DDG(X) Becoming a CG(X) Flashback?

Navalists should be forgiven if they have, on occasion, the mindset and habits of an abused partner. 

Slightly flenching with memory, but always hoping that this time - this time - things will be different.

There is good reason for scepticism and concern. Firstly, we know the mindset and process that begat LCS and DDG-1000. We know that there wasn't really any accountability to "the system" for this. A system that has remained unchanged. 

The only thing that was considered satisfactory from that era was LPD-17 - a program that had enough money thrown at it so this Tiffany amphib could be a functional class of warships. FORD is, well, you know that drill.

So, we lost a generation of warships due to smart people in hard jobs who couldn't stop getting high off their own .... arrogance in thinking that they knew better than generations of successful warship development that came before them.

On the smaller warship side of the equation, when even its greatest advocates had to admit the comical failure of LCS, we decided to go down a path originally suggested here 14-years ago: stop building them and build an existing EuroFrigate until we can design one ourselves.

That's the patch for LCS. Like you, I have heard rumors of rumors of issues that we are messing with a successful design attempting to make it an unsuccessful design under a cloud of Good Idea Fairies, but hull-1 is under construction and we shall see. Putting a 57mm on a warship designed for 127mm or at a minimum 76mm was a bad enough tell of the corruption in our system (got to give LCS mod a chance for FFG(X) dontchaknow), but you have to work with the system you have.

Of course, on the larger surface ship part of the fleet, we just plain blew ourselves up. In spite of the clear lessons even early on about LCS and DDG-1000, our leadership sailed CG(X) in to unbuildablestan. That book is still unwritten, but when it is, it will reinforce your worst assumptions.

People, programs, and systems failed again with no accountability. 

See a pattern?

Without a cruiser program displacing water and ZUMWALT being a white elephant, what is a navy to do? Well, we ran our TICO until they coughed across the decommissioning line and decided to restart a Cold War era Arleigh Burke in to a Flight III because we had no choice.

We still don't have a replacement for the TICO CGs, but we do have a program to replace the Arleigh Burke DDGs (which the green eyeshade efficiency cult that created the mess we are in writ large want to be a replacement for DDG and the rapidly disappearing CG).

Yes, that should set off alarm bells. 

As a closet optimist, I was hoping that - and yes hope is not a plan but no one will let me fire people and Congress won't change the rules - the last two decades would humble our Navy in to not letting requirements get out of control, would keep the Good Idea Fairies from every underemployed office hovering around her, and blowtorch anyone who still has a transformationalist mindset. Alas, there are concerns.

It is very simple what the US Navy needs; hulls displacing water. As smarter generations did before with the SPRUANCE DD etc; you can design white space to grow in to as expected systems mature...but you let them mature. Don't believe the hype and the promises of happy-talking defense industry types - it is hard enough to build a new hull and engineering plant in itself - you must minimized overall risk by at least starting with know systems, weapons, and manning concepts that will ride in that hull.

We are already late and the lack of urgency is almost criminal. This isn't 1998-2002 anymore.

It is with that background that this report starts out sounding promising;

The first design contracts were awarded this summer to General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine and Huntington Ingalls Industries in Mississippi for a large surface warship that would eventually follow production of the ubiquitous Burke destroyers.

All of that warfighting gear won't come cheap. The average cost of each new vessel, dubbed DDG(X), is projected to be a third more expensive than Burkes, the latest of which cost of about $2.2 billion apiece, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Navy has vowed that it won’t repeat recent shipbuilding debacles when it rushed production and crammed too much new tech into ships, leading to delays and added expense with littoral combat ships, stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyers, and the USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier.

“Rather than tying the success of DDG(X) to developmental technology, we’re using known, mature technologies on a flexible platform that can be upgraded for decades to come, as the technology of tomorrow is matured and demonstrated,” said Jamie Koehler, a Navy spokesperson.

...but there is a shadow;

Matt Caris, an analyst with Avascent, said the Navy is going to great lengths to prevent spending from getting out of control, from its view on mature technology and overall acquisition process to timetable. The first in the class of ship wouldn’t be commissioned until the mid-2030s.

“The Navy is trying to thread the needle with some potentially revolutionary capabilities in as low risk and evolutionary process as possible,” he said.

Others worry that the cost will become a drain on the rest of the fleet.

It’s possible that the Navy could afford only one of the ships per year, compared to current destroyer build rates of two to three per year, shrinking the size of the fleet over time, Clark said.

“They want to pile every mission on the the DDG(X) to make it sort of death star. They’re putting all their eggs in one basket financially,” he said.

The new destroyer represents the high end of the Navy’s aspirations.

To be frank, if anyone is using the word "revolutionary" in 2022 about such a critical warship, they should be reassigned to, oh I don't know, Thule.

This is the big danger though. I'll repeat it in case it didn't jump out at you the first time;

“They want to pile every mission on the the DDG(X) to make it sort of death star. They’re putting all their eggs in one basket financially,” he said.

The "they" there are the Good Idea Fairies, the agenda pimps, the transformationalists - the arrogant.

There is a battle right now with those who are correct in not rushing "revolutionary" and those who are convinced of their own perfection.

The time to fight and win that battle is right now before it is too late. 

This is what happens when you lack accountability for LCS and DDG-1000.

If like me you lack access to a lever of power, pray or support those who do. If you are someone who has access to a lever of power, now is the time to act. I have sat over adult beverages with those who regret their role in CG(X) enough - in a few years I want to raise glasses in support of a great new class of warships ... not have a somber table of regret.

PS: we still need a cruiser. Maybe we can build what the Japanese are pondering.

Overspec'd, Overpriced, all Navy: Bob Work on Institutional Addictions

Last Wednesday I had a few observations on Jerry Hendrix's latest article over at National Review, “The Navy’s Littoral Hubris.”

Yesterday in comments, a man familiar to readers here, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, weighed in with some counterpoints that I feel need to be brought above the fold for your consideration.

With his permission, I've copied his comments in full.

There are the bones of one hell of a book here in six short paragraphs.  

Bob, over to you;

---

As he always does, my good friend Jerry writes a compelling, well written post. However, I think he misses an important point. The problems the Navy has faced has less to do about technological hubris and more with incompetence in developing cost-informed requirements and executable support processes.

