Alright we have 3 zumwalt class destroyers what can we do with them

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: tadaman

This was going to be the shore bombardment ship. The LRLAP was going to allow them to hit targets well inland, since they could get closer than a Burke to launch them, but 2,000 rounds for the three ships would have run almost $2B. That's the price of a Burke ship just for the ammunition. They had been looking at replacing it with Excalibur, which had a reduced range (30 miles as opposed to 60), but that idea didn't go anywhere.

Initially i found it hard to believe that they couldnt foresee this as a problem..........

Then I looked at our spending and remembered just how frivolous we have gotten with it........

originally posted by: pteridine
These will be demo hulls for lasers, rail guns, and other stuff.

hence, as OP pointed out, the extra electrical potential

one wonders what's on the drawing board

a reply to: ElGoobero

With laser weapons if they could fire it steady for say 30 seconds at a time at full power while turret was tracking a at at heavily forested coast I could see it causing a massive fire that could generate chaos and allow insertion of size me force elsewhere while everyone else was worried about forest fire. Lasers have no radar signature so unless someone saw light beam they would have no idea how fire started intialy . And yes I too feel they should have built more battleships maybe once rail gun systems become more mature they might come back. This ship was supposed to fill tha t capacity but the cost became outta control the other proposal was an unmanned drone arsenal ship that would be controlled either vie satellite from land or from another destroyer that would have 500 vls and since no crew it would have been very stealthy as it would have very little of it above water line. Yes building a vehicle around a really big gun worked for the battleships and also the a-10 sadly the ammo for this ships main guns was just too much.

a reply to: proteus33

No offense, but why would we want to start a forest fire for our troops to contend with along with the enemy?

tactically that wouldnt be very advantageous........I know as a former combat Marine I sure as hell wouldnt want to be dealing with that.....


That being said, Im sure they will utilize it for other platforms in the future.

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

The range of the laser if it is say 15 miles or so you could start a fire on one end of town then while guys rushing to that location your team inserts a five or 6 miles away undetected I am talking about a distraction you get everybody to run one way while you go in undefended area.. we used to do similar tactic at school one guy would light a sketchbook and throw it into trash can by principals office as we switched between classes principal would see smoke and even through trash can was outside would evacuate building half the students would hop in their cars and skip rest of the day.

a reply to: proteus33

Thing is, we still challenge the idea of fire bombing Dresden, was it right to target civvies with such a purpose?

Also, I struggled to find a forest in Iraq.

Lets not build $20bn stealth ships to appease all the pyromaniacs in the Navy!

With 58 Megawatts of power you could also put in one awesome ear bleeding, body rattling sound system, the worlds biggest boombox. Along with the fireworks and light show it would be the envy of every harbor on new years eve.

The way of the peaceful warrior.

a reply to: kwakakev

That's another use in Case of natural disaster you could bring it to bear to locals for emergency power possibly like they did in New Orleans with that aircraft carrier or at sea if another vessel is in need of a jump start . A railgun would be cool if you making it a ship killer kinda hard to shoot down something coming at you at speeds over mach 5 or 6 from 10 or 20 miles away.

They need to bite the bullet and pay for the Standard integration. I think it's going to die an ugly death because I don't think anyone has the guts to tel congress they'll need even more money to make them usable.

When the costs ballooned, they "saved" money by not giving it any of the systems it needs to actually, you know, be a warship. Before that, the never-ending list of changes to the mission (from one it didn't particularly want, but was mandated by Congress) and the general lack of coherent vision ran it way over budget. Didn't help that the built-in wunderwaffe radar from LM was next to worthless. Terribly run program all the way around.

But it has good bones, if you will, and development costs are sunk. Almost all the current issues are unrelated to the ship itself and center on what the Navy has decided to put on/not put on the hulls.

It'd be a shame not to leverage the existing hull design for the Tico replacements. They'd have to stop calling it them Zumwalts and avoid all the baggage, but it's already light cruiser sized and has a large mag capacity and excess power generation.

a reply to: proteus33

Being a cutting edge white elephant, if the rail gun option is decided then make the rail gun adaptable so it can fire every last unrequired nut, bolt or metallic object available... Bloody dark side crap

a reply to: kwakakev

Looks like radiorobert I have since original post seen reports that they are considering the zumwalt design as the replacement for ticonderga class it is one of already in use designs they are looking at but the fact that it has surplus power looks like it might be the clenched. The other ships under consideration would need a newly designed power system for the updated radar systems. The talk is building another zumwalt with out the gun turrets and increasing vls tubes to 120 to match ticonderogas missile complement if that works out the original 3 might be refurbished as guided missile cruisers instead of destroyers.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I am aware of this. I am aware of the lower range due to the differentiation. What I was postulating is at least a stop gap, allowing for the usage of a conventional ammunition, rather than having something aboard that isn't functional. Sure it won't be able to fulfill the original intended role fully, however at least it would have some capacity rather than none when relating to that specific weapons system.

a reply to: proteus33

There's a lot of political baggage attached now. I'm still hopeful they use common sense, but there are a lot of people who would happily wash their hands of the whole thing, point some fingers, and move on to the next biggest, bestest project.
Noone's excited about going to Congress for money to fix the ships already built or being built. And going to Congress and saying "our next plan for a major project is to use the hull of the project we've completely mishandled and colossally failed at as the basis for our fleet recapitalization".
No matter how much sense it makes, I'm afraid it may be looking at a deadend.

a reply to: dubiousatworst

They're still not sure what they'll do with the guns. They changed the role from shore bombardment in littoral conditions, to antiship. It's already remarkably well armed, with 80 VLS tubes capable of carrying Tomahawk, ESSM, Standard Missiles, and eventually LRASM. Eventually they may have DEW or something along those lines.