keep it separate from the Zumwalts.
That was looked at and dismissed in the face of shrinking manpower.

Tho there was an idea to put it on what becane the San Antonio class but that was drop for 16 Tomahawks... which was drop for cost.


The Guns dont add nor subtract much from the Ship.

Infact it allowed the navy to play congress at its own game. You want a gunship here you go.

Those guns are why we have 3 ships at all.

Like people make too much noise on the guns.

The Zumwalts didn't lose anything from having them. Didn't lose the sensors, the stealth, range, cost what ever was from having guns on it. It was a neutral thing for the design.

The Navy wanted Stealthing cause the bit on the Burkes made those infinity tougher then the Ticos. So they wanted to go more on it for better protection.

They wanted the Sensors for better defense of everything ve it messing in the littorals to Riding shotgun with CVNs.

Range was an issue in both the Burkes Spruances and Ticos, they wanted 8k in those. Got barely 6k. So the ship got bigger to have more fuel to run everything at 120 percent at 30 knots for at least 6k. And they had alot of electronics to run.

Which leads in to the cost, all that was the expensive stuff, not the guns, besides the Ammo the guns was the cheapest system onboarded.

The Size was also from designing in for carrying another 124 missiles if the navy wanted as a hold over from the VGAS days. Cause not all Zumwalts was going to have the guns. Some likely was going to drop one for KEI Launchers* for BMD work or a Mk41 farm as needed.

But because congress wanted guns so guns the navy ordered.

*The KEI was developed concurrently at the time for navy use as well as army but with no ship to put it on. But the also in developed the Zumwalts which still had the big radar. Throw in the KEI similar Size to the Hypersonics now being put in...


TLDR the guns was not what got the Zumwalts canceled.

They why they survived.
 
So you need air defenses for your Tomahawk launcher (hello Aegis), or you throw an SSGN at the problem and dare the Chinese to shoot at a missile sub.

None of that has anything to do with the USMC or Zumwalt.

The military need is still there.

Disagree. If the USMC did not exist for the last 50 years, would that have historically changed any US conflicts? Going forward, do you think we will ever see an opposed landing operation ever again?

You need something able to put counterbattery fire on whatever is shooting at the Osprey LZs. That is the requirement.

Bullshit. The point of the MV-22 is operating far past the helicopter range of ships; that is how the USMC funded it. And regardless of what the USMC was thinking at the time they needlessly wasted vast amounts of money to no purpose, times have changed.



Can't put enough bombs on an F35 to do that without breaking stealth, and I'm not sure an F35 can carry that load off an LHA even with a 600ft rolling takeoff. So now your Marine deployment requires a carrier group on top of the Amphib Group.

Well that would be quite the fucking shock, an amphibious operation with air superiority. What will they think of next?

Whereas the plan for the Zumwalts gave 3x Zs per Amphib Group. I'm assuming one actively firing, one en route to the reloading point, and one reloaded and on the way back.

The modern threat picture has required vastly better defenses on whatever the next DD class is. Of course, even the FFG has to pack Aegis these days. The modern-threats destroyer/cruiser needs Aegis and SM3/SM6 for AShBM defense, enough electrical power for DEW/HPMs, then the usual ESSMs and ASROC for self defense. It desperately needs about 80 VLS cells just for the defenses, then another ~80 for the offensive load.

The entire idea of opposed landing and designing our navy to support such a bullshit fantasy is one of the myriad reasons our actual navy is vastly under funded. The USMC should have stuck to US army hand me downs like it did in the Cold War and maybe we could have a half dozen or more destroyers worth a damn and a carrier fighter longer than a gator freighter elevator that follows the area rule.

The U.S. has sacrificed a shit load of resources supporting USMC pipe dreams.
 
Disagree. If the USMC did not exist for the last 50 years, would that have historically changed any US conflicts?
Would much have changed? Some.

The Marines enjoy several things, including Constitutional requirement for existence. But the bigger one is that the President can directly order the Marines to do something, without having to get Congress to authorize moving the US Army, which then takes 6-9 months to get somewhere with vehicles. Yes, the 82nd exists. So does the 101st. Still requires Congressional authorization to send them somewhere outside the US.

The Marines? Well, if their ARG Admiral has half a brain in his staff, they're already either in the area or can be there in a week. And they're a pre-established light infantry battalion, plus reinforcing elements that are close to those given to Regiments or Brigades in the US Army (extra recon, a dedicated deep recon platoon, a full battery of 155s...). That are all trained together, so they know what's up and how to do most of the stuff that comes up.