Let's start with the Ford CVN. Back in the day-- around the time of the 1993 Bottom Up Review, long before the word transformation had found its way into Pentagon thinking--the Navy and Air Force were competing for the "rapid halt" mission. The thinking went that the enemy could launch an invasion of allied territory at a time of their own choosing. The job of the Joint Force was to halt the invasion as quickly as possible through intense guided munitions bombardment. The Air Force argued the best way to do this was using bombers and regionally based aircraft, which enjoyed a big advantage in sortie rates from land bases. The Navy was intent on proving they could match sortie generation rates from forward deployed carriers. To do that, they needed a new electromagnetic catapult system; an electromagnetic arresting system; new high speed low drag elevators, etc etc etc. They called for these new capabilities with no clear understanding of the cost to get them, or a sensible land-based prototyping and testing approach to work out the bugs before shipboard integration. It is true that OSD demanded that all the new technologies be incorporated into the first ship of class of the new CVNX (later Ford), rather than inserting them over the first three hulls. That caused a technology integration overload. But the original sin was setting new requirements with no clue how much it might cost to get them.

Then came the DD-21, aka DD(X), aka DDG-1000. The surface community knew that the 31-ship Spruance class was going to start decommissioning starting in 2005 (that was the plan, anyway). The community needed a plan to replace them. The community was also tired of taking a back seat behind the carrier and sub forces, a circumstance they were force to tolerate throughout the long Cold War. And it wanted to get in on the rapid halt mission. The arsenal ship was a conceptual start point. But the surface community wanted something even more exotic. So they called for a stealthy surface ship with deep magazines--missiles, or guns, or both. OSD was not the one pushing the stealth design. That was all Navy. And, in the end, the Navy designed a 15,000-ton battle cruiser with a hull that was literally too expensive to produce. The ship suffered the same technological overload at the Ford class, but the over-spec-ing of the ship was all Navy, not OSD. Again, these were sins of the Navy.

The LCS is a more complicated story. OSD told the Navy that OSD would not support their DD(X) unless there was a smaller combatant in the Navy's battle force. The Navy decided to get out of the frigate business during the 1997 QDR--again, a Navy decision. This meant the smallest surface combatant in the 21st century fleet would have a full load displacement of nearly 9,000 tons (DDG-51 Flt I). OSD didn't think the Navy could afford to build and maintain such a fleet. They were, of course, spot on...see fleet of today. The ONLY requirement OSD levied on the LCS program was that the Navy needed to be able to build three of the ships for the same cost as a DDG-51. And guess what? The Navy hit that mark. We just forget about it--and how important a metric it was.

Cost aside, the crewing, training, maintenance and deployment process decisions were all the Navy's to make. But every choice ultimately proved to be beyond the ability of the surface community to execute them. This was a case of process, not technological, overload. It appears the surface community may be finally figuring things out on the ship. But no objective review of the LCS fleet transition plan would conclude anything other than it was abysmally bungled.

The reason I think we have to remember these vignettes is we need to ask ourselves if we are about ready to repeat the process. IT DOES NOT MATTER THAT THE NAVY CHOSE A PROVEN DESIGN FOR FFGX. The Navy is cramming as many requirements and capabilities into the FFGX hull as they can. Eric Lab at CBO is convinced the Navy has once again overspec'd the ship and underestimated the costs to build it. I hope he is wrong. But if we can't build a minimum of two FFGXs for the cost of a DDG FltIII, it is not clear it is worth the cost, or the smaller fleet it will inevitably lead to.

Robert O. Work spent 27 years on active duty as a Marine artillery and MAGTF officer. He is a former Undersecretary of the Navy and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security. He served as the Deputy Secretary of Defense alongside three Secretaries of Defense spanning both the Obama and Trump administrations.

To Build the Fleet We Need: Demand Humility & Challenge Arrogance

Why must we continue to remind everyone who will listen of the failures of the Age of Transformationalism™? Simple; we cannot afford another generation of programs lost to arrogance, ignorance, and toxic command climates that leave bad ideas and ahistorical program assumptions go unchallenged.

Futurism, offset promises, overmatch assumptions, risk devaluation, divest-to-invest – these are all attractive ideas that brief well. They seem to promise to solve so many hard problems. They offer more for less.

They seem to allow an easy path; a way to avoid hard work and compromise … and to accrue to their advocates accolades as the “it guy/gal” who has all the vision and provides all the comfortable answers.

This is an ongoing fight. The Transformationalists won the bureaucratic war two decades ago with disastrous consequences to our Navy. The second and third order effects continue to haunt us as we approach the middle of the third decade of the 21st Century and by many measures the US Navy is now the world’s 2nd largest navy as a result.

We did this to ourselves.

To fix this we need to take affirmative action to grow our fleet. How we find the money to do that is for Congress to figure out, but grow it we must. To do that we need to understand, acknowledge, and study how we got here.

Over at National Review, our friend Jerry Hendrix has a must-read article that puts where we are in context and reminds people something we will have to repeat over and over this decade – we did this to ourselves. It is perfectly titled, “The Navy’s Littoral Hubris.”

The apparent operational successes in Operation Desert Storm (1990–91) and later during the breakup of Yugoslavia (1995–2000) convinced Navy and Department of Defense leaders that future operations would occur largely in permissive environments and against low-end small-state or non-state actors. Based upon these assumptions, they set about to design a Navy optimized to operate in littoral environments. The resulting ships, the Ford-class aircraft carrier, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, and the Littoral Combat Ship, were the products of these assumptions.

Each of these ships came with an additional fault hidden in its initial design: a hubristic belief that the moment had arrived when the United States could execute a significant technological “leap ahead” in ship design on par with the development of the HMS Dreadnought in 1905, a battleship that, according to legend, rendered all other existing designs obsolete with its launching.

The Ford-class carrier, which was optimized for increased sortie generation based upon a concept in which it would conduct high-tempo flight operations near the shores where the targets of its aircraft were, was designed with five major revolutionary changes. 

...

