USS Zumwalt christened

comongethappy

Its been in construction for some times, at biblical cost, however yesterday the US christened its newest class of destroyer.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-navy-christens-huge-3-billion-destroyer-ship-uss-zumwalt-that-appears-as-a-fishing-boat-on-enemy-radar-9257304.html

This bad boy looks like some piece of kit.
And will carry the new rail gun being tested.

Game changer or too costly to produce in the quantities needed to replace the Arleigh-Burke class?

Shatter should put us down for 2!

mikeym

Shatter doesn't give two hoots about defence fact.

sparky42

mikeym wrote: »

Shatter doesn't give two hoots about defence fact.

Whether he does or not, anyone who signed off on these budget crushing ships shouldn't been in Defence, outside of the US the budget for these would have bought 3 destroyers for 1 of them.

OS119

while its certainly true that 3 of these would buy 9 Type 45 Destroyers - hardly bargain basement stuff - they are twice the size of a T45, and can carry enough Tommahawks to not just start, but fight and win, its own little war.

theres also the big thing that this class is as much technology demonstrator as it is warship - the replacement for the AB's will carry lots of the tech, or versions of the tech, or rebuilds of the tech, that this class developed. they'll probably be a bit more conservative, but they'll also be a lot cheaper because of the development and 'lessons learned' (mistakes) from this class.

Mikeym: you may think Shatter doesn't give two hoots about defence, but he's probably the first DM in living memory who has organised the DF for the roles and capability the DF has, rather than for what is politically expedient in marginal constituancies rural and deprived communities. he's certainly given more thought to defence (both narrow departmental and wider strategic) than any DM i can recall...

sparky42

OS119 wrote: »

while its certainly true that 3 of these would buy 9 Type 45 Destroyers - hardly bargain basement stuff - they are twice the size of a T45, and can carry enough Tommahawks to not just start, but fight and win, its own little war.

theres also the big thing that this class is as much technology demonstrator as it is warship - the replacement for the AB's will carry lots of the tech, or versions of the tech, or rebuilds of the tech, that this class developed. they'll probably be a bit more conservative, but they'll also be a lot cheaper because of the development and 'lessons learned' (mistakes) from this class.

Mikeym: you may think Shatter doesn't give two hoots about defence, but he's probably the first DM in living memory who has organised the DF for the roles and capability the DF has, rather than for what is politically expedient in marginal constituancies rural and deprived communities. he's certainly given more thought to defence (both narrow departmental and wider strategic) than any DM i can recall...

Forget the Type 45, I'd go for the South Korean Sejong the Great class (the largest Burke Variant)

True, but there is the issue that the USN has more lunch tubes than missiles at the moment and as a strike feature the SSGN's have more, not too mention the South Korean Burke variant that carries half again as many tubes as the Zumwalt class (and can do the ABM duty that the Zumwalt can't). The 155mm might be what the USN needs for shore bombardment, but is it realistic to think that the US Marines are going to do a WW2/Korean War invasion against modern systems?

I'm also wondering about the lower manpower numbers, that's already bitten the USN on the LCS hulls, 140 crew for the largest destroyer?

comongethappy

sparky42 wrote: »

I'm also wondering about the lower manpower numbers, that's already bitten the USN on the LCS hulls, 140 crew for the largest destroyer?

I suppose they want to offset vast R&D budgets against a reduced wage bill over the lifespan of the vessel.

The new 'Gerald Ford' Aircraft carrier is supposed to operate with about 800 fewer crew than a Nimitz.

You mention "more launch tubes than missiles"?
Are the USN running low on tomahawks?

Fratton Fred

15,000 tonnes, that's a big old boat.

sparky42

comongethappy wrote: »

I suppose they want to offset vast R&D budgets against a reduced wage bill over the lifespan of the vessel.

The new 'Gerald Ford' Aircraft carrier is supposed to operate with about 800 fewer crew than a Nimitz.

You mention "more launch tubes than missiles"?
Are the USN running low on tomahawks?

I get the reduced manning costs (and the after service support costs as well), but there is a limit to reductions (a 800 reduction in 5000 crew is something, though compared to the UK CVF it's still twice as much crew), however the Zumwalts are the largest "Destroyers" with a crew smaller than many frigates a third their size. I hope their plan for what happens if somebody else shoots back works.

In terms of missiles, the CNO and Secretary of the Navy are on record as saying with the number of Burke and Ticonderoga class ships they have more VLS capability than they have air defence and cruise missile missiles to fill them. Think about it even with the reduction the USN has had in hull numbers, they actually still have more Aegis equipped ships with VLS than when they had 500+ hulls

tac foley

Hmm, I wonder what is meant by this - 'It is also hoped the Zumwalt will, like its reformer namesake who spearheaded changes that helped shape the Navy by offering new opportunities to women and minorities, shepherd the fleet into a new era, officials said.'

Dwarfs?

Seventh-day Adventists?

Tri-sexual necrophiliacs?

Who knows?

tac

sparky42

tac foley wrote: »

Hmm, I wonder what is meant by this - 'It is also hoped the Zumwalt will, like its reformer namesake who spearheaded changes that helped shape the Navy by offering new opportunities to women and minorities, shepherd the fleet into a new era, officials said.'

Dwarfs?

Seventh-day Adventists?

Tri-sexual necrophiliacs?

Who knows?

tac

Yeah I was wondering about that as well. Seems like pointless BS. The only thing I can think about is a comment I remember from a documentary on the US Carriers way back when it was pointing out that as they had been designed and built before women at sea, they did have some issues in terms of bathrooms/showers etc for women (something like women having to go through male berthing spaces to get to the showers I think).

