US weapons procurement

[Nilsen]

Just get a regular civilian cargo vessel. Drop as many 100 of mk41 vls tubes in it as you need with tomahawks and give it an escort or add it to a taskforce. No need for a large crew bigger than 15-20. The vls system could prolly be remote targeted and fired from a burke escort or computer on the ship. Massive firepower. If you wanted to you could complicate it by adding ciws, armor and whatever but really no need.

[Shuffler]

See Rule #14

[jollyFE]

when they originally planned on the new DD, they were going to buy many more, so the original estimate for the rounds was much lower based on a higher quantity being ordered and produced.  When the new DD numbers dropped significantly, they still went with the gun and the ordinance manuf saw a dramatic decrease in rounds production so they had to increase the price in order to keep from losing $$.  I sit next to a guy who was one of the JOs (junior officers) on the program and we were discussing this the other night.

[Shuffler]

See Rule #14

[Sabre]

See Rule #14

[Gman]

They only have 150 rounds total of the new 155mm Zumwalt gun type too.   Only 150 rounds even exist right now.  That's not even enough to fill up 1/2 of one gun turret's loading system.  In fact the reserve storage rack holds 150 rounds, so they could fill that up, and leave the 600 slots in the gun turrets empty I guess.

Jolly, I've read that several places before, that it's due to the scale of manufacturing and the other DDG1000s being cancelled, that's mostly responsible for driving the price up on the rounds.  It's unfortunate, as all the tests, the videos, docs, etc out there show that the system works extremely well, giving the ship the ability to stand off from very long range, far offshore, yet still be extremely accurate, with good effects on target. 

[Squire]

“If our fleet of small numbers is so fragile that it cannot afford the loss of a single ship due to budgeting, how will it survive the inevitable losses of combat?” Commander Phillip E. Pournelle wrote in Proceedings.

[Rich46yo]

So much waste on these systems, that are always delivered late and over-budget, when there's legitimate question over whether they're needed.
Rant over.

These systems like the Zummie are so cutting edge and complicated, and take so long to design and build, that by the time they are launched the Military/world scenario they were first designed for has changed. Like the B1 bomber that went thru several variations as the defense/technology alignment changed as did the people making the decisions. Again all this made worse by going into previously unknown techno waters to keep an edge technologically , the very same edge that has won wars in the past.

So yeah we'll have three very expensive technology demonstrators and wont know what the heck to do with them. I can understand the decision about Aegis cause the Zum was never meant to operate independently and was always meant to be a shore attack platform. Besides it will have access to the network of escorting Aegis ships so putting Aegis on it would have been somewhat redundant for its actual mission.
                                                                                                                                                                  What eventually went down the quays was the latest iteration of what was envisioned in the late '80s when the Cold War was still going. Back then their was about 1/2 dozen possibilities and the program was constantly revised. One design was for a missile-centric arsenal type ship and if I remember right all of them were for a bigger ship then what eventually made it to sea. I consider it the above water Seawolf class, relics of a bygone era where there was a bigger threat and lotsa money to throw around.

Strange but like Seawolf I think the technology itself will one day prove the worth of building these things but I dont think we will get much use out of them as individual platforms. LO or stealth is kinda old tech but what is revolutionary of the "Z" class is how it is able to generate and distribute electrical power. Rail gun tech is maturing but is still probably 10 years away and the Navy is going the slow route of finding rail gun solutions for several classes of ships and not just one.

[Sabre]

I can understand the decision about Aegis cause the Zum was never meant to operate independently and was always meant to be a shore attack platform. Besides it will have access to the network of escorting Aegis ships so putting Aegis on it would have been somewhat redundant for its actual mission.                                                       

This seems counter-intuitive, Rich. I'm wondering what your source is for this statement. An important point behind stealth is to achieve both operational as well as tactical surprise (first shot, first kill), in addition to improving survive-ability once detected. It is pointless to take a stealthy platform and insist that it be placed at the center of a non-stealthy task force. The lack of AEGIS is more likely the result of it's impact to the Zum's radar cross-section, in the context of its ability to operate alone (i.e. without the need for a huge fleet to surround and protect it). The huge antenna arrays required by AEGIS are blazing bright bulls-eyes to an enemy sea-search radar, not to mention that, when powered up, they paint a giant arrow back to the ship (I'm right here! Shoot me!). It's like having a bright flashlight in a dark warehouse, where you're searching for an armed opponent; sure, you can see 20 or 30 feet around you, but that opponent can see you a quarter mile away. So, since the Zum class is a much harder ship to target from long range, and the ship's purpose is not to act as an air defense platform for a fleet, there was no compelling reason to include it, and every reason to leave it off.

[Sabre]

See Rule #14

Oh, and my apologies, Skuzzy. I seriously did not intend, or believe, my comments to be political in any way. Just trying to share my personal experiences. I shall try to be more circumspect in the future.

[Shuffler]

Oh, and my apologies, Skuzzy. I seriously did not intend, or believe, my comments to be political in any way. Just trying to share my personal experiences. I shall try to be more circumspect in the future.

Don't feel bad, I was doing the same and got edited twice. Seems if you have first hand experience regarding the thread headline, there is no way to say the facts without breaking a rule. I just gave up on this thread. LOL

Skuzzy has enough on his plate without me adding to his workload. 

[FBKampfer]

See, what I'm wondering is what exactly the ship's purpose is. Apart from recon and raids, it really doesn't seem to have much use.

The carrier is and will remain the primary nexus of naval power for the foreseeable future. Any major operation requiring destruction of shore targets will invariably be accompanied by at least one carrier.

The US has its modus operandi, and the Zummwalt doesn't seem to fit. As rich said, they seem more like technology demonstrators. The one area where they could really be useful is that they generate sufficient surplus power to mount multiple laser or rail gun batteries, which would make them powerful air defense platforms, however nothing else about them is optimized for the role despite the fact that this has been on the horizon for at least a decade.

[Sabre]

Yes, it does seem to be a platform in search of a mission. It still has respectable land attach capabilities, and that uber-pricey main gun ammo was supposed to fill a niche target spec; too close to shore to waste a tomahawk or harpoon on, but too far for conventional gun munitions. Problem is, the rounds became so expensive that it was debatable whether they were cheaper or not (though certainly the Zum can carry more of those rounds than any other ship's cruise missile compliment)...it just can't afford to! I think maybe it was an attempt to provide a more discrete way to attach land targets, and free the carriers for more important missions.

[Serenity]

I think maybe it was an attempt to provide a more discrete way to attach land targets, and free the carriers for more important missions.

THAT sounds pretty accurate.

Yes, a JDAM is cheaper than a cruise missile, but remember, you're never going to sortie just a single Hornet. That strike package is likely four planes you're sending in, which is either 4 or 8 pilots. Likely to be a Growler in the package too, so two more pilots. Plus the cost/hour to operate these aircraft (Offhand, I would say $15,000/hour is fairly reasonable), assume at best a two-hour op, and you get $150,000 just to carry that bomb there, not including the cost of the bomb, the training sorties to get proficient, and the cost to move the whole CSG over there. That bullet cost gets more and more reasonable when compared with an air package...

[icepac]

See Rule #14