The USS Ford, which cost nearly $15 billion, was commissioned in 2017 but, because of problems with each of its new subsystems, has yet to deploy operationally overseas.

The Zumwalt-class “land-attack destroyer” was conceived with a unique mission and a set of technical challenges of its own. 

...

Currently the plan is to remove the gun mounts and use the space to carry the Navy’s new Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missiles. When escalating costs and technological challenges, along with a changing security environment, rendered the ship’s “land -attack” mission moot, the decision was made to truncate the class, with only three of the originally planned 32 ships being built. This leads us to the final innovative component of the “21st century” ships (the cruiser version of the “family” was canceled before construction of the first ship began): the two Littoral Combat Ship designs.

The LCS class of ship was to be small, fast, highly maneuverable, and, most important, inexpensive when compared with the multibillion -dollar-per-hull destroyers and cruisers that made up the remainder of the Navy’s surface force. 

...

Almost immediately, problems began to accumulate. ... The Navy’s leadership, which had conceived the LCS in an era when management theory dominated councils of power, made the decision to continue building the ships and send them to sea, charging young commanders and their crews to figure out how to make them work. Unfortunately, no amount of management, or leadership, for that matter, could overcome the flaws hidden within each design.

Congenital flaws began to emerge as each class became operational, resulting in their being referred to as “Little Crappy Ships” in navalist blogs and even professional literature. These inherent flaws immediately began to directly degrade the ships’ operational readiness. 

...

These two ship classes, designed for 25-year service lives, are being recommended by the Navy’s uniformed leadership for retirement a bare ten years after their commissionings.

Here is where this horrid two decades of delusion bears its fruit;

The loss of these ships would drop the Navy’s battleforce from the 298 ships it has today down to somewhere in the 270-ship range for some time to come. ... Congress has passed a law requiring the Navy to achieve a battleforce size of 355 ships, a goal that seems more unreachable with each passing year. 

Regulars on the Front Porch remember that we made this recommendation first in 2007 - 15 years ago;

In 2020 the Navy announced that it had selected the European multi-mission-frigate design, which is currently operated by four other nations, for modification and construction in the United States. Currently ten ships are planned, but there are clear indications that the number of Constellation-class frigates (as the category has been named) will grow considerably.

As a matter of fact, let's look back at how I started that October of 2007 post. 

Let me beat that drum a little harder - license build a EuroFrigate NOW!!! Do it while we still have time - time to keep the Fleet numbers treading water and have enough shipyards open.

A revolutionary project on PPT is just that - on PPT. An evolutionary project (see pre-WWII Cruiser development and the history of Carrier development as an example) results in ships pier-side and ships underway. Good officers have bought the line over this decade that LCS with all its toys will let them cover 10x more water than the old Spru-cans did - and do it better? ADS was to be one of the keys in doing this.

We have put all our eggs in that gilded crap-basket of an LCS - thanks to Sid, we have the proof much of the oversold ASW capability increase portion has gone poof. With ADS gone we now have, well, an poorly configured, expensive, undermanned Corvette.

There it is. We were not alone ... but there is it.

Back to Jerry's NR article. He ends with about a perfect note.

While it would be good to find ways to extend the lives of and make operational the LCS platforms that have been built over the past two decades, the Navy’s new frigates, along with the advanced Virginia-class fast attack submarines, will represent the modern balanced fleet that will give national policy-makers the confidence to maintain American interests in both peace and war. The previously conceived “21st-century family of ships,” expected to include the Littoral Combat Ships, will soon be forgotten artifacts of a hubristic past.

Indeed.

If you find people who are new to the maritime side of the natsec community or are not up to speed with how we got there, get Jerry’s article in front of their eyes. It is a superb 1-stop summary.

What Would it Take to Navalize This?

The incredible lost opportunity to get a good gun cruiser back in the mix by the Transformationalists making a dog's breakfast our of the ZUMWALT Class is still rage inducing.

Like with so much of that arrogant cabal's products, it was lost in a stew of technology risk and compounded best case scenarios.

It didn't have to be that way. 

There are proven systems that just need to be modified and evolved. If we wanted a larger naval gun, we could always dust off and evolve the MK-71 ... or do what navies have done for centuries - navalize good army kit.

How to do that in a modern sense? Just for entertainment, ponder what the Germans are doing ashore with the same caliber Zumwalt was going to bring to the fleet; 155mm/6.1".

Rheinmetall plans to develop and manufacture a new 155 mm gun with a significantly larger chamber and longer, 60-calibre barrel, the company said in a 27 November press release.
...
...a gun able to fire existing rounds compliant with the NATO standards set out in the Joint Ballistics Memorandum of Understanding (JBMoU) as well as new ammunition families. The new ammunition types will be optimised to withstand the stresses occurring in the new gun as well as being able to be fired from legacy JBMoU-compliant guns. The German procurement authorities have specified a maximum effective range of 75 km, according to Rheinmetall, which said it would use 83 km as the baseline as the course correction fuze necessary to achieve precision at these ranges reduces range by 10%.

The Germans aren't going to build a ship large enough to carry this gun - and one could argue they don't have the requirement, but we can and do.

The Germans buy a lot of American kit. Wouldn't it be nice and return the favor?

From DDG-1000 to CA-154?

So, we have a rump, 3-ship class of land attack destroyer, the ZUMWALT Class, that was designed about a bespoke 6.1-in (nee 155mm) naval gun that we are not going to use because we did not have an economist or historian on the program team.

As such, and we don't have to even go in to the problematic manning and other issues, we have your classic white elephant tooling around with the most expensive 30-mm batteries in Christendom with nothing forward of bridge of any lethality unless you are an unfortunate Cetacean that can't get out of the way of its bow on the few occasions it gets underway.

Well, we spent billions of dollars borrowed in the name of children yet unborn to get these in the fleet ... what can we do with them besides relegate the trio to technology demonstrators, CAPT Commands, or missile possible sponges as we try to keep the Chinese Fleet from moving east of Oahu?

It seems smart people with hard jobs have been looking at options and they may have found a way to get something moving forward.

To get a better idea we'd need a few artists rendering informed by competent marine engineers - but before we start getting the blow torches and blueprints out, let's see what they have to say.

