
The Navy’s Second Stealth Zumwalt-Class Destroyer Is Almost Ready for Action - smacktoward
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-navys-second-stealth-zumwalt-class-destroyer-almost-24383
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ghostcluster
It has a very striking design:
[http://nationalinterest.org/files/styles/main_image_on_posts...](http://nationalinterest.org/files/styles/main_image_on_posts/public/main_images/zumwalttnibaby.jpg)

but:

> Given the sheer expense of the DDG-1000 class and its lack of certain
> ballistic missile defense capabilities—not to mention a number of outmoded
> technologies onboard—the Navy opted not to continue building the Zumwalt
> class. The three-ship class _has cost the Navy $23 billion, with each ship
> coming in at roughly $4.25 billion per vessel_ when research and development
> is not factored in.

> In the medium term, the future of the Navy’s surface fleet lies with the new
> Flight III Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyer—which BIW will start
> building starting with DDG-126 and DDG-127.

Flight III Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyer:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-
class_destroyer#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-
class_destroyer#/media/File:130920-N-NX070-025_-_USS_Arleigh_Burke_\(DDG-51\).jpg)

Naval shipbuilding needs a SpaceX.

~~~
maxxxxx
I wonder how all these super expensive and complex weapons systems will do if
there ever is an all-out war against an enemy who has access to advanced
technology. It seems you should be able to bring down a 4 billion ship with a
swarm of thousand drones for maybe 1 million each for the total cost of 1
billion. Same for aircraft carriers.

From what I have read about the maintenance needs of systems like the F-22 and
B-2 someone who has simpler, easier to maintain airplanes should also have an
advantage once things get busy.

~~~
ordinaryradical
This is what’s disturbing about the way we contract these projects: we’re
weaker because of cost-plus and an emphasis on expense over efficacy.

Compare the tanks of WWII. American Shermans (at first) were something of a
death-trap in terms of armor and carried weaker armaments. But you could churn
them out quickly and teach someone with a high school degree how to do
maintenance. Germans went the opposite: high-tech behemoths that were fast,
heavily armored, and big-gunned. They were hell to fight, but they also
couldn’t be produced or maintained at anything close to the speed of a
Sherman. And as it turns out, modern war is not just about having the best toy
but the one the market can produce and replace reliably.

It seems to me that our extreme willingness for expense and new tech fetishism
is putting us in the position of the Germans of last century—we’ll win all our
short engagements but once we have to start replacing parts and vehicles,
we’ll be hamstrung.

EDIT: and so as not to seem like I’m repeating the myth, I’ll link here to a
little debunking—the Sherman wasn’t a _bad_ tank, just not a particularly
cutting-edge one:

[http://knowledgeglue.com/dispelling-myths-
surrounding-m4-she...](http://knowledgeglue.com/dispelling-myths-
surrounding-m4-sherman/)

~~~
walshemj
There is a lot of vested interests in the Sherman Debate Should the USA have
fitted the Hot 76.2 and more of the expensive ammo for D day

Or should have they have gone for the Brit conversion using the 17pounder -
towards the end Brit doctrine was 50/50 firefly / stock Sherman.

Ok the 76.2 with the right ammo was good but they only had 2/3 rounds per tank
of those as opposed to a British troop with 50% 17 pounders

There are rumours of Infantry generals delaying the introduction of the 76.2
as allegedly one had an interest in the factory that made 75's - There is also
the NIH aspect in refusing the funnies in American Beaches.

------
jandrese
Given the recent problems with collisions on Navy ships I might be a little
nervous serving aboard one that is designed to defeat naval radar. It would be
pretty embarrassing to sink the newest destroyer because some big cargo ship
couldn't see it in the dark and ran over it.

~~~
gaius
That would be 100% the decision of the Captain who chose to sit in a busy
shipping lane showing no lights. The civilians captains going about their
legitimate business, in a shipping lane, showing running lights, and
restricted in ability to manoeuvre, have been blameless in all collisions to
date.

~~~
jandrese
Which could definitely be an issue since the Zumwalts are tiny and low
prestige so they might not get the top shelf Skippers.

~~~
pablobaz
At over $4 Billion each, I'd hope they still get top class skippers. Whatever
the training, recruitment, retention etc. costs the Navy it would be worth it.

~~~
jandrese
Yeah, but it's a ship with a crew of 140 with no realistic path towards a
combat deployment. It's the naval version of a dead end job.

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drdeadringer
Because of a recent "Software Engineering Daily" episode about modern warfare,
I just finished reading "Ghost Fleet", a fictional book from a few years ago
which features this Zumwalt-class destroyer in a war between the US and a
joint China-Russia alliance. It was a fun read.

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scrumper
Seems that in a sense the Zumwalt is the first casualty of China’s new anti-
ship ballistic missile system.

~~~
adventured
No. That'd be like saying the US should stop making carriers because of the
new India/Russia BrahMos cruise missile. Or the so called DF21 carrier killer
from China.

These systems are primarily for fighting nations not named Russia and China.
If China decides to sink a carrier or a Zumwalt, it's WW3, millions will die.

~~~
gizmo385
> These systems are primarily for fighting nations not named Russia and China.

But are those "nations not named Russia and China" realistically going to be
able to do anything to a destroyer like this? Could they have realistically
done anything to the previous generation of destroyers? It seems (to my
uninformed eye) that these upgraded destroyers are almost comical in how far
ahead of the technology that any adversary has (once again, those not named
China and Russia).

~~~
qubex
Didn’t the attack on the USS Cole (a dinghy loaded with explosives driven by
suicidal fanatics) demonstrated that being “comically far ahead” in therms of
technology sometimes amounts for precious little?

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theBuess
Whats the advantage to these over the Arleigh Burke III's other than that
these look cooler? It seems like you could have 2 or 3 of the Burke class for
every one of these.

~~~
smacktoward
There's the stealth aspect, of course (which is a big difference from
conventional ships like the _Arleigh Burke_ s all by itself), and beyond that
the _Zumwalt_ class was supposed to incorporate a bunch of other next-
generation features too: cutting-edge guns and missile-launch systems, an
advanced permanent-magnet powerplant that could generate ten times the
electrical power of conventional ones (which in turn would allow mounting
things like beam weapons, when they became practical), new automated systems
that allowed a crew half the size of a _Burke_ 's to operate the ship, and so
forth. (See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-
class_destroyer#Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-
class_destroyer#Design) for a good overview.)

Trying to roll so many technical leaps forward into a single ship proved to be
a big mistake, though, as many of those advances were never able to be
practically realized and some of those that were ended up costing much more to
develop than originally anticipated. So the _Zumwalt_ s have become kind of a
white elephant; the cost overruns caused the Navy to eventually cut its order
for the ships from 32 to just three, and those that will be delivered are
unlikely to ever be as capable as they were originally planned to be.

------
phyller
I wonder what would have happened if they took all that development money,
didn't worry at all about stealth, and just tried to make it as unsinkable as
possible.

------
protomyth
Did the Navy ever figure out what the solution to the 155-millimeter Advanced
Gun Systems ammo problem?

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Yeah. They're adapting the projectile developed by the railgun project to
conventional powder guns. It'll end up being a much more affordable and
practical approach.

As far as whether they'll end up on the Zumwalts? Who knows. The lack of a
missile defense system on the Zumwalts has more or less made them pointless
beyond research/development testbeds. We're just going to build more Burkes
and upgrade existing ones instead, which is more cost effective on the whole.

~~~
jandrese
I'm guessing the whole "you can't get a radar lock on me to shoot in the first
place" didn't work out for ballistic missile defense?

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
It's not a binary thing. But the main limit of the Zumwalts in missile defense
is lacking the right radars and the combat management software. There's a
kinda long history to all this, and it's a little muddled. My understanding of
roughly what happened is originally a larger stealth cruiser design was going
to handle missile defense, while the Zumwalts would handle strike. Then the
cruiser project got canceled, so they started talking about adding the
capabilities to the Zumwalts. That fell through when the development contract
for the needed radar went to Raytheon (I don't fully understand why this
killed it, seems to be something political?).

What no one in the navy wants to say clearly and openly is: the Zumwalts, as
well as the 2 LCS designs, are pretty much useless as built. They won't be
used for more than training, development testing, and perhaps mine sweeping
duties.

Out of all 3 of those classes, the only fully capable ship anyone is talking
about is a new, stretched version of the Freedom class LCS that tries to be a
mini-frigate. And that's only getting talked about because foreign customers
are interested.

It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money.

~~~
Nimitz14
> It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money.

I wouldn't be so negative. The money coming in allowed newbie engineers to get
into the field and existing ones to get smarter and increase their skills. Not
having such a project would lead to a vacuum in the knowledge required to do
those sorts of projects (I don't believe the US has any other project of this
sort underway). I'm sure they'll be able to learn from what went wrong to make
the next project turn out better.

~~~
bllguo
come on. There's a silver lining, sure. But it's still a massive failure. It's
not a comparison between no project and a disastrous project, it's one between
disastrous and successful.