So when the Faithless and Fearful Leader feels like taking a shit all over his neighboring country(ies), the first thing he does is look to see if there's a hundred thousand tons of Angry Diplomacy sitting off his coastline. There's not? Is one known to be within 500nmi of the coast? There is? Well, better change plans, because 500nmi is one day's steaming at 20 knots speed of advance. The other side of the freaking Pacific Ocean is 2 weeks away at that speed, and the USN calls that "Tuesday" (plus has enough oilers for the MEU to be able to play "race you to the gas station").

Mother Nature just had a fit and wrecked your coastline (Indian Ocean tsunami 2004, Japan 3-11-2011, Haiti, etc)? You will have a US MEU showing up for search and rescue whether you asked for it or not within the week. Maybe sooner if they happened to be nearby when things went down.

They have food, they have doctors, they have people with guns that will make sure looting doesn't continue, they have water purifiers, and they will bring all that stuff to you, to make sure your people survive Mother Nature having a fit.

People remember that when they thought all help was lost, they heard the thundering WHOPWHOPWHOPWHOP of a Huey or Ospreys overhead and help arrived as if from Heaven. Those angels looked funny, may or may not have been able to talk the local language, but they showed up and they cared. Old granny too hurt or tired to keep moving? One of them picked her up like she was a little girl and carried her to the medics and then to the food. Someone hearing noises of people trapped in a collapsed building? Where'd these 40 guys come from and where'd that path straight to the trapped come from?

And then, some of those people get to an American Embassy, to find out how they can become a Marine and do that. Or just how to become an American, and have enough energy and life to spare to help someone else in trouble.

Marines do a hell of a lot more than fight, even if fighting is what they spend most of their time training to do. Even if fighting is what they build probably 90% of their planning and procurement around.

And those post-disaster SAR ops? That's on top of the USMC's combat deployments. Or on the way to or from them.

Marines are a foreign policy tool, but they're not just a sharp knife. They're a multitool where most of the bits were made for fighting but have a lot of non-combat applications.



Going forward, do you think we will ever see an opposed landing operation ever again?
God I (ALL the expletives deleted!!!) hope not!




Bullshit. The point of the MV-22 is operating far past the helicopter range of ships; that is how the USMC funded it. And regardless of what the USMC was thinking at the time they needlessly wasted vast amounts of money to no purpose, times have changed.
Then you have no effing clue how the military plans out their landings.

The Ospreys fly about 50nmi inland to drop off their load of Marines, while the LHAs are ~25nmi off the coast to stay clear of any ATGMs used as antiship/anti-landing-craft missiles. Any given MEU only has a dozen Ospreys, so they're generally not diving deep into the hinterlands to drop off troops. They're flying ~75-100nmi inland to drop troops because that gets their round trip times down to a reasonable level. IIRC about 20-30 minutes between waves arriving. The farthest away an artillery unit could be from the LZ and still hit it was derived from the old 122mm guns that the Russians used where the rest of the world used 105s.

Which produced the 100nmi range requirements for the AGS.

25nmi to the coast, 50nmi from the coast to the Osprey LZ, and 25nmi more to the artillery shelling it at max.
 
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.
 
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.
Except they reached it or were in sight of it with a few more tweaks to the flight controls for better glide. Press releases for 83nmi/150km, and Excalibur has continued to stretch range since the 40km originally.

ERCA had issues because it was required to be backwards compatible with existing ammunition, and existing copper driving bands don't like 1200m/s muzzle velocities. I don't believe that the AGS was spitting rounds out that fast, and it did have bespoke ammo for whatever velocity it was launching rounds at, anyways.

SLRC is trying to get cheap rounds out to 1000miles. 1600km. (At least I think it's only 1600km, might be 1000nmi/1900km!). And you're just not going to get that easily or cheaply. The best I can see is a shell like the LRLAP in a sabot inside a 14-15" bore, getting launched like a sabot round from a tank and then using the rocket. That should predictably get 500km range from a gun with relatively inexpensive ammo as long as you make 100k shells. But doubling that range? That's going to take work. Probably ramjet rounds.
 
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.

LRLAP was essentially a rocket with a very energetic first stage. Not for nothing the Navy tried to rebrand it as a "Trainable Rocket Launcher" early on. Congress lost their shit and that term vanished in a matter of months (maybe weeks).


And yet the US thought differently and kept building better ABs of far more use.

