"Canceling the DDG-1000 Destroyer Program Was a Mistake" Topic

"The U.S. Navy's DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers are extraordinarily expensive. Since 2009, the cost of the ships has increased 34.4 percent, according to the Congressional Research Service. Each of the three Zumwalt's being built will cost taxpayers around $3.4 USD billion. And, that's on top of the more than $9 USD billion in research and design funding that has gone into this program.

Are they worth the price? The Navy didn't think so in 2009 when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced the program would end with the procurement of just three ships, down from the 32 ships the Navy had initially planned to buy.

But, now that the first Zumwalt is actually in the water, there's growing concern that this decision may have been penny wise and pound foolish, as it leaves significant voids in the Navy's ability to adapt to future threats. Most notably, ending the Zumwalt program in favor of buying upgraded versions of the decades-old Arleigh-Burke DDG-51 destroyers limits the Navy's capabilities without significantly reducing costs…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

I say we should start laying down keels for more Zumwalts right now.

By the time they're ready, the USN Rail Gun project should be ready for deployment.

Imagine launching solid 7 Kg slugs at 5,000 mph over 100 miles, and with more destructive force than a WWII 16" naval shell! -Not to mention that it also packs 80 VLS cells with a up to 320 missiles.

Just the words "Rail Gun" will make every country with a coastline pee their pants a little.

Just the words "Rail Gun" will make every country with a coastline pee their pants a little.

But everyone knows the Swiss are the real threat.

Crank up the juice on the Railgun and you can reach Switzerland from the Med…

Billions wasted, like normal?

A shame no one is ever held accountable.

SNAFU!!!

[If you don't know what the acronym means, I suggest you look it up. Can't post here, sadly]

Personally I think keep cranking out Arleigh Burkes and replace LCS with a new multirole frigate.

DDG1000 seems like a ship without a mission. It's the equivalent of those old Russian cruisers still in service.

The main forseeable threats the navy has to counter are:

1. Proliferating submarines
2. Policing missions like piracy.
3. Terror attacks.

None of these warrants a DDG1000.

Neither the Russians nor the Chinese have the capability to build a surface fleet that could even threaten US naval dominance. None can build airforces or even large missile forces that can threaten US dominance.

The problem it appears the USN doesn't like where it was heading:

1. Floating airbase.
2. Floating missile arsenal.
3. Floating police force (the LCS was their nod to this).
4. Intelligence gathering.

None of these requires large cruiser/destroyers. And if the Navy really thinks the Chinese have anti-shipping ballistic missiles, then the DDG1000 is a sitting duck, especially everytime that large radar opens up.

I like to think that the DDG-1000 is simply a test-bed for the next class of warship which will be built from lessons learned, etc.

Its nice to dream…

I agree with Deadone about the current US naval mission, but one factor is that given the long lead-time for warship construction, the USN has to also plan against future contingency, not only present-day missions.

-Will

The main forseeable threats the navy has to counter are:

1. Proliferating submarines
2. Policing missions like piracy.
3. Terror attacks.

You forgot 4. return of Soviet- (and Chinese-) sized missile swarms; and
5. Supporting Marine forces ashore (which is actually a legally required thing for the USN).

DDG1000 was designed specifically to meet #5, and is potentially capable of handling #4, depending on radars and weapons loadout (it can carry up to 320 ESSMs, for example, but is probably only going to have ~80 ESSMs loaded, with 40 Block IV Tomahawks and 20 VL-ASROCS).

It also has a fairly sophisticated sonar set that's optimized for the shallows, and can either employ VL-ASROCs or send one of the helos out to say hello with a Mk54. So it can handle your mission #1.

It's seriously overkill for chasing pirates, but employing a Zumwalt would probably lead to fewer prosecutions and more shot while attempting to attack.

And because of how big the Zumwalt class is, it could easily have a SEAL platoon onboard and operate in support of them for chasing Terrorists. Or it could just lob some Tomahawks or 155mm shells onto their hideouts, depending on the presence of hostages.

