I also had to see where the Navy is going with destroyers, and that's why my visit to Raytheon's Seapower Capability Center here was such a good investment of time: I got a chance for a lengthy discussion on the next-generation, Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer, which the Navy expects to be a standard bearer for the next 50 years.A three ship standard bearer. OK. Just like the SEAWOLF Class, I guess.
This is actually painful to read. It is almost as if the author did nothing but quote the handouts he saw lying around and did little critical research or thinking.
Without further comment - I'll put some of the quotes out here for you to ponder.
While the Zumwalt-class destroyer has been in the works for several years, its development comes at an opportune time, suggested my host for the day, Tom Laliberty, a director of integrated combat systems for Raytheon, which is leading the development of the technical systems of the vessel. That's because, he said, President Obama has announced a shift from land-based ballistic missile defense to sea-based systems, largely as a result of the difficulties of coordinating with partner nations.Ummmm.....
At the same time, the DDG 1000 is designed to throw off radar that would try to find it in a number of ways, including its composite materials. Another design is its wave-piercing tumblehome--or hull. Most Navy ships have flared hulls, Laliberty said, but the DDG 1000 was meant to be stealthy, and its tumblehome is angled in such a way that, "if you see it on radar," Laliberty said, "it comes across as a 45-foot trawler. It doesn't look like a 680-foot warship."Errrr ....
And because the Navy sees the threat of small boat raids and mines in places like the Middle East as being among the most dangerous ships like the DDG 1000 will face in the future, the destroyer is outfitted with undersea systems designed to counter any such dangers. It is quiet--so as to be able to sneak up on unsuspecting enemies. New mine-detecting capabilities--when tied to its navigation technologies--should allow the Zumwalt to be among the best in the world at avoiding mines.
Clearly, the Zumwalt-class destroyers are going to be big. The DDG 1000 will be 610 feet long, compared with 509 feet for the current-generation destroyer. Yet, the Zumwalts will carry a crew of just 148, compared with 382 currently. And that's largely because of the advanced electronic systems the new boat will feature, allowing the much-smaller crew to get much more out of their ride.Huh?
You get the idea. There is bad reporting, and there is sad reporting. This is sad.
I had to check the date three times. Amazing that someone could write this in the summer of 2010.
25 comments:
At least their piece on the Virginia class SSN was better than this. CNET needs to stick to reporting on consumer technology.
It's about the same when I try and discuss DDG-1000 with any of the crew from Bath Iron Works. They seem to think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and canned beer. It will do everything, go everywhere, and our enemies will bow down in submission at just the mention of it's name.
The BIW folks have been brainwashed to an amazing extent, and anyone who speaks in any sort of negative manner about it is considered a lunatic. It's all bout their jobs, see? Not the Navy's actual needs. Not what the country needs. It's about their continued employment, as if our Navy was simply a jobs program for them.
But its got that new "tumblehome"!
Awesome!!
AW1, ask them how that pesky wunder-plastic deckhouse is going....
Gates had better not dump contractors versed in composite repair.
Tim,
To speak ill of what your company produces will only lead to friendly visit from the propganda machine of your company to help "influence" your decisions and speaking. I am surprise that you haven't noticed the same within some of your commands. When you speak out against a precieved injustice or just asking the question of "why do we do it that way", you don't have a visit from the Khaki Mafia to help influence your thinking.
YOU WILL DRINK THE KOOL-AID AND SAY YOU LIKED IT! ;)
might as well have called it balsa wood. Should have mentioned the maintenance strategy too: contractors! Yup, stand by for LPD-17 part 3 (part 2 being LCS).
nevermind it has no standard missiles, no volume search radar, and no torpedo tubes (but it does have ASROC)
say what you want about DDG 1000. If the Navy was willing to go "all-in" and actually implement the plan that was hatched back in 1996, it might be ok. This ship could have been awesome. But going revolutionary instead of evolutionary rarely pans out.
Now, about BIW. regardless of DDG 1000, they remain the best shipbuilders in America.
It will take 3 ships to get 1 that works. Reason: Many Major components that are developmental and not mature, havent been proven in another operational ship.
If you consider this to be an interim project to push the tech envelope, then it all makes sense. Otherwise, I wouln't plan on relying on DDG1000 to meet operational requirements.
What's next cutting edge uniforms like the NWU?
Everyone talks about "contractors" (aka, yardbirds) as if they were necessary but barely tolerated. The truth is that there is a solid core of dedicated highly experienced craftsmen backed up by hundreds or thousands of skilled trades. Since the skills these people bring to work every shift is highly perishable, that means if there is a long lull in work, these people will migrate to other locations where there is work, or worse, just get out of the business altogether.