Other than bits like this I have no idea what they are on about, I imagine the technology and design if validated would be more "reforming" to the Navy

OS119

tac foley wrote: »

...Who knows?

tac

this is the US Navy, an organisation i have a great deal of time for, but who lately seems to have its head up its arse in spectacular fashion.

an excellent example of this is its new uniform: as many will know, the various US armed forces have being going paint happy with new, and different, uniforms. the USMC got a digital-type thing with tiny little globe and anchors in the design, the USAF decided on a somewhat bizaare blue/green/tan bastard-offspring-of-tiger-stripe-thing that the USAF knows is crap because it issues US Army Multicam uniforms to any of its personel going anywhere they might get shot at - but the US Navy, well they decided that what people working on a 100,000 ton aircraft carrier needed to wear was a dark blue/grey mix that disappeared inside a darkened ship, and matched perfectly the environment they would fall into in an accident.

the word 'fcuknugget' doesn't even come close...

sparky42

OS119 wrote: »

this is the US Navy, an organisation i have a great deal of time for, but who lately seems to have its head up its arse in spectacular fashion.

an excellent example of this is its new uniform: as many will know, the various US armed forces have being going paint happy with new, and different, uniforms. the USMC got a digital-type thing with tiny little globe and anchors in the design, the USAF decided on a somewhat bizaare blue/green/tan bastard-offspring-of-tiger-stripe-thing that the USAF knows is crap because it issues US Army Multicam uniforms to any of its personel going anywhere they might get shot at - but the US Navy, well they decided that what people working on a 100,000 ton aircraft carrier needed to wear was a dark blue/grey mix that disappeared inside a darkened ship, and matched perfectly the environment they would fall into in an accident.

the word 'fcuknugget' doesn't even come close...

Haven't the USN also "discovered" that said uniform is fairly flammable? I had noticed the turnover in uniforms over the last decade, how much money have they spend in picking them and then buying them and replacing them? I'm guessing that you could fund the Irish Defence Forces equipment buy with the money that's been wasted!

OS119

sparky42 wrote: »

Haven't the USN also "discovered" that said uniform is fairly flammable? I had noticed the turnover in uniforms over the last decade, how much money have they spend in picking them and then buying them and replacing them? I'm guessing that you could fund the Irish Defence Forces equipment buy with the money that's been wasted!

the flammable thing would not surprise me, not in the least...

i thnk the total cost of the changovers - everything from the decision to move away from the old US Woodland/desert pattern onwards, has cost around $5billion. Congress has gone utterly ballistic over it - and ammusingly, the 'hide on the sofa' ACP pattern (the grey/sage abortion..) the US Army has spent the the best part of a decade defending, has been cancelled in favour of yet another type, this time a MultiCam derivative.

E2A: it turns out the $5bn figure is only for the US Army...

sparky42

OS119 wrote: »

the flammable thing would not surprise me, not in the least...

i thnk the total cost of the changovers - everything from the decision to move away from the old US Woodland/desert pattern onwards, has cost around $5billion. Congress has gone utterly ballistic over it - and ammusingly, the 'hide on the sofa' ACP pattern (the grey/sage abortion..) the US Army has spent the the best part of a decade defending, has been cancelled in favour of yet another type, this time a MultiCam derivative.

E2A: it turns out the $5bn figure is only for the US Army...

:eek:That's just inexcusable! For feck sake, how does nobody in the DOD get charged for such wastage (and why other than "I'm special" why did/does the Marines and the Army need different camo's?).

I just love how the US Republicans demand responsible spending and then have this BS and ****e like the LCS:rolleyes:

comongethappy

When you consider the costs of this destroyer, the 6 billion on the Gerald Ford, $175 million per F-35, 5 billion on a uniform etc.

Is America getting weaker militarily based simply on not being able to afford enough units?

sparky42

comongethappy wrote: »

When you consider the costs of this destroyer, the 6 billion on the Gerald Ford, $175 million per F-35, 5 billion on a uniform etc.

Is America getting weaker militarily based simply on not being able to afford enough units?

Isn't it about 10 billion for a CVN? Either way the fact that they seem to fundamentally not be able to constraint cost growths has to be an issue, think of how much money has gone into the projects that haven't made it as well, that replacement set of armoured vehicles that got cancelled, the scout helicopter programmes, hell the US. Marines and Army have even gone so far to develop different variants of the 5.56 mm bullet (to address issues in Afghanistan) without even trying to use the same one.

From memory the pentagon has continued to get away without even being audited as they argue it's too complex. Think about this that 5 billion in uniforms could have bought a fourth or more of the Zumwalt class or nearly 2 Burkes, or dozens more F22s. Certainly it's not just questions of money but what it's spent on but good luck getting anyone in or related to the military to accept that. Easier to blame "soft on defence" democrats.

Larbre34

Blue uniform for the Army, what a laugh. Historical links aside, that really must have had its genesis under the Bush administration. (Just checked, it was!)

tac foley

Larbre34 wrote: »

Blue uniform for the Army, what a laugh. Historical links aside, that really must have had its genesis under the Bush administration. (Just checked, it was!)

You may have noticed that the US Navy in moderate climes wears light tan uniform?

tac

Jawgap

comongethappy wrote: »

When you consider the costs of this destroyer, the 6 billion on the Gerald Ford, $175 million per F-35, 5 billion on a uniform etc.

Is America getting weaker militarily based simply on not being able to afford enough units?

Don't know about that.....

They (and other countries) may have arrived at paradoxical circumstance whereby the kit they have is so powerful it can take on anything a potential enemy can throw at it, but also so expensive that it can't be risked in a combat situation!