You have to look behind the headlines, both ships have ability to generate ~11/12MW of electric power, Burkes three GTGs power purely for its radar and other weapon systems plus hotel loads whereas Constellation four DGs power mainly used for its HED propulsion with shaft mounted electric motors, 7MW?, to give ~16/17 knots before it has to bring its single LM2500 GT online. Burke has seven GTs, four LM2500 and three AG9160 GTGs, Constellation one GT, LM2500 and four DGs plus its drives and electric motors
Density and Cost
Rear Adm. Paul Schlise, head of the Navy’s Surface Warfare Division, said at the virtual SNA 2021 on Tuesday, speaking on the LSC, ref the Burkes “We’ve done about all we can do with this ship and we’ve maxed out the space, weight, power and cooling, “It’s time to reset to a new large surface combatant hull.”
Burke only a third larger than Constellation, but has three times the number VLS cells, the 5" main gun fires a shell five times the weight of the 57mm shell, a very large hull mounted sonar, AN/SQS-53C/D, no HMS on Constellation but a VDS which much simpler to install, etc and as pointed out previously its SPY-6 (V)1 is five times the power the Constellation SPY-6 (V)3 and the Burke (V)1 needing five 300 ton air conditioning plants, the Constellation (V)3 will need approx of only a single equivalent of one of the five 300 ton plants, so the off-array costs should be substantially less expensive.
Constellation will be substantially less dense ship and makes for simpler design and build than a Burke, will make it easier and cheaper to build.
Appreciate if you could ref to the industry papers