The Navy’s newest destroyer may fire a not-yet-to-be fielded Conventional Prompt Strike conventionally-armed missile engineered to hit anywhere on earth within an hour, service program managers said. The weapon, now being considered by Navy weapons developers for the emerging USS Zumwalt, will bring new attack options to the stealthy destroyer being prepared for combat as soon as 2021, Capt. Kevin Smith, Zumwalt-class destroyer Program Manager

OK, let's unpack this a bit. First of all, let's define the most sparkly item; CPS;

Navy Starts Conventional Prompt Strike Missile Program Evidence of the growing Pentagon interest in hypersonic missiles, several exploratory programs have been shifted into engineering development over the past year. In 2019, DARPA relinquished control over the Conventional Prompt Global Strike program, with the effort transferred to the Navy’s Strategic Systems Program. Now called Conventional Prompt Strike, the effort became a program-of-record in late 2019. The aim of the program is to examine a new intermediate range missile that can be fired from Ohio-class missile submarines that have been converted to launch cruise missiles (SSGNs) and Virginia-class attack submarines equipped with the Virginia Payload Module.
...
On 30 October 2018, the Navy flew the first CPS test, designated Flight Experiment 1, more than 2,000 nautical miles from Hawaii to the Marshall Islands. ... The Navy expects to conduct the CPS Flight Experiment-2 in 2020 and FE-3 in 2022. So far, there is no estimate regarding an introduction into service.

The CPS missile is not called a ballistic missile since it employs a hypersonic maneuvering body to carry its warhead, called the Common Hypersonic Glide Body(C-HGB). On 30 August 2019, Dynetics Technical Solutions (DTS)of Huntsville, AL, was awarded a $351.6 million contract to build at least 20 Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies for both the Army and the Navy. The Army’s counterpart to the CPS is the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW). Lockheed Martin was awarded a $347 million contract in September 2019 for this program.

So, that is what we are looking at. First step, we need to find a way to shoehorn the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) in to the Zumwalt.

Not sure you will be able to do that by the end of FY21, but we'll see.

There is limited real estate - believe it or not - in this Graf Spee sized "destroyer." As such, what presently is fallow ground looking for highest and best use?  That's right kiddies, those mothballed 6.1" gun mounts. Let's extract those.

How many VPM can you fit in that space?

Each VPM is 87" wide. I can't seem to find a good open source diagram to ponder with, but let's make some assumptions using these two as reference points.

For planning purposes, let's remove both 6.1" mounts. In place of the forward, lets say you can install 3 VPM. Where the aft mount is, because it gets a bit wider, you can fit 5; 3 down the centerline like you did with the forward mount, and then two to the side between the two closest to the bridge.

The VPM can hold 7 TLAM. Will CPS use up the same space as a TLAM? If we assume so, that will give you 8x7=56 CPS if you did a full load out.

That ain't nothing. That is something. Could we do that ship modification for the cost of a LCS? If so, I'd approve that ship modification if for no other reason than not buying more LCS ... but for my approval you'd have to do the right thing and classify this pocket battleship sized warship to what it actually is; a cruiser.

As this would not be an air defense cruiser, but a cruiser designed around surface and land attack, then let's call it what it is; an attack cruiser. CA-154 is the next available number. If you insist on keeping the redundant "G" then fine, CG-74 - but that is lame.

This has the potential of salvaging something of use. Also, being that the VPM was designed for submarines, it will be more than fit-to-purpose for the bow of that tumblehome hull. That thing will be wet.

Why Our Navy Has a Credibility Problem

The regulars here don't need a refresher on the dog's breakfast and institutional shame that is the ZUMWALT Class DDG (sic). Just click the DDG-1000 tag below if you are new here and want to know what all the fuss is about.

I had to check the day ... but yep, this came out yesterday.

BEHOLD!

“I’m very excited about getting the Zumwalt-class destroyers out there,” Vice Adm. Rich Brown, commander of Naval Surface Forces, said during a Jan. 6 media teleconference embargoed until Jan. 13. “Incredibly capable ships. When the ships deploy, they will bring the fear of God to our adversaries. I wish we were building more of them. They are great ships.”

Additionally, if you have a warship that was designed around its two 6.1-in guns, guns that cannot be used because we decided we didn't want to pay for the bespoke ammo & it won't use normal 155-mm ... then how does said ship;

Zumwalt “is tracking right on the timeline … and it’s looking like [fiscal 2021] will be FOC [full operational capability],” he said.

I'm sorry Admiral Brown, but no one believes what you've said. If you really believe this - and this is a free country, people can think what they want - then don't be surprised if this colors all other opinions you voice.

This is over the top happy talk. When you do such things, it will make everyone question everything else you say. They will wonder what else you are saying or claiming that has no ground in objective truth.

Sorry, but that is the plain truth.

You can change standards all day long, but it does not change the fact that this white elephant is nothing more than a technology demonstrator ... and an example of how not to run a program.

Shame on everyone.

When will we get a leadership that treats everyone like adults, and speaks truth? Leaders who act and speak like a customer OF the military-industrial complex, and not someone sounding at best like an industry spokesman, or posturing for a board position after retirement at worst.

DDG-1000 - Worse Than Even I Predicted ... No, It's That Bad

Ten and a half years ago, I wrote this about DDG-1000;

Wait until all those new systems being thrown on that ship need to be validated, updated, adjusted, etc.

Yes, the costs of throwing all your revolution in one bucket will leave you gobsmacked. DDG-1000: the story that will keep on giving.

Behold.

Change in DDG-1000 Mission Orientation

Another potential oversight issue for Congress for FY2019 concerns the Navy’s plan to shift the mission orientation of the DDG-1000s from an emphasis on NSFS to an emphasis on surface strike. Potential oversight questions for Congress include the following:
- What is the Navy’s analytical basis for shifting the ships’ mission orientation?
- What are the potential costs of implementing this shift? How much of these costs are in the Navy’s FY2019 budget submission?
- How cost-effective will it be to operate and support DDG-1000s as ships with an emphasis on surface strike?
- When does the Navy plan to decide on whether to procure a replacement munition for the ships’ AGSs, or instead pursue another option, such as removing the AGSs and their below-deck equipment and installing additional VLS tubes? What would be the cost of the latter option, and how many additional VLS tubes could be installed?
- If the ships will operate with their AGSs for the most part dormant, to what degree will that reduce the return on investment (ROI) involved in developing, procuring, operating, and sporting the DDG-1000s?