Keep firmly in mind, that this is not the years of the 70's or 80's where good people were dime a dozen. Many have died. Many more have retired. Just as many have moved to another income producer. Worst of all, there are very few young people coming in and willing to put up with the kind of conditions we work in.
When the skilled people run out, will you take your warships to the PRC to get repaired? Will the Koreans or Japanese build your ships? Something to think about when you say, DDG-1000 is a huge waste, so lets not build it. How about, lets not build DDG-1000, and instead build upgunned Burkes? It's an outstanding design, and better yet, mature.
<span>As that poor author highlights, there is no new argument, statement or anything to be said regarding the ZUMWALT. But, what if integration progresses easily compared to our last fiascos?
What if it ends up being a dinomite BMD cruiser with two guns?
I can hope, I suppose.
Really, I think I am just more interested in knowing how we move beyond all this. Make the d@mn things work, design new ships and not have to think that every ship I will serve aboard for the next 16 years are going to be garbage.</span>
He forgot to report that when there's a heavy storm the Zumwalt automatically converts to a submarine, thus making it not only a wave piercing but also a cost piercing vessel.
Not to mention, a design used many years ago and discarded for a good reason. My biggest beef amongst many are the location of the VLS cells: Just inboard of the skin of the ship. Now, does it sound stupid to anyone else besides me to put high explosive plus highly flammable fuel near a shrapnel penatration area? Duh?
CRAP THE DOOBIE BROTHERS BROKE UP???
You think nobody thought about that? Really? As an EDM, with USS Cole in mind, the program took 4 VLS cells with Tomahawk warheads inside and blew them up with a 5th warhead on the outside at Aberdeen MD. IOW five tomahawks going off at once. The explosion blew the top a mile away. ALL FAILURE WAS OUTBOARD. The webbing, welding, and material construction did not fail into the people tank. Aberdeen wants nothing more to do with DDG1000. Now, try to do this with a launcher in the middle of the bow.
The video is here:
http://www.navsea.navy.mil/teamships/PEOS_DDG1000/Videos/MCDE2.wmv
Question for anyone.
How long have we been debating the replacement for the cold war warriors of the Burke, Spruance Hulls, and Perry's?
It was only in 1993/94 time frame there was an article in Pop Mechanics talking about the Arsenal Ship. Where is that design?
Then in the late 90's/early 2000's there was supposed to be a common platform again with the CG(x)/DD(x)/FF(x) designs. Every month it seem to change from sharing common hulls to common electronic/weapons systems. The only thing common was that it shared Clark's idea of supporting "Sea power 21" strategy.
Then when Mullen took over that plan was scrapped for the idea of Sea power 21 commonality in exchanged for DDG-1000, LCS, CG(x), CVN-78 plans.
Some where between Mullen being CNO and becoming CJCS, DDG-1000 went from being a platform standard to just becoming a 3 ship platform (if my faulty memory reminds me it was cause of cost overruns just on how to draw the thing), LCS was canx'ed from a run off between hull types to just two hull types, CG(x) was canceled all the way around, and the costs for ship building started to run exponentially up the scale. Also the leadership in BuShips started to loose the PR war both in the Navy Enquirer, here on the internet, and finally in some of the civilian media. The only place they seem to be succeed in was in some of our trade publications, in house magazines, and our "independent" magazines.
Now we are still over 20yrs into the need for replacing some of our surface ships and still haven't advanced beyond some pretty artist mock-ups and some slick brochures. Some careers have invested themselves into it all and now have thier FitReps/Evals invested on making this work. Isn't there something to be said about that?
The price tag was unaffordable for CG(X). $9 Billion per hull! Why so expensive? Lockheed Martin did a quick look study that came out with a damning report. Back in the day we used to build new ship classes every 5 years. Each class would have 2 new technologies. DDG 1000 has TEN new technologies (the ten well documented engineering design models--Volume Search Radar, Dual Band Radar, Automated Fire Suppression System, Mk 110 gun weapon system, 57mm BOFORS, TSCEi, integrated propulsion system, tumble home hull, etc). with great development comes great cost.
CG(X) was going to have many fewer EDMs, and leverage heavily off of DDG 1000. however, as DDG 1000 ceased to be the standard and became the exception, the cost curves for CG(X) went out the window. Why did DDG1000 cease to be the standard? Probably because of the LPD-17 and LCS experiences. "Optimal manning," automated systems, revolutionary maintenance plans, computer based training were all wrapped into one wad and thrown like a terd onto the desks of fleet operators. the pushback was intense. So now we have DDG-51 Flight 3. Welcome back to 1990.