You forgot 4. return of Soviet- (and Chinese-) sized missile swarms; and

Except no-one is rearming to that level. Neither China nor Russia can afford it.

and
5. Supporting Marine forces ashore (which is actually a legally required thing for the USN).

Which is being done by existing warships.

It's seriously overkill for chasing pirates, but employing a Zumwalt would probably lead to fewer prosecutions and more shot while attempting to attack.

Que? Type of ship doesn't impact on legality or rules of engagement.

And because of how big the Zumwalt class is, it could easily have a SEAL platoon onboard and operate in support of them for chasing Terrorists.

You've got a whole fleet of ships that can do this a lot better – amphibs of various sizes (LHA, LHD,LPD, LSD) as well as new LCS.

You certainly don't need an 11,000 ton stealth destroyer nor is it capable (how many MH-47 Chinooks or MV-22 Ospreys can it carry? Answer is 0).

Or it could just lob some Tomahawks

And an Arleigh Burke or submarine can do that right now.

You forgot 4. return of Soviet- (and Chinese-) sized missile swarms; and

Except no-one is rearming to that level. Neither China nor Russia can afford it.

Are we reading the same open-source reports? Both Russia and China are buying lots of new missiles and/or introducing new weapons like the anti-ship ballistic missile.

5. Supporting Marine forces ashore (which is actually a legally required thing for the USN).

Which is being done by existing warships.

Not really. 5"/54 is limited in range, the 5"/62 is better but still below the Congressional mandate minimum.

It's seriously overkill for chasing pirates, but employing a Zumwalt would probably lead to fewer prosecutions and more shot while attempting to attack.

Que? Type of ship doesn't impact on legality or rules of engagement.

I was alluding to the lack of small-caliber weapons on the Zumwalt. So basically any shot fired would have enough oomph to completely destroy the boat and the pirates.

And because of how big the Zumwalt class is, it could easily have a SEAL platoon onboard and operate in support of them for chasing Terrorists.

You've got a whole fleet of ships that can do this a lot better – amphibs of various sizes (LHA, LHD,LPD, LSD) as well as new LCS.

You certainly don't need an 11,000 ton stealth destroyer nor is it capable (how many MH-47 Chinooks or MV-22 Ospreys can it carry? Answer is 0).

The SEAL detachment I had in mind fits in a MH60.

Or it could just lob some Tomahawks

And an Arleigh Burke or submarine can do that right now.

The same Burkes that are being used for Aegis BMD, and so only have a couple Tomahawks loaded? That have more VL-ASROCs loaded than Tomahawks? That aren't going to be in the right place to shoot Terrorists because they aren't survivable enough in a threatened littoral?

And I will remind you that the Arleigh Burkes entered service in 1990. That's NOT a new design by any stretch of the imagination, and is rapidly running out of space for new upgrades. They don't have the electrical plant to power a laser, let alone a railgun.

The subs are another option for SEALs and tomahawks, but most subs are very limited in how many tomahawks they carry. 12 Tomahawks, which usually have to last for an entire 9-month deployment.

The oddball idea I had for a clean-sheet littoral penetrator was something like the French SMX-25 ( link ) Submersible but optimized for surface speed, stealthy, lots of missiles, and maybe packing a single 155mm/62 in a water-tight enclosure. The other gun option would be the Vertical Gun that was the predecessor of the 155mm/62, since a sub doesn't really care about the ~20 nautical mile minimum range of a VGAS. Just submerge and reposition.

Seems to me we need a submersible DDG-1000, perhaps about the size of a Russian Typhoon-class SSBN, with sub-launched, aerial drone capabilities, and remote datalink buoys to pass back any intel to it, covertly, without giving the sub's position away.

Remote undersea intel and autonomous attack drones would also be very useful too, for dealing with enemy submersibles and surface vessels.

That eliminates the enemy SSM and anti-ship ballistic missile threat.

Are we reading the same open-source reports? Both Russia and China are buying lots of new missiles and/or introducing new weapons like the anti-ship ballistic missile

Not mass buying like Cold War. And they're not really investing in airborne delivery platforms either – no massed Tu-22M Backfire regiments and nothing on Chinese side.

And many naval experts doubt that the Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile works. Even a super carrier is a very small target in an ocean.

How do the Chinese acquire the target in the first place? They have virtually no maritime patrol aircraft fleet and limited radar technology. They would have to rely on unreliable satelites (ureliable for tracking moving targets).

And how accurate are they? No missile is 100% accurate – there's a thing called circular error probability and even advanced US missiles are liable to miss things at times.

Not really. 5"/54 is limited in range, the 5"/62 is better but still below the Congressional mandate minimum.

Ideally 16 inch would be best!

I was alluding to the lack of small-caliber weapons on the Zumwalt. So basically any shot fired would have enough oomph to completely destroy the boat and the pirates.

Unless the pirates open fire, the international forces aren't allowed to fire on them.

The SEAL detachment I had in mind fits in a MH60.

You can fit 11 guys and an MH-60 on an Arleigh Burke. You did say platoon – MH-47 or CV-22.

The same Burkes that are being used for Aegis BMD, and so only have a couple Tomahawks loaded? That have more VL-ASROCs loaded than Tomahawks? That aren't going to be in the right place to shoot Terrorists because they aren't survivable enough in a threatened littoral?

Sorry but it sounds like you strung up some buzz words without any meaning.

1. Terrorists don't have ballistic missile capability requiring AEGIS level Ballistic Missile Defence.

2. Terrorists seldom have targets that require mass saturation cruise missiles.

3. Terrorists seldom have capability to threaten a warship.

4. You don't need to be the littoral to launch Tomahawks as they're "long range" – I don't think 1,300 – 2,500 kilometres is considered littoral.

And I will remind you that the Arleigh Burkes entered service in 1990. That's NOT a new design by any stretch of the imagination, and is rapidly running out of space for new upgrades. They don't have the electrical plant to power a laser, let alone a railgun

Funny thing is I still don't see the purpose of railguns or lasers on warships.

Look at main missions for surface fleet even in a major war:

1. Carrier escort.
2. Antisubmarine
3. Launching cruise missiles
4. Naval Gunfire Support (railguns might have some usage here but no where near as good as carrier aviation).
5. Maintaining a presence.

And then look at naval capabilities being deployed by our enemies:

1. Submarines – the new black. Russia and China are pumping money into these. A lot of smaller players are too.

2. Surface combatants – not so much. The Chinese have been investing in destroyers but don't plan larger warships than current in service vessels.

Chinese surface combatants are generally very conventional. They still don't have anything even close to an AEGIS and only ship based AESA radars are purely experimental.

Russian investments in surface combatants have been problematic due to funding and development issues.

They have those cruisers which were regarded as suicide ships in the Cold War thanks to American carrier aviation. Most of the frigates and destroyers are 20-30 years old without many new replacements actually coming into service.

Current procurement plans see only a few new surface combatants coming into service over next 20 years.

3. Aircraft carriers – Russians don't have active plans for additional carriers and certainly no funding has been set aside.

The Chinese carrier program is meant to deliver two new carriers in 2020s.

4. Naval logistics and naval basing – all. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese have the bases or ship based logistics to sustain long range force projection.

They talk about the Chinese "string of pearls" bases but given they can't get past the Malacca Straits they're a moot point.

Other than subs, both Russian and Chinese navies are effectively blockaded in any major war.

And then there's the question of how would naval warfare take place:

Large surface combatants essentially became obsolete as primary war fighting means when powered flight was invented in 1903.

There has been no proof of a shift from airpower as primary means of projecting airpower.

Indeed the carrier was the mainstay in WWII and also dominated in operations against Libya and Iran (about the closest the USN has got to a battle in the last several decades).