When I mention "technology risk" - what do I mean?

Technology Maturity and Design Stability 

The DDG 1000 program has fully matured most, but not all, of its nine current critical technologies and reports a stable design. According to the Navy, the fire suppression system, hull form, deckhouse, power system, and undersea warfare suite technologies are all mature. At the same time, the vertical launch system, infrared signature, multi-function radar, and total ship computing environment technologies each continue to approach maturity. The Navy expects to fully mature these systems as it completes ship construction, certification, and testing over the next 2 years.

The program originally had 12 critical technologies, but in the last several years, the Navy removed three, including two technologies associated with the advanced gun system—the projectile and the gun—because of the projectile’s high cost per round. The Navy planned to rely on these munitions for precision fires and offensive operations. Following an evaluation of five other munition options, the Navy determined that no viable replacement, guided or unguided, was feasible. As a result, the guns will remain inoperable on the ships for the foreseeable future. Lastly, the Navy will use a modified multi-function radar in place of a volume search radar, which the Navy removed from the class.

As we have previously reported, the Navy and its shipbuilders had not stabilized DDG 1000’s design by lead ship fabrication start in 2009—an approach inconsistent with best practices. This approach contributed to numerous design changes after the fabrication start and significant cost increases and schedule delays. Nearly 10 years later, development and shipboard testing of technologies continues, each of which could lead to discovery that could disrupt the design stability the Navy currently claims.
The Navy plans to complete software development for the class in September 2020—a delay of 24 months since our 2018 assessment. As a result, the Navy has had to delay some testing. Also that month, the program plans to complete its cyber security vulnerability evaluation along with the remainder of a 2-year regimen of certifications and several different tests. The Navy expects this regimen to demonstrate the full functionality of the ship’s systems.

Remember, we were going to build 3-dozen of these white elephants ... and yet, here they sit.

$13.2 billion for three ships.

Who has been held account for this disaster of a program, one many of us wanted killed for obvious reasons well over a decade ago? No one, of course. The guilty have actually been promoted and rewarded.

Such are the wages of unaccountable hubris in acquisition.

Read the entire report that came out the 17th.

Navy DDG 51 and DDG 1000 Destroyer Programs by CDR Salamander on Scribd

H/t NavalAnalysis.

DDG-1000: Our Mark of Shame

As reported by Chris Cavas yesterday, the Chinese 13,000 ton Type 055 continues sea trials prior to her expected commissioning in 2019, with at least 5 sister ships already approved for follow on.

You can get the details of her here, but she represents exactly what we should have done two decades+ ago; evolutionary development of a cruiser that was in some way aligned with what the 055 brings to the fleet;

-1 130 mm dual-purpose naval gun
-1 CIWS
-1 24-cell short-range SAM
-112 VLS cells that can support SAM, ASCM, LACM, or ASROC
-2 helicopters

While we will continue to bring more slightly smaller FLT IIA and III DDG-51 in to the fleet over the next few years, we have lost a generation in warship development with the aborted CG(X) and the white elephant that is DDG-1000.

Speaking of which, what is the latest for that national disgrace?

“[The Zumwalt] is a very capable platform with or without that gun,” Merz said. “We will be developing either the round that goes with that gun or what we are going to do with that space if we decide to remove that gun in the future. The ship is doing fine, on track to be operational in 2021 in the fleet.”

Merz said the Zumwalt, built as a land-attack platform, has been “remissioned to a strike platform, whether sea targets or land targets. It takes advantage of its tremendous arsenal of VLS [vertical launching system] cells. Those VLS cells are larger than any other surface ship VLS cells so that opens up an aperture of more weapons options for that ship.”

He termed the projectile challenge “as a science and technology challenge, not an engineering problem. We just cannot get the thing to fly as far as we want.”

Asked by King if the Zumwalt would be a platform for a future directed-energy weapon, Merz said the ship had the “balance of SWAPC — space, weight, power and communications — that allows us to expand this ship over time. She is going to be a candidate for any advanced weapon system that we develop.”

We simply do not have a warfighting focus.

Like LCS, we are defining DDG-1000 success as simply being able to get underway. "...operational in 2021..." to do exactly what?

Pray for peace, because with each passing year more and more of our warships are only fit for operations at peace.

ZUMWALT was commissioned over two years ago. 2021 is 3 yrs from now. So, that gives us 5-years post-commissioning before our most modern design will even be able to join the fleet in any manner. It looks like it won't even be able to use the weapons she was designed around - the twin 155mm guns. Ramming has returned in the last few years as an effective way of taking out modern warships - and with that bow she should be able to at least perform that function with aplomb ... so we have that going for us.

What have we learned? What should we learn? What could we learn from the Chinese?

Yes, we need to keep picking this scab, and pick at in often and in public.

Why? What is the design we have to replace the TICO CG? What about the follow-on to the DDG-51 Class?

Have we learned anything from the train-wreck from the Age of Transformationalism? We will get our first hint with the selection of FFG(X).

Zumwalt: the Stillborn Transformation

At last, an article about the DDG-1000 I've been waiting for.

In the latest edition of Proceedings, LT Joe Lillie, USN put together a well done summary of what this unusual byproduct of the Age of Transformationalism is like from the bridge.

For those critical of the ship from the start, there are a few "of course" items out there, and a few other items that are more, "Hey, that's nice. It has some good aspects."

Let's put aside her utility at war, but what it will be like to operated on a daily basis at sea. She is a unique ship with unique handling requirements.

Here are a few of the highlights, or lowlights, depending on your POV.

extremely large seas taken on the bow could submerge the forecastle, resulting in damage to equipment or the bow. Also, the ship’s righting arm is several times larger than an Arleigh Burke ’s. Generally this results in exceptional stability with minimal ( (less than) 5 degrees) pitch and roll. However, if the ship were taking extremely large seas on the stern quarter or beam, with rolls greater than 15 degrees, the large righting arm would force the ship back to centerline much faster than on other ships—causing significant G-forces that could damage equipment or injure personnel.

Given the small crew and events in WESTPAC in 2017, this especially caught my eye.

The radar cross-section is significantly less than that of an Arleigh Burke. Merchant ships, which frequently use a small bridge watch team and rely on radar alarms to alert them to approaching vessels, are especially susceptible to dismissing the Zumwalt’s radar return. This means bridge watchstanders must be trained differently. They still adhere to the various rules of the road governing ship interactions, but they must assume that other vessels may not give way or act in accordance with their expectations.

Other points worth consideration;

The combination of the Zumwalt ’s size and inability to switch quickly from ahead to astern propulsion or vice versa (because of fixed pitch propellers) creates substantially more inertia than on a smaller vessel, a characteristic magnified by the large sail area.
...The outward-sloping tumblehome design creates the illusion that the ship is farther away from the pier than it is.
...All the mooring stations are internal. (it) makes it impossible for the bridge to see progress in the mooring stations.
...A relatively low height of eye of 35 feet, along with large gun mounts on the forecastle, result in a substantial shadow zone of 469.2 feet dead ahead.

Before we end things up, let's talk about the pic above as it give me a chance to tilt again towards one of my favorite windmills - the lies we tell each other and the distortions to our professionalism we take with a shrug.

When we do it in some places as benign as shipnaming, that attitude can bleed over to other things of more importance. 

Yes, small things matter.

As we've reminded everyone for over a decade, the ZUMWALT Class is the size of a WWII German Pocket Battleship. She is no more a destroyer than I am an Army Colonel. 

I know the author made a nice send-off of the ZUMWALT being a good addition to the line of, "Greyhounds of the Sea" - but I'm sorry; she's a light cruiser. She's no destroyer.

ZUMWALT: All Hat, no Cattle

I really hope we learn a lot from her engineering set up, because she isn't going to be all that much use elsewhere.

I'm discussing the LRAP-less DDG-1000 over at USNIBlog.

Come get your mind off the election and give it a read.

DDG-1000 - do we kick it when it is down?

Of course we do.

I'm nudging it a bit over at USNIBlog. Pay us a visit.

Let's Check in with the Fruits of Transformation Age

Never before has so much been spent for so long on so few in order to gain so little.

Yes, I will take two lumps of schadenfreude with my cup of gloat.

Oh, and please order a cup as well for the Old School members of the Front Porch a decade ago who warned everyone this is where these horribly executed programs would wind up; Byron, Sid, Mr. T's Haircut and others who in comments helped flesh out the opposition to these transformatinalist Edsels.

Let's start with the poster child for technology risk; DDG-1000.

Problems with the complex technology being installed in the new destroyers of the Zumwalt class have forced the Navy and shipbuilder General Dynamics Bath Iron Works to delay delivery of the first two ships, the US Navy said Monday night.

The Zumwalt (DDG 1000) had been scheduled to be delivered to the Navy this summer, but that has dropped back to November. Delivery of the second ship, Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001), production of which is about a year behind Zumwalt, has also been pushed back a few months in 2016, to November of that year.
...
"The schedule delay is due primarily to the challenges encountered with completing installation, integration and testing of the highly unique, leading edge technology designed into this first-of-class warship," Cmdr. Thurraya Kent, spokeswoman for the Navy's acquisition directorate, said in a statement.

The only thing that gives me hope that this three ship technology demonstration project will produce something of value is that they are being built by BIW. If anyone can make it happen, they can.

While we're enjoying our sad little Cassandraistic joy, let's see who is having fun kicking around the Little Crappy Ship;

“Without a clear capabilities-based assessment, it is not clear what operational requirements the upgraded LCS is designed to meet,” McCain said. “The Navy must demonstrate what problem the upgraded LCS is trying to solve. We must not make this mistake again.”

Senator McCain with a bone in his teeth; nice.

Of course we know what the LCS-to-FF is all about; (1) Keeping some production going in order to keep ship numbers up; (2) Keep #1 going in order to keep enough CDR Commands to fluff SWO numbers at the CAPT boards; (3) Keep jobs; (4) Fill the frigate gap with a non-frigate because the story we told for a decade about not needing a frigate was wrong. Something built here is better and nothing built at all because our egos and politics won't let us take better EUROFRIGATE designs and build them here.

O’Rourke takes issue not with the Small Surface Combatant Task Force itself, but with then-Secretary Chuck Hagel’s February 2014 memorandum that rebooted LCS in the first place.

“[There are] two formal, rigorous analyses that do not appear to have been conducted prior to the announcement of the program’s restructuring,” O’Rourke writes. Before you commit taxpayer dollars to a weapons program, you traditionally take three steps, he writes: “ identify capability gaps and mission needs; compare potential general approaches for filling those capability gaps or mission needs…and refine the approach selected as the best or most promising.” In short, you figure out what problem you’re trying to solve, then how to solve it, then how best to implement that solution. The upgraded LCS skipped the first two steps.

Specifically, the Small Surface Ship Combatant Task Force did Step No. 3. The SSCTF was created to examine existing, all-new, and modified designs for “a more lethal and survivable small surface combatant, with capabilities generally consistent with those of a frigate.” After extensive analysis, the task force came up with the ship that met those criteria best. But it was Hagel’s memo that set those criteria. It did so with no evident analysis of what specific problem the frigate was supposed to solve. Nor was there analysis of whether a frigate was the best solution, as opposed to some other kind of ship or something else altogether — for example a larger ship, an aircraft, or new tactics.

“Having refined the design concept for [the upgraded LCS], the Navy will now define and seek approval for the operational requirements for the ship,” O’Rourke writes. “Skeptics might argue that definition and approval of operational requirements should come first, and conceptual design should follow, not the other way around.”

This is where I find my inner Tim. I'm not sure if that is Laz or Galrahn playing King Arthur ... I'll let you ID Sir Robin.



The bold faced lessons from the age of transformation; poorly concepts followed by spotty program managements pushed by personality will not trump centuries of lessons of the compounding impact of technology risk, program risk, and the limits of the human body

Present and future leaders of our Navy; see what was done with these two programs and - don't do that.

Naval Guns - Now More Than Ever

Whose up for some good gun talk? I thought so ...

I could spend a whole week just commenting section by section on this 2013 post from the blog UK Armed Forces Commentary.

So much of this is just plain common sense that seems to be lost in much of the commentary about naval gunnery, naval surface fire support, or whatever we are calling it now days.

Let's just mention some of my favorites, and I'll let you dig out the rest.

First, a well designed and proven 5" (127mm) round should be the minimum - air, surface - just an all around multipurpose mount - if you want to keep swarms at bay ... I love that pic to the right;

... firing trials of the 127/64 of the FREMM frigate Carlo Bergamini. The first image shows the excellent capability of engagement at very short range, which can seriously ruin the day for suicide boats and similar threats.

Let's ponder that gun for a moment;

On the FREMM frigates of the Italian navy, the AAHS is installed over two decks (deck 2 and deck 3) and can hold 350 rounds in addition to the 56 held in the feeding drums.
The 127/64 gun system is thus able to fire 30 and up to 35 rounds per minute. The Naval Fire Control System calculates the ballistic trajectories, programs the fuzes and, when the GPS-guided VULCANO rounds is used, sets up the GPS data before launch. It can be easily integrated via LAN onto any kind of Combat System, in a Plug and Play fashion. Thanks to the NFCS, the 127/64 is also very effective in anti-air role.

The VULCANO, differently from LRLAP, ERGM and SGP is not a rocket-propelled munition, but an under-calibre, rocket-shaped dart with a diameter of 90 mm. VULCANO employs a discarding sabot to be fired out of the barrel at extremely high speed while avoiding two of the main complexities of full-calibre rocket-propelled rounds: increased barrel wear and tear, and difficult deployment of the folding fins used for guidance. These problems, along with huge cost escalation, were the factors which killed the ERGM.

VULCANO is a steerable sub-munition with tail fins and canards. The submunition is the same in both the naval 127mm variant and in the land 155mm variant. The difference comes down to the sole sabot and launch charge assembly: the naval shell is an all-up round compatible with any NATO 5’’ gun, while the army variant is modified to employ land-specific modular launch charges.
The VULCANO family comprises the BER (Ballistic Extended Range) variant, which is not guided and only has fixed winglets: it uses aerodynamics and ballistic trajectory to extend its reach to 70 km, and it is useful for a long range bombardment in which pin-point accuracy is not needed.

OK, URR ... gird your loins and be prepared to swoon ...

The most interesting VULCANO variants are, however, the Guided Long Range (GLR) ones. These include:

- GPS / Inertial Navigation System
- GPS / INS / Semi Active Laser
- GPS / INS / Infra-red Imaging
...
The addition of a SAL seeker to the GPS and inertial navigation guidance makes this variant of the round extremely accurate. With external laser designation of the target, it can engage with high accuracy even moving targets.

The GPS/INS ammunition is mostly suited to use against fixed targets, whenever high accuracy is needed to reduce the risk of collateral damage. The Circular Error Probable for this round variant is inferior to 20 meters. This is possible thanks to the steerable canards and fins which guide the ammunition on the target with a near-vertical descent, which maximizes both accuracy and lethality.
The addition of a SAL seeker makes the VULCANO capable to engage small, fixed, moving and relocatable targets (including vehicles and small boats) with extreme accuracy, with a CEP reduced to a handful of meters. The Semi Active Laser seeker guides the shell on a target illuminated by an external laser marker, which could be “painted” on the objective by a UAV or by observers on the ground.

The IIR seeker is instead meant primarily for anti-ship role. ... The anti-ship VULCANO is meant to be fired over the area where an enemy ship is known to be sailing, and engage the target on its own.

Take a look at what our Italian friends have done to our little buddy, the 76mm Oto Melara ... now with extra Super Rapido;

With a rate of fire of up to 120 rounds per minute, the 76/62 can put a thick wall of iron and fire in the face of any threat aiming for the warship, but it is with the DAVIDE model (STRALES for the export market) that the CIWS capability of the 76mm gun was really achieved.

STRALES is a guidance kit, installed within the gun turret and comprising a radio frequency beam antenna which is normally hidden under a sliding panel in the gun shield, to the side of the barrel. The covering panel slides upwards to reveal the radio frequency antenna when it is time to employ the DART (Driven Ammunition Reduced Time of flight), a guided, sabot-discarding high speed round meant to shot down airplanes and missiles as well as take off FIACs and suicide boats. The DART is an hyper velocity munition capable to cover a 5 km distance in less than five seconds, with enough energy to perform up to 40 manoeuvers and course corrections.

I know this is all, ahem, "old think" ... but, well, get your SWO on!

The most impressive feature, however, is the possibility to employ both STRALES and VULCANO, from the same gun mount, giving the small 76/62 a formidable mission flexibility. ... Thanks to the Multi Feeding system, it is possible to modernize a SUPER RAPIDO or COMPATTO mount, with minimum impact on weights, so that it can simultaneously employ standard ammunition, guided DART rounds when it is necessary to shot down incoming threats, and the whole variety of VULCANO rounds for shore bombardment and anti-ship attacks.

I think that Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work should call his office. Here is something involving LCS that gets the Salamander seal of approval;

The evolution of the 76/62 has caught the interest of the US Navy, which during 2012 conducted an extensive design review of the Littoral Combat Ships which noted that the Bofors MK110 light gun is not as effective as would be desirable. One of the most interesting options on the table is the possible future fitting of the 76/62, replacing the MK110. ... It would be very easy to fit the 76/62 on the Lockheed Martin/Marinette Marine monohull LCS, the FREEDOM sub-class. A bit more complex, but not impossible, would be the retrofit of the trimaran LCS of the INDEPENDENCE sub-class, built by General Dynamics/Austal. With the larger caliber, the longer range, and the availability of the multi feeding system, with DART and VULCANO ammunition, the 76/62 would represent a dramatic improvement in firepower for the LCS.

Why couldn't we replace the 57mm with the 76/22 instead of the 30mm on DDG-1000? Because "exquisite" engineering, I presume. Sigh.