One thing to remember is that the Navy is not a monolithic service, and even within the surface community there are different factions. The AEGIS community was strong and had for a long time its own de facto "king" -- Admiral Wayne Meyer, who had led its development and continued to have a lot of influence even after he retired. (Think Rickover lite.) DD-21 was an attempt by another faction to break out of the AEGIS mold. I've written before about how DD-21 basically tried to do everything different, from hull and signatures to shipboard computing, to radars, to manning and automation. You can trace that faction back to Admiral Metcalf and Group Mike in the 1980s, with the Revolution at Sea.

The Revolitionaries really riled up the AEGIS club, but Navy leadership managed to ram it through, largely on the basis of the obvious need to fix ship manning. Until it ran into Rumsfeld, and technology development hell. Then the support evaporated.

One of the main issues was the sheer size of the ship. This should not have been a surprise given how tumblehome hulls work, the scope of the equipment being carried, and the habitability standards required. But the Navy had totally failed to prepare people in OSD and Congress for that, in large part because it wasn't aware itself. Almost all of the service's preliminary ship design capability was outsourced to industry, so the proposals turned out to be much larger than most folks in OpNav expected. (Not much more expensive, per se, just larger).

The reversion to DDG-51 after the collapse of DDG-1000 isn't a sign of the inherent superiority of the design, just the lack of available options. The yards needed something to build and more Zumwalts were not an acceptable option so more Burkes was the only immediate alternative.
 
LRLAP was essentially a rocket with a very energetic first stage. Not for nothing the Navy tried to rebrand it as a "Trainable Rocket Launcher" early on. Congress lost their shit and that term vanished in a matter of months (maybe weeks).




One thing to remember is that the Navy is not a monolithic service, and even within the surface community there are different factions. The AEGIS community was strong and had for a long time its own de facto "king" -- Admiral Wayne Meyer, who had led its development and continued to have a lot of influence even after he retired. (Think Rickover lite.) DD-21 was an attempt by another faction to break out of the AEGIS mold. I've written before about how DD-21 basically tried to do everything different, from hull and signatures to shipboard computing, to radars, to manning and automation. You can trace that faction back to Admiral Metcalf and Group Mike in the 1980s, with the Revolution at Sea.

The Revolitionaries really riled up the AEGIS club, but Navy leadership managed to ram it through, largely on the basis of the obvious need to fix ship manning. Until it ran into Rumsfeld, and technology development hell. Then the support evaporated.

One of the main issues was the sheer size of the ship. This should not have been a surprise given how tumblehome hulls work, the scope of the equipment being carried, and the habitability standards required. But the Navy had totally failed to prepare people in OSD and Congress for that, in large part because it wasn't aware itself. Almost all of the service's preliminary ship design capability was outsourced to industry, so the proposals turned out to be much larger than most folks in OpNav expected. (Not much more expensive, per se, just larger).

The reversion to DDG-51 after the collapse of DDG-1000 isn't a sign of the inherent superiority of the design, just the lack of available options. The yards needed something to build and more Zumwalts were not an acceptable option so more Burkes was the only immediate alternative.
Very interesting, and I’ve lived the effects of cliques within the service structure.

It doesn’t get away from the DDG1000’s requirements were clearly grossly extravgent and an AB still offers better capability for the cost. That is massive failure. As frankly is the gun/rocket system - a total failure to ground what can be/might be, done, against reality.

A non tumblehome ship with some VLS, helos and 1 or even 2 5” would have been a good Sprucan replacement. It could have brought in leaner manning, better habitability etc just as Type 45 did for the UK. The USN would lilely have a fleet of them now and be basing its Tico replacmeent on that not the AB hull. Benefits all round.

Where blame is pinned is less relevant - noting that outsourcing to industry doesnt obviate you as the customer from tracking them. I find that hard to accept actually as my experience with US govt is they are incredibly invasive and all over what you are doing (which is great, they catch gaps and add lots of value) - in contrast to the UK where time and again we/they (I’ve done both sides!) do little but “give us the same / best” and then entirely abdicate any kind of interaction only to bleat endlessly when they get something that doesnt suit them.
 
Last edited:
It doesn’t get away from the DDG1000’s requirements were clearly grossly extravgent

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.

The extremely low signature was a function of the need to operate in a near-shore environment for both fire support and (more importantly) littoral ASW. Same reason we see the LPD-17 with RCS reduction, but DD-21 had to live there, not just run in and out to land troops. It also has to protect the amphibs.

Now yes, you can argue that the resulting ship was over-specced, and I'd basically agree. But it wasn't something the Navy could change entirely on it's own. A minor update of the Spruance design (say, a Flt IIA Burke hull with a smaller SPY and better aviation facilities) could have been built but probably would not have passed muster with Congress, OSD, or the Marines.

and an AB still offers better capability for the cost.