Carrier airpower was key in 1971 India-Pakistan War.

The other critical weapon is the submarine be it WWII, India Pakistan 1965/1971 or Falklands.

Conventional warfare between ships was rare:

1. One or two WWII style gun engagements between Allied and Egyptian warships in 1956. Resulted in one Egyptian ship sunk and another captured.

2. Since 1956 naval engagements have been based on small fast attack craft armed with Anti Ship missiles between opponents who had small navies or lacked heavy carrier presence.

This has included loss of 3 old fashioned gun destroyers (1 Israeli, 2 Pakistani) to missiles. The Pakistani ships were caught in a pre-emptive Indian strike.

Small fast attack craft proved ineffective against US air power in Libya, Iran and Iraq.

Anyhow all the proof continues to support the dominance of air power and submarines in future naval warfare and especially power projection

Countering submarines means more assets, not a few large ones.

Chinese surface combatants are generally very conventional. They still don't have anything even close to an AEGIS and only ship based AESA radars are purely experimental.

They have 2x Type 052D and 6x Type 052C destroyers, all with AESA radars. With just these 8 ships alone I think they have more AESA-equipped surface warships than anyone except the US and Japan. All but the 2 earliest 052C's have entered service in the past 2 years. And there are 7 more 052D's fitting out/being built.

Considering that the 052C's had a Link-11-equivalent datalink and the 052D's now feature a Link-16-equivalent, there's no reason to assume the Chinese also haven't figured out the magic of "automatically assign appropriate weapons to contacts that the radar is tracking". AEGIS was whiz-bang awesome when it was designed…..30 years ago. Hell, we're pretty sure they stole the blueprints for the F-35, wouldn't surprise me if they copied the AEGIS source code while they were snooping around Lockheed Martin's network. Chinese-language media calls the 052D's "Chinese AEGIS" BTW…

I really wish I could navigate the Chinese Internet but my Mandarin skills atrophied pretty quickly after college. But I don't think a lot of military-related technical data or even scientific papers makes its way onto the web anyway.

Thanks for updates on destroyers.

I'm still not sold on Chinese military electronics being that crash hot. They were very keen to get Israeli equipment and are still trying hard to get Russian equipment.

Oh and AEGIS of 2014 is not AEGIS of 1984.

Funny thing is I still don't see the purpose of railguns or lasers on warships.

Rails are for land attack at ranges in excess of double what the 155mm/62 can reach. Yes, the Navy is talking about 200-300 nautical miles range for rails, the 155mm/62s are able to reach out to ~100nm or so (which is pretty dang awesome, and four times the reach of a 16"!).

A sufficiently-powerful laser would give each ship so fitted with the ability to swat a Soviet-sized incoming missile swarm. Problem is that "sufficiently powerful" translates to "has it's own dedicated reactor of a size sufficient to power the ship."

A non-stealthy littoral ass-kicker I pictured was basically a nuclear-powered Des Moines class CA, with the 8" automatics replaced by 155mm/62s (they're actually about the same weight and weight of shell!) or rails, the 5" guns replaced by vertical launch cells and possibly an AEGIS system, and a 100 megawatt laser up high on the superstructure to kill any missile with a single, 0.25sec pulse. If you've watched any anime where some beam waves across the sky and that huge missile swarm blows up, that's the level of laser power I'm talking about.

I might even resurrect the 3"/50 guns, or a somewhat newer version of the M51 Skysweeper 75mm/60, maybe using the 75mm ARES high velocity smoothbore gun (which could hit 60 rounds per minute). That would give better range than RAM or CIWS, but I'd still have RAM and CIWS mounts for the final protective layers. And modern steel mills can handle WW2 cruiser-level armor plate production, so most coastal artillery and low-end missiles are not a significant threat.