As for LCS, I'm not sure what the weight penalty would be, but with the NLOS area empty, there may be some options to ponder.

They have an nice write up about the DDG-1000 AGS 155mm ... with a few jewels that I haven't see in our press releases. Ponder this a bit;

... the more complex and time consuming loading process reduces the rate of fire of the AGS to just 10 rounds per minute, which means that a DDG1000 Zumwalt, with two AGS mounts, can fire around 20 rounds in a minute, against as many as 25 VULCANO rounds fired from a single 127/64 gun.

The LRLAP is also less accurate: the rocket booster is not the best friend of high accuracy, and the CEP is expected to routinely sit somewhere between 20 and 50 meters. The addition of a Semi Active Laser seeker to the LRLAP is reportedly being considered for the future to address this problem and expand the engagement capability, but this is all yet to come.
Of course, the combination AGS/Zumwalt makes for an impressive “bomber”: the 14.000 tons warship carries more ammunition (600 rounds in 2 magazines) than any likely 127/64-equipped vessel, and each shell is much larger, heavier and carries a lot more explosive. The massive gun is capable to fire them over greater distances, as well. However, the AGS is an extremely complex, massive and expensive solution which might never appear on platforms other than the Zumwalt, despite BAE’s effort in marketing an AGS-Lite.

Yes, exquisite.

There is also a depressing discussion of the ERGM and the US MK-45 Mod 4 and all that lost opportunity. Why are we getting our butts handed to us by the Italians of all people?

Really. 

Enough grumbling ... read the whole thing. There are some very exciting things going on in the naval gun arena. Not the PPT thick, theory, or "expected IOC by 2025" stuff ... but the very much "now" that can be used today.

The Big Ship Down Guns

Moment arms. Centers of gravity. Achy-shakey-breaky 57mm mount ... yes I understand.

However, what do we know from history? We know that once the shooting starts, all your ships are undergunned in number, range, and redundancy. 

We add as much as we can after the losses of a few units - or as the Royal Navy did in San Carlos Water - if you don't have time to head back to the yard you line the decks with every weapon including infantry rifles to throw lead at the enemy and apologize later for not coming to the fight with what you needed.

So, we have the Pocket Battleship sized and poorly classified DDG-1000 Class before its first deployment already ... well ... making an adjustment. Via our buddy Sam at USNINews;

The Navy has replaced two 57mm guns planned on the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer designed to fight off swarm boat attacks with a smaller pair of 30mm guns, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) told USNI News on Monday.

The trio of Zumwalt-class ships were originally designed to field the BAE Systems MK 110 close-in gun system (CIGS) — a gun used on both classes of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) — to provide the ship’s company options to fight off so-called swarm boat attacks of the ship as part of a 2005 critical design review (CDR).
...
Following a 2012 review the Navy, “concluded that the MK46 was more effective than the MK110 CIGS,” according to NAVSEA.
“In addition to the increased capability, the change from MK110 to Mk 46 resulted in reduction in weight and significant cost avoidance, while still meeting requirements… that will provide a robust rapid fire capability and increased lethality against hostile surface targets approaching the ship.”

What are we trading in our secondary gun armament?

The 57mm Mk 110 fires a 220 rounds/min at range of about nine nautical miles
...
The 30mm Mk 46 has range 2.17 nautical miles and fires at a rate of 200 rounds/minute,

Yes; smaller round, lower cycle rate, shorter range.

And again - for a ship the size of a Pocket Battleship - it will only have two (2). Good things guns are never CASREP'd, jam, or .... sigh. Another exquisite plan from the age of transformation fails to transition from PPT.

The things we plan to send out Sailors to engage in war at sea with. Amazing.

Perhaps Coins Have Jumped the Shark

Behold the "coin" from DDG-1000's Chiefs Mess. The "coin" is 2.5" by 1.25". You can pick one up for $10.

Nuff said.

DDG-1000 and Defining Terms Properly ...

Are our friends at WiB trolling CDRS? Second time this week ....

Kyle, son, nothing but luv, but come a bit closer so the front porch can slap 'yo face. 

You started out with a fine article with some engorging BB historical couldhavebeens and then ... well ...

BEHOLD!

The upcoming Zumwalt-class destroyers will go a long way towards providing battleship-quality naval gunfire support for the Marines. Minimally manned, relatively small, stealthy and precise, the Zumwalts are the antithesis of the Iowas, but functionally their successors. Although each Zumwalt can only provide the explosive mass of a single one of an Iowa’s 16-inch guns, the newer ship can fire its smaller shells with GPS-aided precision up to 83 miles away, versus 20 miles for an Iowa.

Should the Zumwalt design be successful, the torch of the battleship could finally be transferred to them, and the Iowas can finally slumber in peace as museums, safe from the schemes of those who would revive them.

Good googly moogly, the fail is so strong here I can't seem to catch my breath.

1. "...battleship-quality naval gunfire support for the Marines." 6.1" does not equal 16" in so many ways, especially with the Tiffany priced LRAP warheads planned for those guns. Beats a 5" - but 16" ... child please!
2. Size? "relatively small, stealthy and precise," Well; DDG-1000 600' long. BB-61 887' long. Neither can be called small, only the blind could call it stealthy, and precise ... both are, in a fashion.
3. The guns man; the guns.
- DDG-1000 Class: Two 6.1" guns with a magazine of 335x2 for a total 670 with a 25# bursting charge each.
- BB-61 Class: Three Turrets of nine guns total. Magazines of Turret I: 387, Turret II: 456, Turret III: 367 for a total of 1,210 with a bursting charge of 153.6# each.

Do we even need to go in to the issue of self protection? That big CENTCOM Watch Flooresque CIC in the DDG-1000? Talk about a 1-hit wonder that even an unarmed drone strike can put out of action.

Heck, a BQM-74 hits a BB, all you have to do is call out sweepers.

No, I am not asking for unicorns ... errr ... return of the BB - but I am asking that we back off from the hyperbole of the light cruiser that is the DDG-1000. Yes, it is the size of a WWII German Pocket BB, but that doesn't make it one.

Now ... find a way to produce a 21st Century 11" gun to slap on them and give it at least a CA's armor? Well, then we may talk.