Have you seen the price of a Flight III Burke? More than a series production Z would have cost, even after adjusting for inflation.

If the Z hull had remained in production, it would have been so much easier to retrofit both AMDR and SEWIP III, given the available margins in the Z hull.
 
Have you seen the price of a Flight III Burke? More than a series production Z would have cost, even after adjusting for inflation.

If the Z hull had remained in production, it would have been so much easier to retrofit both AMDR and SEWIP III, given the available margins in the Z hull.

Seems to always go that way. Let's cancel this one, because it's too expensive, so we can buy an inferior design for more money. Can't wait to see what the final bill will be for DD/X (or whatever they're calling the Tico replacement these days).
 
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.

The extremely low signature was a function of the need to operate in a near-shore environment for both fire support and (more importantly) littoral ASW. Same reason we see the LPD-17 with RCS reduction, but DD-21 had to live there, not just run in and out to land troops. It also has to protect the amphibs.

Now yes, you can argue that the resulting ship was over-specced, and I'd basically agree. But it wasn't something the Navy could change entirely on it's own. A minor update of the Spruance design (say, a Flt IIA Burke hull with a smaller SPY and better aviation facilities) could have been built but probably would not have passed muster with Congress, OSD, or the Marines.
Quite, I can well see why they all want this, it all sounds lovely - but what the outcome shows is the “system” failed to spec an appropriate set of requirements that could be senisbly delivered. That is massive failure.

It can only be the requirements were wrong. It needed push back to say “tough, live with what the 5” gives you plus your AH1s and AV8s and future F35Bs” rather than billions on something new to also counter counter battery fire.

If a new hull (not Sprucan update) couldnt pass muster with those groups unless it was this massive exotic double 155 thing - then the “blame” sits on those groups.


Have you seen the price of a Flight III Burke? More than a series production Z would have cost, even after adjusting for inflation.
Although largely the systems costs and the integration within them - not the AB hull itself.

And that’s a very misleading comparison as it delivers far more than a production Z.
If the Z hull had remained in production, it would have been so much easier to retrofit both AMDR and SEWIP III, given the available margins in the Z hull.
Possibly, but it wasnt in production because the original program was a failure. I wondered if the ABIII would be a bridge too far in terms of failing although they seem to have it under control - but the DDG1000 design could have been used if they felt it offered an overall advantage.

I suspect expensive as it is, for the capabilities it will offer, there probably isnt a cheaper option. Especially time wise, which is cost anyway really.
 
It can only be the requirements were wrong. It needed push back to say “tough, live with what the 5” gives you plus your AH1s and AV8s and future F35Bs” rather than billions on something new to also counter counter battery fire.

In a perfect world, sure. But Congress had the power and will to say " you must give us this capability for the Marines or you get nothing." Which almost happened.
 
In a perfect world, sure. But Congress had the power and will to say " you must give us this capability for the Marines or you get nothing." Which almost happened.
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.
 
In a TACSIT-1 or -2 world, I would certainly still want a ship with electromagnetic and IR signature reduction equal that of the Zumwalt, not to avoid wide-area surveillance (which would no longer be possible) as originally intended with Zumwalt, but instead to make terminal soft-kill ASMD more effective when the ship is inevitably fired upon.
 
Except they reached it or were in sight of it with a few more tweaks to the flight controls for better glide. Press releases for 83nmi/150km, and Excalibur has continued to stretch range since the 40km originally.

ERCA had issues because it was required to be backwards compatible with existing ammunition, and existing copper driving bands don't like 1200m/s muzzle velocities. I don't believe that the AGS was spitting rounds out that fast, and it did have bespoke ammo for whatever velocity it was launching rounds at, anyways.

SLRC is trying to get cheap rounds out to 1000miles. 1600km. (At least I think it's only 1600km, might be 1000nmi/1900km!). And you're just not going to get that easily or cheaply. The best I can see is a shell like the LRLAP in a sabot inside a 14-15" bore, getting launched like a sabot round from a tank and then using the rocket. That should predictably get 500km range from a gun with relatively inexpensive ammo as long as you make 100k shells. But doubling that range? That's going to take work. Probably ramjet rounds.
To get a round out to that range you need something like a railgun with muzzle velocity of Mach 10-15, which requires you to impart 250-562.5MJ of KE to a 50kg round in the space of 7-10m. You need an aircraft-carrier-sized reactor and a really large capacity bank for that, even overlook the design of the cannon itself for now.
 
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.
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.
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom