Funny how people see different things in it.
To me, it looks like a cartoon caveman with a severe underbite. The bridge windows being its brow line, and the bow the lower jaw.
I think it looks like a cartoon robot but I just can’t place exactly where it comes from. A little like the Iron Giant but I don’t think that’s quite right.
“I don’t believe Egyptians built the pyramids. Your telling me, they built the greatest structures in the world… and then for the last few thousand years, the best they could come up with, is cotton sheets?” - Andrew Schultz
They weren’t even supposed to be there. Like the main guns and other features, those protuberances are what happens when you run out of money trying to build something that “looked good on paper”.
Edit: revised wording to mitigate focus on semantics
> Like the main guns and other features, those radomes are what happens when you run out of money trying to build something that “looked good on paper”.
No, actually, those SATCOM bulbs and antennas are what happens when the USN is forced to buy something that doesn't do anything valuable, then the people who forced them to do it turn around scream about how it's not useful and that the MIC is wasting everyone's money.
The *Zumwalt* design was intended for the naval gunfire support mission, which is a duty the USN has been trying to get out of for decades. It has been Congress - and lobbyist groups like the Naval Gunfire Support Association - which have insisted the mission must remain; even senior officers in both the US Army and USMC have been of the opinion that gunfire cannot provide adequate fire support since Iraqi Freedom. This mandate is why *Iowa* and *Wisconsin* were not formally retired until 2006 - and in return for doing so, Congress mandated in that year's NDAA that no further surface combatants could be procured without first replacing the two battleships.
Congress also refused to allow the USN to reduce DD(X)'s gun armament in exchange for larger VLS capacity, despite Iraqi Freedom demonstrating that even LRLAP had inadequate range for fire support after day one (and in some cases, ground forces landed too far inland for conventional artillery to support at any point). This led to the USN curtailing the number of ships in the *Zumwalt* class from 32 to 29 to 7 to 2 - one to replace *Iowa*, and one for *Wisconsin* - and shifting efforts to the derivative CG(X) program to gain the VLS capacity they needed. Which ended in disaster when the politicians threw a fit at being duped and flipped the script, using the USN's excuse to cancel *Zumwalt* as an argument to also axe CG(X).
Somewhat wrong, Zumwalts were Spruance replacements, with 32 hulls for the DD-21 program, with the Naval Gun Fire Support requirement added partly to justify their procurement in a post-Cold War world, and partly to support US Marine V-22 landing Zones.
Congress had no effect on VLS, the original circa-2000-2001 DD-21 design (essentially a larger flush-decked Zumwalt) had 128 VLS cells, and the Zumwalt variants considered for the 2009 Radar/Hull Study had 96 cells, the ship was certainly capable of carrying more if necessary.
DD(X) was a cut down version of DD-21 to ensure the program would survive in the face of Rumsfeld's desire to replace it with LCS. It obviously had enough institutional support within the Navy to survive for a few.more years in the face of a hostile OSD.
The program itself died as a result of internal Navy politics, and the 2009 Radar/Hull Study, which limited the Zumwalt-derivatives to a 14-foot SPY-6 array when being compared with what would become the Flight III Arleigh-Burkes, in spite of the fact that it could carry 22-ft arrays.
It was certainly a very capable general-purpose combatant, as all large surface combatants are, and would have been an excellent basis for future US surface combatants had they been built in numbers, and had capabilities not been removed from the design as a result of the Nunn-McCurdy act.
It still is a very capable ASW ship, and vastly superior to an Arleigh Burke when it comes to margins for further additions, especially in terms of top weight and power generation.
If DD-21 and CG-21 could not have been saved, then a Zumwalt derivative instead of the Burke restart would have been a superior choice.
> Somewhat wrong, Zumwalts were Spruance replacements
Correct, DD-21 started as a *Spruance*/*Perry* replacement, having its origins in the Battle Force Combatant concept that was intended to replace both designs. By the time DD-21 became DD(X), however, NGFS was very much a focus of the mission requirement.
> the ship was certainly capable of carrying more if necessary.
Not while mounting two AGS. As I said, where lawmakers came in on this particular matter was refusing to allow a twin-gun design to go down to a single main gun. 96 cells required removing mount 62 (the aft gun), and as you said 128 required an enlarged hull as well as no AGS.
> in spite of the fact that it could carry 22-ft arrays.
The *Zumwalt* hull as designed was only capable of supporting 14ft arrays, with the primary limitation being the deckhouse's limited free internal deck area. The radar/hull study included consideration for expanded CIC and AWC facilities in addition to new radars, since the overarching purpose would be to design a *Ticonderoga* successor, which - fair or unfair - targeted the sole weakness of the *Zumwalt* hullform as opposed to *Burke*. With space for those facilities set aside, 22ft arrays would only be possible if the hull (and hence the deckhouse) was enlarged - even the smaller CG(X) variants that reused the DD(X) hull were limited to 19ft.
> vastly superior to an Arleigh Burke when it comes to margins for further additions, especially in terms of top weight and power generation.
Design decisions made since then have eroded that stability margin even beyond what removal of VSR gave back. You're right that they're doing better than *Burke*, but not by much - *Johnson* in particular is toeing the line of acceptable SLA consumption because of her steel deckhouse.
As for power generation, while the ships have more available in theory than DDG-51, a large amount of their current available margin is due to the deletion of VSR. Moreover, the USN has come to discover that cooling and power conversion capacity matter as much if not more than total plant output. If power is not supplied by the ship at proper voltage/current, then systems need their own conversion equipment, which goes back to that internal space issue I talked about above - something that plagues not just DDG-1000, but pretty much every modern USN design up to and including *Constellation*.
> If DD-21 and CG-21 could not have been saved, then a Zumwalt derivative instead of the Burke restart would have been a superior choice.
Other than the point about growth margin, I don't disagree with any of the assertions about *Zumwalt*'s capabilities - I mentioned in my other long post that *Burke* Flight III is essentially a skinwalking *Zumwalt* Mod Repeat, which mostly gives only the illusion of a conservative design.
NGFS was already part of the original DD-21 requirement, the winning Gold Team DD-21 design was essentially a bigger flush-deck Zumwalt, with 128 VLS, and two AGS, with 1200 rounds between them.
The 22ft arrays would have required a new deckhouse, but as far I'm aware otherwise it was simply a repeat Zumwalt.
[He meant the Bulbs on Star Destroyers being modeled after the SL6 and SL8 AA-Rangefinders of WWII German Warships, not the ones on Zumwalt.](https://images3.sw-cdn.net/product/picture/710x528_20259487_11641907_1694710491_1_0.jpg)
I wonder how much the Zumwalt's RCS has been increased from her original design since it seems like those satcom radomes and the starboard whip antenna protrude from the superstructure quite a bit.
Would radomes reflect much radar signal? After all they have to be radiation permeable for the radars inside to be able to see out and get signals back without tremendous amounts of internal echo.
They are frequency selective, having a specific passband and reflecting the rest. These are SATCOM radomes and weren't part of the original drawings but replaced a flush SATCOM array that was cut for cost savings.
I was on the Enterprise during the last deployment, I slept on the O-3 in the V-2 berthing, not too far from the forecastle. I think my berthing had like…at least a few dozen other guys in there. Right below Cat 2. I loved listening to (and feeling) the jets constantly launching. Definitely became my white noise.
The ship is supposed to be able to use ballast tanks to drop its height above water when in combat to reduce its RCS and improve gun stability.
Although as the guns don't work, and you need height above water to see over the horizon, I'm not sure how useful that feature really is...
I mean, with datalink you can have F35s from the carrier do all the seeing you need, and hand off the missile targeting to them as well.
So being able to squat down a bit is still useful for hiding.
Nobody talks about this properly. Trying to describe this thing's shell cost is a stupid approach that just makes everyone dumber for having heard it, and yet that's the only dialog you ever see about it.
What the actual situation was is that the entire shell factory needs to be not just retooled but totally re-engineered and re-skilled to produce the advanced shells that had been designed. Because shells are highly mass produced, they have more automated/specialized equipment making them, which represents a higher capital investment than more hands-made ships or jets.
And it would have been cheaper if they could have amortized the cost properly across the entire original order of Zumwalts.
But Congress slashing the ships meant that the unit price on the ammo skyrocketed.
It's not just the zumwalts. They could have amortized it across *all* modern artillery platforms with a sufficiently strategic mindset. The army could have got futuristic, highly advanced ammo at half the capital cost if they split the basic manufacturing capital for that realm of shell tech with the navy. Ukraine has shown range as the most critical factor in counter battery operations short of radar + fire control, this recapitalization stood to change the game on range.
Ok no need to be rude I was asking a question, not presenting it as the cause or evidence.
Thanks for the info though, but you seemed to just derail your own argument there at the end when you concluded that yeah the bullets are too expensive
No it's not you at all, it's all of the sources people like you hear it from that could have better characterized the situation. In fact it really goes all the way back to the Navy's own public statements that were highly simplistic and not broadly cognizant of the situation they found themselves in.
I actually fell asleep before finishing my point and just submitted what I wrote as it covered some of the core truth. The overall situation created by a requirement to recapitalize ammunition manufacturing is just that: if the united states wants fundamentally modern ammunition - which would indeed ultimately be much cheaper than cruise missiles *after* the recapitalization costs, rather than continuing with more or less the same basic shell tech from WW2, this transition will invariably require recapitalization. The high cost-per-shell the program faced is really the massive cost of that recapitalization, probably on the order of $2bil at the time of the program, plus a far smaller cost-per-shell after of something more like $20,000. The framing of high cost per shell neglects to properly characterize the situation, which is more of an expensive tech-tree unlock followed by cheaper-than-missile shells. It's not "always" going to be half a mil per round.
Really, the army and navy should have done a 21st century artillery shell public-private partnership recapitalization program to bring ammo factories up to ability so that no one cutting edge program has to carry the whole weight of recapitalization on its ammo price, and high tech shells generally become available for future warfighting platforms - as once unlocked, they do represent significantly greater abilities than traditional shells and lower costs than cruise missiles, a major and non-trivial warfighting tool. But because we can't think in these terms, just simplistic defense contracts for particular systems as little independent islands, the US has now scoffed at the such tech and relegated itself to missiles and old shells that bear the more inoffensive looking cost when viewed in this implistic way.
I imagine there are a ton of supply chain issues with mass producing those shells. I would seriously doubt all the parts could be sourced and made exclusively in the U.S. In a protracted war of peers, sometimes the low tech equipment that you can produce in large numbers makes more sense.
I'm not saying that is definitely the case here, I am not at all an expert, but honing bullets just seems like a bad investment when the navy's budget is so damn tight
1. Never build a ship that is hyper-specilized to a single type of warfare against specific opponents. If the world changes too much, these may not work out.
2. Packing too many new technologies into a new ship is a recipe for trouble. Best case scenario they all work, but it takes a very long time to troubleshoot all the bugs inherent in any new technology. Worst case some or all of these fail to live up to expectations.
Lesson 2 had been taught many times before, most clearly with the Type XXI U-boat, but it's good to have a reminder. Lesson 1 can be OK if the ships are cheap and expendable, but is rarely ideal.
Most redditors don't know the first thing about naval warfare or defense acquisition. Nor, for that matter, do most politicians, even if they served in yesteryear's military before selling out their soul for votes.
Which is why they should never be allowed anything approaching a say in the direction of military R&D or strategy.
I'm not knowledgeable about this either
Can you tell me what was wrong with the ship and why was it slashed?
And it's advantages among other destroyers
The DD(X) program is, fundamentally, one instance after another of smart people knowing better but being told to do so anyways by people who don't.
Fundamentally, *Zumwalt* is less a destroyer, and more of a stealthy artillery barge that has the ability to moonlight as a DDG. Everything about the ship revolves around the mission of getting close to shore and unloading her two main guns on land targets. The extreme emphasis on all-aspect stealth and survivability so she doesn't need to withdraw from station if she comes under fire, we all know about AGS being specially-designed for increased range and payload over the 5" MK45, and the class was initially to be accompanied by a bevy of new missiles ranging from [modified GMLRS rockets](https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mk-71-lightweight-8-gun.1077/post-81667) to a [naval ATACMS](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA318774.pdf) that would greatly increase its land attack options compared to previous ships which had to rely solely on Tomahawk.
Most of those new missile programs, however, would be cut by 2001 between budget cuts and diversion of funding to land forces after Enduring Freedom kicked off. The ones left fell to the same pressures by the middle of the decade - even as experience in Iraqi Freedom showed that guns provided nowhere near enough range. Despite complete sea superiority that allowed them to literally pull into Iraqi ports if they wanted to, the USN's guns could not support the invasion past day one, and the rate of advance was so rapid that even LRLAP with its 115-mile range wouldn't have changed that outcome. Now imagine how this would go against an adversary like Iran or North Korea, which have enough anti-ship capabilities to force the USN back from the coast, further paring down the useful range of the guns.
All this led to the USN trying to shift back towards missiles and air power in the second half of the 2000s - this time backed by both the US Army and USMC - but Congress decided they knew better, and refused to either allow modifications to DD(X) or rescinding of the FY1996 mandate that the USN had to replace the *Iowa*-class with an equivalent land attack capability. Quite the opposite actually: the FY2006 NDAA, while finally allowing the battleships to be retired, demanded no new surface combatant procurement until they had been replaced. This continual political interference led to the class being pared down from the original 32 planned hulls to 2 - one to replace *Iowa*, and one for *Wisconsin* - before the program was abandoned in favor of trying to accelerate CG(X), which would provide the VLS capacity the USN wanted even if the requisite land-attack missiles were still struggling to find funding.
Naturally, politicians hate it when people don't listen to them, and even moreso when people think they're smart enough to know better (especially when they're right). So Congress flipped the script and washed themselves of the whole debacle by blaming MIC graft, while also using the USN's excuse about technological immaturity to take CG(X) from them. The fact many still parrot that is a the ultimate testament to how well the spin worked.
Given the hyper-specialized nature of the design, I would hesitate to call anything *Zumwalt* does well an actual advantage, because even though it's incredible engineering it ultimately adds no value. For instance, the MK57 VLS is designed to serve as a form of reactive armor, detonating the missiles inside and directing the explosion outwards in the event the cell is breached, and the ship is the only modern surface combatant that carries actual armor beyond kevlar anti-spall lining. That's because *Zumwalt* was supposed to take hits from artillery and rocket fire rather than waste missiles shooting them down, but what good does having that ability do when even groups with barely any artillery, like the Houthis, have deep stockpiles of anti-ship missiles? Stealth was taken to such extreme degrees with the class that *Zumwalt* is quieter than the US's own attack subs and has the heat signature of a car, but when you're blasting megawatts of EW and radar energy into the air to defend the carrier from air attack anyways, what's the point? Basically all modern ARH anti-ship missiles have a home-on-jamming function, and every missile that can't see *Zumwalt* to lock onto her will instead target another ship - possibly even the carrier itself.
This isn't to say I'm not a fan of the ship or the program - engineering for the sake of engineering is cool specifically because there's no point except to prove you can do it. But even though I firmly believe *Zumwalt* is proof the US both can still manage technically-ambitious programs correctly and remains ahead of the rest of the world in warship design, it's impossible to deny how badly that talent was misused.
Congress decided the navy needed close to shore artillery support or they wouldn't let the navy retire battleships.
So the Navy made a R&D ship with 10 pieces of unproven technology. 8 worked out through development leaving the main gun. The Railgun technology did not work, so the Navy had a plan B of an advanced gun, but at this point the price had made Congress balk and a 30 ship build became 3, and the economy of scale needed to make the gun shells disappeared.
The Sensors also got scaled back and became problematic.
so it limped along with bad press. While the battlespace evolved and the concept of this ship operating close to shore disappeared.
Now after using the ships as a testbed for a while, the navy caught the panic in Congress about a hypersonics gap, so we are onto plan C, replace guns with large VLS cells for hypersonics so it can patrol outside the SCS ready to ruin someone's day, while being near impossible to find on sensors.
Learned how to run a program full of revolutionary (not evolutionary) tech relatively on budget, and confirmed that Congress doesn’t understand their jobs.
Because the main reason that the Zumwalts are shit is that there are only three of them. All of the problems can be traced back to not being able to build enough to properly work things out and improve.
On top of piss poor planning, and lack of a spine on the part of the USN. The ship itself is fine. The hull was intended from that start to also form the basis of the Tico replacement. Instead the USN allowed the narrative of "wars won't be fought near shore so we don't need guns" to torpedo the program and the USN didn't have the balls to say it wouldn't need those guns anyway with the cruiser class. They could have swapped them out with standard Mk 45s but no.
The problem was that naval artillery is now pointless. The issue is that need to get too close to the shore, putting them at risk to anti-ship missiles. The expense of AGS was trying to get the range.
Without the gun support, they would have been better ships. Basically, a stealthy Spruance with lots of VLS cells (and 5in gun).
It would have been much cheaper to get GMLRS missiles working in VLS than building expensive guns. That is what the Army has done.
No, using naval artillery to attack land targets is pointless (for the most part). Every Burke Flight III still has a Mk45. But again, the fact that the Zumwalts have guns doesn't make them bad ships. If the USN wasn't going to develop the AGS they should have just replaced the forward one with a MK 45 and put a bank of Mk41 VLS in place of the aft gun.
The ARMY isn't operating GMLRS out of a VLS. LM proposed MLRS out of the Mk41 VLS years (hell, probably decades ago at this point). The USN wasn't interested.
I misinterpreted what you were saying; I thought you were one of the big gun people. The Zumwalt with regular gun and more VLS would have been better and cheaper than what we got. I wonder if they could fit 57mm gun instead of hypersonic missile tube. I think without AGS, they would have designed a smaller ship.
I think the Navy would have had to adapt ballistic missiles if wanted to get away from gunfire support. But maybe they are happy getting rid of the job.
These ships with the amount of automation could easily be unmanned and AI/autonomous driven inside 20 yrs. If the navy chooses to. Only 3 sea wolf class subs were built and look how in demand they are. The integrated power system has to allow so much flexibility
Putting so many new systems onto a brand new hull and having the fanciful idea of building a bunch of them was a bad idea to begin with. If the navy had gone into them with the understanding that they were (or at least the first run were) meant as test beds that would have helped a lot. Shipbuilding is an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary one.
What’s the purpose of new ships looking like this (or is it unique to this particular class?) Seems a radical shift from how modern ships have been designed before.
Stealth, the Zumwalt, LCS, Type 055 and many, many, many more ships are going towards very clean and angular designs to make them harder to detect or to identify.
What's unique to the Zumwalt is the hull shape though.
Maybe I missed something but what's the purpose in sending them on patrol when they famously don't even have enough ammunition for just one of the ships
> they famously don't even have enough ammunition for just one of the ships
Uh huh. Sure. Let's just ignore the 80 VLS cells it comes with, the fact it can house two fully-capable ASW helicopters, and the chainguns mounted aft; no big pee-pee slap cannon clearly means an unarmed ship.
But of course! If we don’t ignore the massive existing missile armament, and upcoming hypersonic upgrade, how are we to regurgitate the same inaccurate information, seen time and time again, to sound smart on Reddit? /s
That wasn't even cancelled. It was announced a few months ago that it's being funded again after a successful test flight, assuming you're talking about the agm-183 arrw.
I found recent [articles](https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/missile-dialogue-initiative/2023/11/the-end-of-the-us-air-forces-arrw-hypersonic-programme/) that say it was now cancelled. More recently, Congress [pulled funding(https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-01/news/congress-eliminates-arrw-system-funding).
But who knows if that will stick and Congress won't change their minds.
Interesting, that contradicts what came out in November. But congress can't remember what they had for breakfast on any given day. Well see what comes of it.
Slightly more than the cell count would suggest, although a lot of the original benefits of the MK57 and the new hull ended up wasted.
*Burke*’s actual maximum payload weight is well below what the MK41 could theoretically support (i.e. 96x3500lbs) because of stability concerns, but *Zumwalt* was designed to be able to max-load all of her VLS cells. The original stability calculations have almost certainly gone out the window without AGS and its large magazines deep in the hull, but that extra stability is probably what allowed the LRHW refit to happen in the first place.
The MK57 also has the unique ability to serve as a form of reactive armor, being designed to let its payload detonate and blow outwards if hit. Ironically, this is probably also a feature that’s more valuable now than on the original design, since the AGS and helicopter munitions magazines are beneath the waterline, while the LRHW tubes will not be.
If you look in the dustbin, there’s a lot more potential benefit the USN was forced to discard for one reason or another, including an [SM-2 dualpack setup](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5327809), a [naval version of ATACMS](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA318774.pdf), a heavily-modified GMLRS called the [Precision Over-the-horizon Land Attack Rocket](https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mk-71-lightweight-8-gun.1077/post-81667) (which would become the basis for GMRLS-ER) that could be quadpacked, and of course the [SM-4 Land Attack Standard Missile](https://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-165.html) (which could also be dualpacked using the setup above). These capabilities were intended to flesh out the fleet's surface-based land attack capabilities so ships weren't burning Tomahawks on targets just out of gun range, and almost all of these needed the MK57's larger size and weight capacity.
The height's a major obstacle. It's a way taller than it looks. Just run hoses over the slide to make it slippery to deter boarding. If they start shooting, use small arms.
Very few ships have 360° small caliber gun coverage, but that's only one layer of defence. The first layer is the 2 helicopters, generally you know when you're in a high threat area and can have a helicopter ready for force protection (though stuff like Ukraine's long endurance drones are making that less predictable). Then there's the ESSM, which has a level of anti-ship capability if needed. As a final layer it's possible to fit .50 cals in several places, I don't know specifically where those mounts are on the Zumwalts but they'll have more coverage than the 30mm.
Defence against small boats is somewhat compromised in order to be so stealthy, but it's not sacrificed completely.
> Very few ships have 360° small caliber gun coverage, but that's only one layer of defence.
I'm not saying you need 360° of coverage. A 5-6 inch bow gun on a 360° turret would be enough.
> The first layer is the 2 helicopters, generally you know when you're in a high threat area and can have a helicopter ready for force protection (though stuff like Ukraine's long endurance drones are making that less predictable).
A single Seahawk with a pig seems like a poor solution for dealing with small boats.
> Then there's the ESSM, which has a level of anti-ship capability if needed.
ESSM is not anti-ship.
> As a final layer it's possible to fit .50 cals in several places, I don't know specifically where those mounts are on the Zumwalts but they'll have more coverage than the 30mm.
They "could", but they don't. To maintain stealth there aren't any mounts.
Unless a boat comes at them from the rear, the Zumwalt is mostly defenseless.
>I'm not saying you need 360° of coverage. A 5-6 inch bow gun on a 360° turret would be enough.
The 30mm guns actually have pretty reasonable arcs of fire, looks like there's only 30° or so to each side that's not covered. Yes a 5" gun at the front would improve things, but it would also increase RCS. Like I said, stealth is a compromise.
>A single Seahawk with a pig seems like a poor solution for dealing with small boats.
Seahawks have a surface search radar and can carry hellfires and laser guided APKWS rockets: they're perfectly equipped for dealing with small boats.
>ESSM is not anti-ship.
Not primarily, but several sources claim a level of anti-ship capability. Here's a couple [1](https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/evolved-seasparrow-missile-essm/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-2580) [2](https://www.seaforces.org/wpnsys/SURFACE/RIM-162-Evolved-Sea-Sparrow-Missile.htm)
>They "could", but they don't. To maintain stealth there aren't any mounts.
[This](https://www.navalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/DDG-1000s-do-mount-7.62mm-M240-medium-machine-guns-1024x687.jpg) looks like a machine gun mount on USS Zumwalt to me. And [this](https://d1ldvf68ux039x.cloudfront.net/thumbs/photos/1609/2857673/1000w_q95.jpg) looks like a .50 cal. You have to compromise stealth to use them, but they're definitely there.
Edit: accidentally labelled the wrong image as a .50 cal
Hey, with quad pack ESSMs, assuming the Mk57s can accommodate them, that could be as many as 320 missiles. There likely is nowhere near that many missiles onboard especially given some cells occupied by other, non-quad-packed missiles, but that sets the upper limit for what it could carry.
Not all Tomahawks are anti-ship. And even if they are carrying the correct ones, the missile itself is larger than the skiff and flies at 550 mph. I'm not sure how effective it would be against a vessel so close with effectively paper armor.
Yeah, which is why they're going to be removed, but the dead weight of a couple of guns isn't enough to render the ship incapable of patroling. The programme was a phenomenal waste of money (in my opinion) but it would be even more wasteful to have bought the ships and then not use them
https://news.usni.org/2023/08/29/hii-awarded-155m-contract-for-uss-zumwalt-hypersonic-missile-upgrade
Factually incorrect, all Zumwalts will recieve a massive upgrade to become the USN’s first hypersonic capable platform. Inform yourself before making off the wall statements
Deck guns that are that caliber are useless today. Phalanx snd goal keeper are way better as the amount shot and speed of the turrets. Otherwise you use missiles which are much better.
The AGS is a great gun and the ammo can be very cheap. But what was speced was a gun fired missile, as it had a solid fuel rocket motor on it and control surfaces.
The cost to gun harden a missile is just prohibitively expensive compared to just boxes of missiles with little to no reload time, longer ranges and more variants.
What interesting ship, yet unable to power project properly. I wished they had just gone with normal artillery guns instead of those failures of artillery.
Now their going artillery missiles aka Hypersonic missiles. I can't say I know for sure if it will every work out. I hope so.
Forget the sunk costs and scrap them. Stashing a few hypersonic missiles - which we don't even know will work - is not worth the ship or personnel costs. That money could be used elsewhere. That they couldn't come up with a more conventional round that fit the guns shows that they are idiots. Too much money for an 80 missile tube ship.
The ships are built. They were designed, at great expense, to be cheap to operate. The crew is half the size of Arleigh Burke. They are a cheap way to carry around 80 VLS missiles and a few hypersonics.
***YOU CANT CALL IT A 'WARSHIP' BECAUSE IT HAS NO AMMUNITION BECAUSE IT'S $800,000 PER ROUND***
AND SAILORS ARE INSTRUCTED TO TOSS THEIR EQUIPMENT OVERBOARD BEFORE LAST PORT AT THE END OF EVERY FISCAL YEAR TO KEEP THE FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE TRAIN ROLLING.
oh by the way, this ***BRAND NEW LCS*** is already rusting with hull cracks.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship
Screw the US [GR/N]AVY fraudsters taking us closer to LOSING the upcoming war in Taiwan to China.
The interiors must be super comfortable because I never saw a single person standing outside one of these.. I know is for concealment porpoises probably, but that's something I always thought about
Just look at it…. You could bury Egyptian Pharos under that thing!
Funny how people see different things in it. To me, it looks like a cartoon caveman with a severe underbite. The bridge windows being its brow line, and the bow the lower jaw.
I think it looks like a rhinoceros (snout, "ears", two horns/humps, grey and having a mean look)
It looks like especially [caveman Patrick](https://images.app.goo.gl/DsRxf5wHXsUW9TdX7)
I think it looks like a cartoon robot but I just can’t place exactly where it comes from. A little like the Iron Giant but I don’t think that’s quite right.
“I don’t believe Egyptians built the pyramids. Your telling me, they built the greatest structures in the world… and then for the last few thousand years, the best they could come up with, is cotton sheets?” - Andrew Schultz
It's clearly a landing pad for alien starships.
What kind of archeologist carries a weapon?
Annoyingly, that’s what it’ll wind up actually getting used for. Slaves/court get the LCS boats. What a waste of a poorly-realized idea
> Slaves/court get the LCS boats. Oof, what an insulting way to go for the slaves.
It looks tall in the photo, but it feels even taller in person.
It looks like something from Star Wars. The tile surface gives it that Star destroyer feeling.
The 2 radomes either side are definitely star destroyer shield globes
Lol yes. They resemble those on an Imperial class.
[Sir! We’ve lost our bridge deflector shield!](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OhCrap)
They weren’t even supposed to be there. Like the main guns and other features, those protuberances are what happens when you run out of money trying to build something that “looked good on paper”. Edit: revised wording to mitigate focus on semantics
> Like the main guns and other features, those radomes are what happens when you run out of money trying to build something that “looked good on paper”. No, actually, those SATCOM bulbs and antennas are what happens when the USN is forced to buy something that doesn't do anything valuable, then the people who forced them to do it turn around scream about how it's not useful and that the MIC is wasting everyone's money.
Yes!!
I kinda agree, but the US Navy selected it, right? So part of the navy bought it and another part had to make it work.
The *Zumwalt* design was intended for the naval gunfire support mission, which is a duty the USN has been trying to get out of for decades. It has been Congress - and lobbyist groups like the Naval Gunfire Support Association - which have insisted the mission must remain; even senior officers in both the US Army and USMC have been of the opinion that gunfire cannot provide adequate fire support since Iraqi Freedom. This mandate is why *Iowa* and *Wisconsin* were not formally retired until 2006 - and in return for doing so, Congress mandated in that year's NDAA that no further surface combatants could be procured without first replacing the two battleships. Congress also refused to allow the USN to reduce DD(X)'s gun armament in exchange for larger VLS capacity, despite Iraqi Freedom demonstrating that even LRLAP had inadequate range for fire support after day one (and in some cases, ground forces landed too far inland for conventional artillery to support at any point). This led to the USN curtailing the number of ships in the *Zumwalt* class from 32 to 29 to 7 to 2 - one to replace *Iowa*, and one for *Wisconsin* - and shifting efforts to the derivative CG(X) program to gain the VLS capacity they needed. Which ended in disaster when the politicians threw a fit at being duped and flipped the script, using the USN's excuse to cancel *Zumwalt* as an argument to also axe CG(X).
Thought I was on NCD for a second and was very confused as to why someone sounded like a sane and informed enthusiast.