This is what you get when you try to keep up with the Jones's (china) after neglecting your house and car (fleet procurement) for twenty years, and especially during the Clinton administration. The front end investment required to get you back on track is huge.
Byron. We would not need to build more Burkes now if we had kept up with our pace back during Reagan years and built new classes every 5 years. instead we went all in with Burkes to save money. Now we are stuck with Burkes until we decide to make the investment in a new ship class.
Name me the last ship class we designed from the keel up.
Don't say LCS, not true.
Don't say CVN 78, not true.
that's right, DDG-51, designed back in the 1970s, was the last ship class to be designed from the keel up.
Salty,
What is the need to build from the keel up if there is a highly successful design that can both be enhanced and be the baseline for new units?
The problem was the retirement of literally a whole Navy of capable, and in some cases, nearly new warships. Starting with the Virginias, none of which were twenty when decommed (one of which had just fifteen years of service), and then the Spruances, which we refused to modernize, most of whom had fewer than 25 years of service, with a number fewer than twenty years. We followed that with five modern Ticos, for lack of wanting to install VLS. And don't forget the decommissioning of the auxiliaries and amphibs that took much of our staying power and our power projection capabilities.
Hundreds of billions of dollars of US treasure in modern, effective warships. Mothballed? Nope. Sunk or scrapped. THERE is your shipbuilding dilemma. Allowing those vessels to be properly modernized and SLEP'd would have allowed us to not have to scramble to keep our shrinking Navy from disappearing. The saving of "operating costs", as claimed, is a red herring. The cost of a new hull, many above $1 billion each, is more than the operating costs of any of those vessels for a very long time.
Before I retired, I went to a meeting back in 2008 where Raytheon and Lockheed Martin met with some NAVSEA HQ PMS-500 types. Raytheon presented their status of SPY-3 MFR. Then Lockheed presented the status of their SPY-4 Volume Search Radar. Sparks flew, when NAVSEA learned that the weight of each panel of the VSR was right at some limit of around 24,000 lbs ( per face !!). Well, Northrop Grumman was concerned because they are building all the Deckhouses out of composite matierial in GULFPORT, Miss. In the end, everyone at the meeting knew that Lockheed would not deliver a working SPY-4 to Gulfport in time for Northrop to build it into the first Deckhouse, which would be shipped up to Maine. In the following link, dated last week, Northrop ( on page #2) is finishing up the Deckhouse for DDG-1000 and soon will ship it up to Maine, but without any SPY-4 radar faces, which cannot be added later, since Gulfport uses an interesting construction technique, almost like embedding each array face into the composite materials.
So, this missing VSR for DDG-1000 is no surprize. News is almost 2 years old !! here's the link, read page 2.
http://www.sb.northropgrumman.com/shipbuilders/centerline/2010/080510I.pdf
Oh, by the way, it was also discussed about the inabiltity of VSR radar to radiate at full power continuously without overheating. No problem, DoD will just change the name of the project from Dual Band Radar DBR, and start again with ADER and then lie to the American Public and state that VSR is not being omitted from ZUMWALT because it fails to meet all range and power spec's. Don't you just hate it when NAVSEA lies to the Navy and the public ? And they are really poor at that, as we can all see right through their poorly released spins and lies.
Salty, I don't do design....none of my cohort does either. It's that bunch in BD sitting around in their skivvies, passing around a joint that comes up with a design....
URR, I am glad that you asked this question because there is an answer. The power requirement for each class of ships has gone up exponentially. You need to have a power plant that is capable of providing the required power. DDG 1000 has a huge power requirement than can only be satisfied by either an Integrated Propulsion System or a Nuclear Power System. The ship was designed around it. The power that we get from a SPRUCAN or a BURKE is insufficient. For CG(X), the power had to come from an IPS on steroids or a Nuke as well. You need new hulls because you need more power for radar sensitivity / gain, combat systems, computing, networking and comms. THAT is why you outgrow your hulls.
Additionally, the skill to design new hulls is as valuable as the skill to weld and bend steel, to fabricate, to lay a keel. If we got into a world war scenario, we'd need to pump out new hulls to meet new emerging warfighting requirements. NAVSEA doesn't have the engineering horsepower anymore to properly supervise that effort. LCS, LPD 17 is what you get in return...
Hope that answers.
that is not true, Byron...
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