The problem is that this hypothetical old-school cruiser would need the same powerplant as an aircraft carrier to feed the laser and the main engines. Might be able to fuss with things and have one reactor for ship's power and gas turbines to feed the laser, or just go for a full set of turbines. Dual reactors would be awesome, since you could run the ship off of one reactor, or both reactors at ~half power. Then you'd only need to spin the reactors up to full power when the laser was needed.

This ship is intended to be a big-time flag waver, able to sit just outside territorial waters and hit targets up to 100 miles inland with gunfire. Basically, it would be able to sit in international waters in the Med, and shell positions up on the Golan Heights and Bek'aa Valley, and there would be little Syria, Lebanon, or Israel could do to stop it. It would be able to provide massive fire support and HQ operations for any Marines ashore, you'd have one of these cruisers assigned to each MEU's group of transporting ships. So one gun-cruiser, one LHA/LHD, one LPD, and I think the last ship is an LST.

I'm still not sold on Chinese military electronics being that crash hot. They were very keen to get Israeli equipment and are still trying hard to get Russian equipment.

My honest assumption is that the Chinese are still having QA/QC issues with their native production. After all, look at how much trouble people have with Apple's Made-in-China items, and Apple is really picky about their parts quality.

And China will return to being the world's superpower when they figure out quality control and quality assurance. If I was setting up a business relationship with China, I'd use a slightly different phrasing: "China will only return to being the Middle Kingdom** when China figures out quality control and quality assurance."

** That's a Chinese idiom, roughly translates to "the center of the world" in English."

My honest assumption is that the Chinese are still having QA/QC issues with their native production. After all, look at how much trouble people have with Apple's Made-in-China items, and Apple is really picky about their parts quality.

China seeks outside technology in order to steal and copy IP until they are able to manufacture their own. There will be many bumps in the road until the Chinese finalize the copying/manufacturing process.

Quality in China depends on what level of manufacturing you seek, and really depends on available & skilled manpower -very difficult to maintain because factories are always stealing each other's talent.

In fact, all Apple products have been made in China for 10+ years. Every iPod, Mac, MacBook, iPhone, iPad was made in China. (some parts are assembled in the USA- but from 100% made-in-China.

Quality issues come from the sheer volume of products they sell and is measured in parts per million. In these numbers, you will always have some going bad. The quality of their manufacturing is world class and leads other manufacturing.

-Yes, I used to work on Apple development projects in China.

Oh and AEGIS of 2014 is not AEGIS of 1984.

That actually serves to reinforce my argument. The Chinese are applying 21st-century computer technology to implement a systems concept that they didn't even have to do the basic R&D/proof of concept for. Far lower barrier to entry.
AEGIS upgrades have been a mix ( PDF link ) of ballistic missile defense capabilities ( not a huge priority for China's surface ships ) , interoperability improvements ( China doesn't have 30 years of legacy obsolete electronics to integrate ) , and miniaturization ( again, China starting is starting fresh with current tech ) .

As cwlinsj has covered, China doesn't have much problem producing electronics. I'd be far more concerned about the quality of their metallurgy and related fields. Why else can't they produce a fighter jet engine worth a damn, despite having Flankers for ~20 years? In another high-performance interest area of mine ( car tuning ) , everyone knows not to buy Chinese wheels because they crack and fail. And Chinese turbochargers are hit-or-miss. Dunno why crap metals seem to be an endemic problem.

This ship is intended to be a big-time flag waver

But the mission of the DDG1000 is confused – a large stealth destroyer whose stealth features are being compromised (e.g. steel superstructure on #2 and #3 and not composite), which features a big whopping radar and electronics system (again not stealthy).

It's problems stem from a whole heap of differing requirements – there was the naval gunfire issue, a quest for an "arsenal" cruise missile lobber and a need to replace Ticonderoga-class cruisers coupled with increasing costs and decreasing budgets as well as growing risk of anti ship missiles.

Thus the US Navy decided it didn't need DDG1000 in 2008! 2 of the 3 ships being acquired were already started.

But it can fight the Lichtenstein navy!