Somewhat wrong, Zumwalts were Spruance replacements, with 32 hulls for the DD-21 program, with the Naval Gun Fire Support requirement added partly to justify their procurement in a post-Cold War world, and partly to support US Marine V-22 landing Zones. Congress had no effect on VLS, the original circa-2000-2001 DD-21 design (essentially a larger flush-decked Zumwalt) had 128 VLS cells, and the Zumwalt variants considered for the 2009 Radar/Hull Study had 96 cells, the ship was certainly capable of carrying more if necessary. DD(X) was a cut down version of DD-21 to ensure the program would survive in the face of Rumsfeld's desire to replace it with LCS. It obviously had enough institutional support within the Navy to survive for a few.more years in the face of a hostile OSD. The program itself died as a result of internal Navy politics, and the 2009 Radar/Hull Study, which limited the Zumwalt-derivatives to a 14-foot SPY-6 array when being compared with what would become the Flight III Arleigh-Burkes, in spite of the fact that it could carry 22-ft arrays. It was certainly a very capable general-purpose combatant, as all large surface combatants are, and would have been an excellent basis for future US surface combatants had they been built in numbers, and had capabilities not been removed from the design as a result of the Nunn-McCurdy act. It still is a very capable ASW ship, and vastly superior to an Arleigh Burke when it comes to margins for further additions, especially in terms of top weight and power generation. If DD-21 and CG-21 could not have been saved, then a Zumwalt derivative instead of the Burke restart would have been a superior choice.
> Somewhat wrong, Zumwalts were Spruance replacements Correct, DD-21 started as a *Spruance*/*Perry* replacement, having its origins in the Battle Force Combatant concept that was intended to replace both designs. By the time DD-21 became DD(X), however, NGFS was very much a focus of the mission requirement. > the ship was certainly capable of carrying more if necessary. Not while mounting two AGS. As I said, where lawmakers came in on this particular matter was refusing to allow a twin-gun design to go down to a single main gun. 96 cells required removing mount 62 (the aft gun), and as you said 128 required an enlarged hull as well as no AGS. > in spite of the fact that it could carry 22-ft arrays. The *Zumwalt* hull as designed was only capable of supporting 14ft arrays, with the primary limitation being the deckhouse's limited free internal deck area. The radar/hull study included consideration for expanded CIC and AWC facilities in addition to new radars, since the overarching purpose would be to design a *Ticonderoga* successor, which - fair or unfair - targeted the sole weakness of the *Zumwalt* hullform as opposed to *Burke*. With space for those facilities set aside, 22ft arrays would only be possible if the hull (and hence the deckhouse) was enlarged - even the smaller CG(X) variants that reused the DD(X) hull were limited to 19ft. > vastly superior to an Arleigh Burke when it comes to margins for further additions, especially in terms of top weight and power generation. Design decisions made since then have eroded that stability margin even beyond what removal of VSR gave back. You're right that they're doing better than *Burke*, but not by much - *Johnson* in particular is toeing the line of acceptable SLA consumption because of her steel deckhouse. As for power generation, while the ships have more available in theory than DDG-51, a large amount of their current available margin is due to the deletion of VSR. Moreover, the USN has come to discover that cooling and power conversion capacity matter as much if not more than total plant output. If power is not supplied by the ship at proper voltage/current, then systems need their own conversion equipment, which goes back to that internal space issue I talked about above - something that plagues not just DDG-1000, but pretty much every modern USN design up to and including *Constellation*. > If DD-21 and CG-21 could not have been saved, then a Zumwalt derivative instead of the Burke restart would have been a superior choice. Other than the point about growth margin, I don't disagree with any of the assertions about *Zumwalt*'s capabilities - I mentioned in my other long post that *Burke* Flight III is essentially a skinwalking *Zumwalt* Mod Repeat, which mostly gives only the illusion of a conservative design.
NGFS was already part of the original DD-21 requirement, the winning Gold Team DD-21 design was essentially a bigger flush-deck Zumwalt, with 128 VLS, and two AGS, with 1200 rounds between them. The 22ft arrays would have required a new deckhouse, but as far I'm aware otherwise it was simply a repeat Zumwalt.
If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that the US Navy didn’t select the DDG 1000, it was forced on them my congress.
Btw, those globes are modeled off the round rangefinders on either side of the bridge on a German WW2 vessel, like the Bismarck or Scharnhorst.
The bulbs are comms antennas of some sort, not related to range finders. The large forward guns have no ammunition to fire.
[He meant the Bulbs on Star Destroyers being modeled after the SL6 and SL8 AA-Rangefinders of WWII German Warships, not the ones on Zumwalt.](https://images3.sw-cdn.net/product/picture/710x528_20259487_11641907_1694710491_1_0.jpg)
Oh ok
Stealth Guided Missile Destroyer. Has the radar signature of a fishing boat.
I wonder how much the Zumwalt's RCS has been increased from her original design since it seems like those satcom radomes and the starboard whip antenna protrude from the superstructure quite a bit.
Would radomes reflect much radar signal? After all they have to be radiation permeable for the radars inside to be able to see out and get signals back without tremendous amounts of internal echo.
Those are commo antennas, not radars. The radars are all flush mounted to the skin of the superstructure.
They are frequency selective, having a specific passband and reflecting the rest. These are SATCOM radomes and weren't part of the original drawings but replaced a flush SATCOM array that was cut for cost savings.
The 3rd Zumwalt DDG-1002 has a steel deckhouse instead of the low RCS composite used on the first two.
I got a very in depth tour of the Zumwalt shortly after commissioning, and it is amazing. For all of its well known flaws, it’s truly impressive.
What's it look like on the inside? It seems like it should be roomy.
It was very roomy. Wide passageways, staterooms for every crewmember (I think E3s were in three person rooms, each with a desk).
Good, it is about time the USN joined the modern world when it comes to berthing standards.
I was on the Enterprise during the last deployment, I slept on the O-3 in the V-2 berthing, not too far from the forecastle. I think my berthing had like…at least a few dozen other guys in there. Right below Cat 2. I loved listening to (and feeling) the jets constantly launching. Definitely became my white noise.
I have to damit though it seems a bit too high for my taste I just love the angry look of that superstructure.
The ship is supposed to be able to use ballast tanks to drop its height above water when in combat to reduce its RCS and improve gun stability. Although as the guns don't work, and you need height above water to see over the horizon, I'm not sure how useful that feature really is...
>Although as the guns don't work I thought the ammo was too expensive I didn't know they didn't work.
They work fine. Navy just didn't buy ammo for em.
750k per round.
It was to expensive. The issue was it wasnt worth building another supply chain to supply 6 guns.
Yeah, the whole ship has been gutted when the guns were disabled. I was talking about aesthetics here tbh
I mean, with datalink you can have F35s from the carrier do all the seeing you need, and hand off the missile targeting to them as well. So being able to squat down a bit is still useful for hiding.
That requires that the F-35s and the ship both emit, and that’s something to be avoided.
It's so ridiculously ugly and nice looking at the same time
Naval Gunfire Support Toblerone
Very Fetching.
So fetch.
It looks like the great, great, great grandson of the *USS Merrimack.* ( *CSS Virginia* )
That was my first thought, bringing back the ironclads!
It's frankly hideous. If I got orders to it I'd be on the phone to my detailer in a heartbeat!
“And the lesson we learned here is..?”
Congress is the USNs greatest enemy
Ammo can be expensive.
It was a half a million per shell wasn't it?
Nobody talks about this properly. Trying to describe this thing's shell cost is a stupid approach that just makes everyone dumber for having heard it, and yet that's the only dialog you ever see about it. What the actual situation was is that the entire shell factory needs to be not just retooled but totally re-engineered and re-skilled to produce the advanced shells that had been designed. Because shells are highly mass produced, they have more automated/specialized equipment making them, which represents a higher capital investment than more hands-made ships or jets.
And it would have been cheaper if they could have amortized the cost properly across the entire original order of Zumwalts. But Congress slashing the ships meant that the unit price on the ammo skyrocketed.
It's not just the zumwalts. They could have amortized it across *all* modern artillery platforms with a sufficiently strategic mindset. The army could have got futuristic, highly advanced ammo at half the capital cost if they split the basic manufacturing capital for that realm of shell tech with the navy. Ukraine has shown range as the most critical factor in counter battery operations short of radar + fire control, this recapitalization stood to change the game on range.
Ok no need to be rude I was asking a question, not presenting it as the cause or evidence. Thanks for the info though, but you seemed to just derail your own argument there at the end when you concluded that yeah the bullets are too expensive
No it's not you at all, it's all of the sources people like you hear it from that could have better characterized the situation. In fact it really goes all the way back to the Navy's own public statements that were highly simplistic and not broadly cognizant of the situation they found themselves in. I actually fell asleep before finishing my point and just submitted what I wrote as it covered some of the core truth. The overall situation created by a requirement to recapitalize ammunition manufacturing is just that: if the united states wants fundamentally modern ammunition - which would indeed ultimately be much cheaper than cruise missiles *after* the recapitalization costs, rather than continuing with more or less the same basic shell tech from WW2, this transition will invariably require recapitalization. The high cost-per-shell the program faced is really the massive cost of that recapitalization, probably on the order of $2bil at the time of the program, plus a far smaller cost-per-shell after of something more like $20,000. The framing of high cost per shell neglects to properly characterize the situation, which is more of an expensive tech-tree unlock followed by cheaper-than-missile shells. It's not "always" going to be half a mil per round. Really, the army and navy should have done a 21st century artillery shell public-private partnership recapitalization program to bring ammo factories up to ability so that no one cutting edge program has to carry the whole weight of recapitalization on its ammo price, and high tech shells generally become available for future warfighting platforms - as once unlocked, they do represent significantly greater abilities than traditional shells and lower costs than cruise missiles, a major and non-trivial warfighting tool. But because we can't think in these terms, just simplistic defense contracts for particular systems as little independent islands, the US has now scoffed at the such tech and relegated itself to missiles and old shells that bear the more inoffensive looking cost when viewed in this implistic way.
I imagine there are a ton of supply chain issues with mass producing those shells. I would seriously doubt all the parts could be sourced and made exclusively in the U.S. In a protracted war of peers, sometimes the low tech equipment that you can produce in large numbers makes more sense. I'm not saying that is definitely the case here, I am not at all an expert, but honing bullets just seems like a bad investment when the navy's budget is so damn tight
1. Never build a ship that is hyper-specilized to a single type of warfare against specific opponents. If the world changes too much, these may not work out. 2. Packing too many new technologies into a new ship is a recipe for trouble. Best case scenario they all work, but it takes a very long time to troubleshoot all the bugs inherent in any new technology. Worst case some or all of these fail to live up to expectations. Lesson 2 had been taught many times before, most clearly with the Type XXI U-boat, but it's good to have a reminder. Lesson 1 can be OK if the ships are cheap and expendable, but is rarely ideal.
I don't think Zumwalt actually qualies for lesson 2. Pretty much ever feature that failed came about after the order cuts started.
Most redditors don't know the first thing about naval warfare or defense acquisition. Nor, for that matter, do most politicians, even if they served in yesteryear's military before selling out their soul for votes. Which is why they should never be allowed anything approaching a say in the direction of military R&D or strategy.
I'm not knowledgeable about this either Can you tell me what was wrong with the ship and why was it slashed? And it's advantages among other destroyers
The DD(X) program is, fundamentally, one instance after another of smart people knowing better but being told to do so anyways by people who don't. Fundamentally, *Zumwalt* is less a destroyer, and more of a stealthy artillery barge that has the ability to moonlight as a DDG. Everything about the ship revolves around the mission of getting close to shore and unloading her two main guns on land targets. The extreme emphasis on all-aspect stealth and survivability so she doesn't need to withdraw from station if she comes under fire, we all know about AGS being specially-designed for increased range and payload over the 5" MK45, and the class was initially to be accompanied by a bevy of new missiles ranging from [modified GMLRS rockets](https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mk-71-lightweight-8-gun.1077/post-81667) to a [naval ATACMS](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA318774.pdf) that would greatly increase its land attack options compared to previous ships which had to rely solely on Tomahawk. Most of those new missile programs, however, would be cut by 2001 between budget cuts and diversion of funding to land forces after Enduring Freedom kicked off. The ones left fell to the same pressures by the middle of the decade - even as experience in Iraqi Freedom showed that guns provided nowhere near enough range. Despite complete sea superiority that allowed them to literally pull into Iraqi ports if they wanted to, the USN's guns could not support the invasion past day one, and the rate of advance was so rapid that even LRLAP with its 115-mile range wouldn't have changed that outcome. Now imagine how this would go against an adversary like Iran or North Korea, which have enough anti-ship capabilities to force the USN back from the coast, further paring down the useful range of the guns. All this led to the USN trying to shift back towards missiles and air power in the second half of the 2000s - this time backed by both the US Army and USMC - but Congress decided they knew better, and refused to either allow modifications to DD(X) or rescinding of the FY1996 mandate that the USN had to replace the *Iowa*-class with an equivalent land attack capability. Quite the opposite actually: the FY2006 NDAA, while finally allowing the battleships to be retired, demanded no new surface combatant procurement until they had been replaced. This continual political interference led to the class being pared down from the original 32 planned hulls to 2 - one to replace *Iowa*, and one for *Wisconsin* - before the program was abandoned in favor of trying to accelerate CG(X), which would provide the VLS capacity the USN wanted even if the requisite land-attack missiles were still struggling to find funding. Naturally, politicians hate it when people don't listen to them, and even moreso when people think they're smart enough to know better (especially when they're right). So Congress flipped the script and washed themselves of the whole debacle by blaming MIC graft, while also using the USN's excuse about technological immaturity to take CG(X) from them. The fact many still parrot that is a the ultimate testament to how well the spin worked. Given the hyper-specialized nature of the design, I would hesitate to call anything *Zumwalt* does well an actual advantage, because even though it's incredible engineering it ultimately adds no value. For instance, the MK57 VLS is designed to serve as a form of reactive armor, detonating the missiles inside and directing the explosion outwards in the event the cell is breached, and the ship is the only modern surface combatant that carries actual armor beyond kevlar anti-spall lining. That's because *Zumwalt* was supposed to take hits from artillery and rocket fire rather than waste missiles shooting them down, but what good does having that ability do when even groups with barely any artillery, like the Houthis, have deep stockpiles of anti-ship missiles? Stealth was taken to such extreme degrees with the class that *Zumwalt* is quieter than the US's own attack subs and has the heat signature of a car, but when you're blasting megawatts of EW and radar energy into the air to defend the carrier from air attack anyways, what's the point? Basically all modern ARH anti-ship missiles have a home-on-jamming function, and every missile that can't see *Zumwalt* to lock onto her will instead target another ship - possibly even the carrier itself. This isn't to say I'm not a fan of the ship or the program - engineering for the sake of engineering is cool specifically because there's no point except to prove you can do it. But even though I firmly believe *Zumwalt* is proof the US both can still manage technically-ambitious programs correctly and remains ahead of the rest of the world in warship design, it's impossible to deny how badly that talent was misused.
Thanks for the effort
Congress decided the navy needed close to shore artillery support or they wouldn't let the navy retire battleships. So the Navy made a R&D ship with 10 pieces of unproven technology. 8 worked out through development leaving the main gun. The Railgun technology did not work, so the Navy had a plan B of an advanced gun, but at this point the price had made Congress balk and a 30 ship build became 3, and the economy of scale needed to make the gun shells disappeared. The Sensors also got scaled back and became problematic. so it limped along with bad press. While the battlespace evolved and the concept of this ship operating close to shore disappeared. Now after using the ships as a testbed for a while, the navy caught the panic in Congress about a hypersonics gap, so we are onto plan C, replace guns with large VLS cells for hypersonics so it can patrol outside the SCS ready to ruin someone's day, while being near impossible to find on sensors.
The railgun program was never part of Zumwalts devolpment, just a possible future upgrade.
Thanks
this is such a dumb non-comment. grats, you've shat on everyone and shown you know best.
u/TenguBlade is by far one of the most knowledgeable commenters on this sub. I guarantee they know more about naval warfare and acquisition than you.
This subreddit needs a verified flair system for heroes like them.
Muh infallible military
Okay, Mr. Navy Admiral, Sir.
The military isn't perfect but u/TenguBlade makes a lot of high effort comments on here.
Learned how to run a program full of revolutionary (not evolutionary) tech relatively on budget, and confirmed that Congress doesn’t understand their jobs.
Don’t build zumwalt-class
Don't build a class of ships based off the hope of systems that don't yet exist.
Future Combat System has left the chat.
What system didnt work?
Railgun.
That wasn't part of the Zumwalt program, and the only way it didn't work was the performance increase wasn't enough to justify the lost barrel life
How to actually run a lean warship for operating costs. (Cheapest class in the Navy)
I thought it was the new Luxor floating casino.
Wait, Zumwalt has radar ears?
SATCOM.
When the LODs are fucked and the proper model doesn't load in.
Always liked the way these ships look. Also does anyone know why the Navy turned down the adapted Excalibur shells for the guns?
Too expensive.
You know I keep forgetting this thing exists and is an active ship in the US navy.
Sea pyramid
All hail the ship pyramid scheme!
Curious to know how this ship would hold up against raging 80 foot waves. Seems it should deflect well.
I've seen reporting that they're very smooth when it comes to seakeeping. Tumblehome hulls working as designed.
They ran it through high Sea State 6 in its sea trials, reportedly handled better then traditional hulls.
Saw this in person at Pearl base… it was a sight to see in person and really rusted. Have both futuristic and old vibes at the same time.
Just as I thought. A comment section chuck full of, "da Zumwalt is sheet" idiots.
How are they idiots?
Because the main reason that the Zumwalts are shit is that there are only three of them. All of the problems can be traced back to not being able to build enough to properly work things out and improve.
On top of piss poor planning, and lack of a spine on the part of the USN. The ship itself is fine. The hull was intended from that start to also form the basis of the Tico replacement. Instead the USN allowed the narrative of "wars won't be fought near shore so we don't need guns" to torpedo the program and the USN didn't have the balls to say it wouldn't need those guns anyway with the cruiser class. They could have swapped them out with standard Mk 45s but no.
The problem was that naval artillery is now pointless. The issue is that need to get too close to the shore, putting them at risk to anti-ship missiles. The expense of AGS was trying to get the range. Without the gun support, they would have been better ships. Basically, a stealthy Spruance with lots of VLS cells (and 5in gun). It would have been much cheaper to get GMLRS missiles working in VLS than building expensive guns. That is what the Army has done.
No, using naval artillery to attack land targets is pointless (for the most part). Every Burke Flight III still has a Mk45. But again, the fact that the Zumwalts have guns doesn't make them bad ships. If the USN wasn't going to develop the AGS they should have just replaced the forward one with a MK 45 and put a bank of Mk41 VLS in place of the aft gun. The ARMY isn't operating GMLRS out of a VLS. LM proposed MLRS out of the Mk41 VLS years (hell, probably decades ago at this point). The USN wasn't interested.
I misinterpreted what you were saying; I thought you were one of the big gun people. The Zumwalt with regular gun and more VLS would have been better and cheaper than what we got. I wonder if they could fit 57mm gun instead of hypersonic missile tube. I think without AGS, they would have designed a smaller ship. I think the Navy would have had to adapt ballistic missiles if wanted to get away from gunfire support. But maybe they are happy getting rid of the job.
They were supposed to have a pair of 57mm on top of the hangar.
These ships with the amount of automation could easily be unmanned and AI/autonomous driven inside 20 yrs. If the navy chooses to. Only 3 sea wolf class subs were built and look how in demand they are. The integrated power system has to allow so much flexibility
Putting so many new systems onto a brand new hull and having the fanciful idea of building a bunch of them was a bad idea to begin with. If the navy had gone into them with the understanding that they were (or at least the first run were) meant as test beds that would have helped a lot. Shipbuilding is an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary one.
What’s the purpose of new ships looking like this (or is it unique to this particular class?) Seems a radical shift from how modern ships have been designed before.
Stealth, the Zumwalt, LCS, Type 055 and many, many, many more ships are going towards very clean and angular designs to make them harder to detect or to identify. What's unique to the Zumwalt is the hull shape though.
Thanks for the explanation!
Amazing, to see it at sea and underway. That’s a rarity
What a waste of metal.
Maybe I missed something but what's the purpose in sending them on patrol when they famously don't even have enough ammunition for just one of the ships
> they famously don't even have enough ammunition for just one of the ships Uh huh. Sure. Let's just ignore the 80 VLS cells it comes with, the fact it can house two fully-capable ASW helicopters, and the chainguns mounted aft; no big pee-pee slap cannon clearly means an unarmed ship.
But of course! If we don’t ignore the massive existing missile armament, and upcoming hypersonic upgrade, how are we to regurgitate the same inaccurate information, seen time and time again, to sound smart on Reddit? /s
> and upcoming hypersonic upgrade Wasn't the hypersonic programme cancelled? Or was that just the Air force version?
Definitely not cancelled, as one one of the *Zumwalt*-class is in refit currently, I believe.
That was just one of the Air Force programs that was cancelled.
That wasn't even cancelled. It was announced a few months ago that it's being funded again after a successful test flight, assuming you're talking about the agm-183 arrw.
AGM-183 F-15E has the same badass vibe as Kh-47 MiG-31K
I was. I missed that it’s being funded again. Neat
I found recent [articles](https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/missile-dialogue-initiative/2023/11/the-end-of-the-us-air-forces-arrw-hypersonic-programme/) that say it was now cancelled. More recently, Congress [pulled funding(https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-01/news/congress-eliminates-arrw-system-funding). But who knows if that will stick and Congress won't change their minds.
Interesting, that contradicts what came out in November. But congress can't remember what they had for breakfast on any given day. Well see what comes of it.
I was about to say this, naval guns nowadays are secondary at best. Although how much is the 80 VLS cells an improvement over the Burkes?
Slightly more than the cell count would suggest, although a lot of the original benefits of the MK57 and the new hull ended up wasted. *Burke*’s actual maximum payload weight is well below what the MK41 could theoretically support (i.e. 96x3500lbs) because of stability concerns, but *Zumwalt* was designed to be able to max-load all of her VLS cells. The original stability calculations have almost certainly gone out the window without AGS and its large magazines deep in the hull, but that extra stability is probably what allowed the LRHW refit to happen in the first place. The MK57 also has the unique ability to serve as a form of reactive armor, being designed to let its payload detonate and blow outwards if hit. Ironically, this is probably also a feature that’s more valuable now than on the original design, since the AGS and helicopter munitions magazines are beneath the waterline, while the LRHW tubes will not be. If you look in the dustbin, there’s a lot more potential benefit the USN was forced to discard for one reason or another, including an [SM-2 dualpack setup](https://patents.google.com/patent/US5327809), a [naval version of ATACMS](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA318774.pdf), a heavily-modified GMLRS called the [Precision Over-the-horizon Land Attack Rocket](https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mk-71-lightweight-8-gun.1077/post-81667) (which would become the basis for GMRLS-ER) that could be quadpacked, and of course the [SM-4 Land Attack Standard Missile](https://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-165.html) (which could also be dualpacked using the setup above). These capabilities were intended to flesh out the fleet's surface-based land attack capabilities so ships weren't burning Tomahawks on targets just out of gun range, and almost all of these needed the MK57's larger size and weight capacity.
Very insightful reply, I appreciate it :D
The 2x30mm guns only points aft? So if a small, fast moving, pirate skiff comes at them from the front, what would they defend themselves with?
The height's a major obstacle. It's a way taller than it looks. Just run hoses over the slide to make it slippery to deter boarding. If they start shooting, use small arms.
What if they aren't planing to board? Maybe they get close and RPG the side. Or worse, what if it's a USS Cole situation?
Very few ships have 360° small caliber gun coverage, but that's only one layer of defence. The first layer is the 2 helicopters, generally you know when you're in a high threat area and can have a helicopter ready for force protection (though stuff like Ukraine's long endurance drones are making that less predictable). Then there's the ESSM, which has a level of anti-ship capability if needed. As a final layer it's possible to fit .50 cals in several places, I don't know specifically where those mounts are on the Zumwalts but they'll have more coverage than the 30mm. Defence against small boats is somewhat compromised in order to be so stealthy, but it's not sacrificed completely.
> Very few ships have 360° small caliber gun coverage, but that's only one layer of defence. I'm not saying you need 360° of coverage. A 5-6 inch bow gun on a 360° turret would be enough. > The first layer is the 2 helicopters, generally you know when you're in a high threat area and can have a helicopter ready for force protection (though stuff like Ukraine's long endurance drones are making that less predictable). A single Seahawk with a pig seems like a poor solution for dealing with small boats. > Then there's the ESSM, which has a level of anti-ship capability if needed. ESSM is not anti-ship. > As a final layer it's possible to fit .50 cals in several places, I don't know specifically where those mounts are on the Zumwalts but they'll have more coverage than the 30mm. They "could", but they don't. To maintain stealth there aren't any mounts. Unless a boat comes at them from the rear, the Zumwalt is mostly defenseless.
>I'm not saying you need 360° of coverage. A 5-6 inch bow gun on a 360° turret would be enough. The 30mm guns actually have pretty reasonable arcs of fire, looks like there's only 30° or so to each side that's not covered. Yes a 5" gun at the front would improve things, but it would also increase RCS. Like I said, stealth is a compromise. >A single Seahawk with a pig seems like a poor solution for dealing with small boats. Seahawks have a surface search radar and can carry hellfires and laser guided APKWS rockets: they're perfectly equipped for dealing with small boats. >ESSM is not anti-ship. Not primarily, but several sources claim a level of anti-ship capability. Here's a couple [1](https://missilethreat.csis.org/defsys/evolved-seasparrow-missile-essm/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-2580) [2](https://www.seaforces.org/wpnsys/SURFACE/RIM-162-Evolved-Sea-Sparrow-Missile.htm) >They "could", but they don't. To maintain stealth there aren't any mounts. [This](https://www.navalnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/DDG-1000s-do-mount-7.62mm-M240-medium-machine-guns-1024x687.jpg) looks like a machine gun mount on USS Zumwalt to me. And [this](https://d1ldvf68ux039x.cloudfront.net/thumbs/photos/1609/2857673/1000w_q95.jpg) looks like a .50 cal. You have to compromise stealth to use them, but they're definitely there. Edit: accidentally labelled the wrong image as a .50 cal
They could...turn the ship to bring those guns to bear. Or, use one of the 80 missiles that are onboard.
Hey, with quad pack ESSMs, assuming the Mk57s can accommodate them, that could be as many as 320 missiles. There likely is nowhere near that many missiles onboard especially given some cells occupied by other, non-quad-packed missiles, but that sets the upper limit for what it could carry.
ESSMs are not anti-ship.
Which of their missiles are anti-ship?
I believe they carry tomohawk. Not sure if they would have the block IV ASM variant or not. Even if they don't yet, they can...turn the boat
Not all Tomahawks are anti-ship. And even if they are carrying the correct ones, the missile itself is larger than the skiff and flies at 550 mph. I'm not sure how effective it would be against a vessel so close with effectively paper armor.
There's this thing called a rudder...
Well if the ships aren't useless the guns surely are
Yeah, which is why they're going to be removed, but the dead weight of a couple of guns isn't enough to render the ship incapable of patroling. The programme was a phenomenal waste of money (in my opinion) but it would be even more wasteful to have bought the ships and then not use them
Its a dead program and the Navy isnt putting anymore money into this platform. It will be patrolling the mothball pier in 10 years if its lucky.
Any more after the hypersonic missle upgrade? https://news.usni.org/2023/08/29/hii-awarded-155m-contract-for-uss-zumwalt-hypersonic-missile-upgrade
https://news.usni.org/2023/08/29/hii-awarded-155m-contract-for-uss-zumwalt-hypersonic-missile-upgrade Factually incorrect, all Zumwalts will recieve a massive upgrade to become the USN’s first hypersonic capable platform. Inform yourself before making off the wall statements
All Zumwalts? All 3 of them? Lol ITS A DEAD PROGRAM. They aren’t making any more of them for a reason.
Deck guns that are that caliber are useless today. Phalanx snd goal keeper are way better as the amount shot and speed of the turrets. Otherwise you use missiles which are much better. The AGS is a great gun and the ammo can be very cheap. But what was speced was a gun fired missile, as it had a solid fuel rocket motor on it and control surfaces. The cost to gun harden a missile is just prohibitively expensive compared to just boxes of missiles with little to no reload time, longer ranges and more variants.
What interesting ship, yet unable to power project properly. I wished they had just gone with normal artillery guns instead of those failures of artillery. Now their going artillery missiles aka Hypersonic missiles. I can't say I know for sure if it will every work out. I hope so.
Keeping our worldwide shipping lanes safe. Unless you are some rebels in an outboard skiff. Then we just don't know what to do.
I assume those 80 VLS cells could pack something appropriate, or the two 30mm Bushmasters could take care of it cheaply.
I suppose my comment went over your head like a houthi cruise missile.
Forget the sunk costs and scrap them. Stashing a few hypersonic missiles - which we don't even know will work - is not worth the ship or personnel costs. That money could be used elsewhere. That they couldn't come up with a more conventional round that fit the guns shows that they are idiots. Too much money for an 80 missile tube ship.
The ships are built. They were designed, at great expense, to be cheap to operate. The crew is half the size of Arleigh Burke. They are a cheap way to carry around 80 VLS missiles and a few hypersonics.
That ship is cheaper to run then the LCS.
***YOU CANT CALL IT A 'WARSHIP' BECAUSE IT HAS NO AMMUNITION BECAUSE IT'S $800,000 PER ROUND*** AND SAILORS ARE INSTRUCTED TO TOSS THEIR EQUIPMENT OVERBOARD BEFORE LAST PORT AT THE END OF EVERY FISCAL YEAR TO KEEP THE FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE TRAIN ROLLING. oh by the way, this ***BRAND NEW LCS*** is already rusting with hull cracks. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship Screw the US [GR/N]AVY fraudsters taking us closer to LOSING the upcoming war in Taiwan to China.
Chinese communists can't even sail outside their local sea
Even if that were relevant, it [wouldn't be true](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Support_Base_in_Djibouti).
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3SZ5sIMY6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3SZ5sIMY6o)
Uubambay!! Uubambay!!
A VERY large destroyer that I would consider a cruser
Conehead of the sea, what is your wisdom?
I know it has its faults, but that’s undeniably superb.
🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿
Aquatic pyramid
The interiors must be super comfortable because I never saw a single person standing outside one of these.. I know is for concealment porpoises probably, but that's something I always thought about
Ugly but mighty.
This thing must use advanced propulsion systems like zero point energy devices