Introducing the USS Zumwalt, the Stealth Destroyer

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by allenidaho

 

Yeah, there's a lot of "supposedly" and "reportedly" to that story too. It makes a great story for people to say "Look, we need to sink more money into the Navy's ASW program!"

Hehe; some those commentators/people would long since pointed out that there is, in their opinions, not much of a ASW program anyways! That being said i am not here to start a old argument as much as i am here to continue following the development of these quite unique/fascinating ships... As some other commentators would however point out it's all fun and games showing up what 'boondoggles' these Zumwalt's may be for anyone other than those who may one day encounter them on the high seas...

Stellar

reply to post by Zaphod58


That shift to a steel deck-house for the next ship is...interesting. Combined with the mention of scaling back the dual-band radar system, I can't help but wonder if they're having problems with those integrated multipurpose antenna arrays.

I wonder if the steel superstructure is going to add extra topweight? Given everything I've seen about the roll characteristics of tumble-home hulls, that's the last thing a Zumwalt needs.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
That shift to a steel deck-house for the next ship is...interesting. Combined with the mention of scaling back the dual-band radar system, I can't help but wonder if they're having problems with those integrated multipurpose antenna arrays.

I am sure these integration issues could be easily resolved with the proper outsourcing/hiring of foreign engineers/specialist! Always best to start your defense of national security by compromising it; solid business model...

I wonder if the steel superstructure is going to add extra topweight? Given everything I've seen about the roll characteristics of tumble-home hulls, that's the last thing a Zumwalt needs.

But if it rolls over i am sure that would further reduce it's RCS so since that seems to be one of the primary design considerations it's all par for the course.... On a more serious note i am sure these adaptions will eventually be addressed in some design changes/modifications that will not cost too many hundreds of millions more...

Anyways!

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by peck420

 

With current upgrades, a Super Bug can hold its own against a 4.5. It's borderline 4.5 itself. A fifth generation fighter is another story. But by the time most other countries have produced enough fifth gen's to really be a worry, we *should* be seeing the Bug replacement in the works, or entering service.

The Super Hornet is essentially an all-new aircraft, with similar virtually all that the Super Hornet had in common with earlier F/A-18's was the forward fuselage with its reduced RCS, advanced IDECM, AN/APG-79 and AIM-120C7/D should be quite capable anyway, also in the fleet defender role ,with 16 A2A missiles its still one of the most impressive platform in the air.

reply to post by renegate326


And yet, for being "an all new aircraft" it still has ridiculous range and loiter issues (as reported by pilots). It's just a Hornet by another name. The range issues aren't as bad as they were with the A-D, but they're nowhere near where they should be for a fleet defense fighter.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by renegate326

 

And yet, for being "an all new aircraft" it still has ridiculous range and loiter issues (as reported by pilots). It's just a Hornet by another name. The range issues aren't as bad as they were with the A-D, but they're nowhere near where they should be for a fleet defense fighter.

Think about that for a second. Seriously. SH carrying more missiles mean they have more chances to intercept anything . They've all switched to the APG-79, which is one of the best fighter radars out there. That radar is second only to F-22's. Theoretically ,the SH is capable of 14 AIM-120’s for BVR and 2 AIM-9X’s for close range dogfight not to mention the Grumman HAWKEYE that will always be in the air with them . What more can you expect from a fleet defence fighter ?
The most overrated navy fighter was the F-14 ! SH's AIM-120D beats Tomcats AIM-54 hands down.

Originally posted by hp1229
After much concern and speculations about the program's survival, the delivery date has been set sometime in 2013. The cost however is 7 billion a piece for the 3 that were approved by the Navy. Though we complain at times about the DOD budget, think about how much money is pumped back into the economy in the manufacturing sector or how many jobs are sustained/created by such projects.

The expanded U.S. presence will include the Navy’s next-generation warship, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, named after the former chief of naval operations Adm. Elmo Zumwalt Jr. The first of these 600-foot, 15,000-ton vessels is being built by General Dynamics in Maine at the Bath Iron Works, which had to construct a $40 million facility to accommodate the project.

LINK
ATS_THREAD
USS_ZUMWALT
Your opinions/viewpoints/comments/concerns please.

I'd much rather be poor than consider tools with no purpose but murder a "good way to fuel the economy."

reply to post by renegate326


I'd like a fighter than can go farther than 350 miles and have more than a 2 1/2 hour loiter time defending my carrier personally. A lot of missiles are great, and a fancy radar is great, but if you don't have the legs to support them, then you're hurting. Without an Air Force tanker, they're reduced to EA-6Bs and F-18s with buddy pods to refuel, which means they don't get a lot of fuel offload, so they need quite a few of them, and the F-18s with buddy pods have to stay fairly close to the ship, due to the same issues as the ones that are getting the fuel. You may say that the F-14 was overrated, but at least it had legs, unlike any of the Hornets.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by renegate326

 

You may say that the F-14 was overrated, but at least it had legs, unlike any of the Hornets.

Tha'ts true, but there is no such thing as the perfect fighter that can accomplish all type of missions with 100 percent effectiveness, the F-35 will be no exception. Today, the best defence for Nimitz class battlegroups are provided by Arleigh Burke class destroyers ,they are awesome fighting platforms capable of tracking and destroying supersonic sea skimmers as well as enemy fighters and cruise missiles !!

reply to post by renegate326


There are no perfect fighters, but you can at least get something that can stray away from the carrier, and give you a much better layered defense. That's the best defense a carrier has, fighters to stray out long range, and start the attrition process, with destroyers and cruises for the inner defenses.

Com on…. stealth..? Means it has a (duck) size radar signature at sea..? It is SEA (SALT) WATER with its damned corrosions; the maintenance cost would be triple the cost of construction and design after few missions at sea..!

Another trend in (stealth) stupidities and greedy blood sucking military corporations..!

reply to post by amkia


The Arleigh Burke class destroyer, which wasn't originally designed to be stealthy, has successfully gone through a carrier battle group at night, without being seen. It has the RCS of a small fishing vessel. The Zumwalt, which makes use of a lot of composites (which means less corrosion), will have a smaller RCS than the Burke does.

Originally posted by amkia
Com on…. stealth..? Means it has a (duck) size radar signature at sea..? It is SEA (SALT) WATER with its damned corrosions; the maintenance cost would be triple the cost of construction and design after few missions at sea..!

Another trend in (stealth) stupidities and greedy blood sucking military corporations..!

One may argue that the stealth is not worth the operational&development cost but on the other hand 'surprise' ( getting to or being where you are not expected) remains one of the fundamentals of war that will yield utterly disproportionate results... Finding/engaging anything on the open seas can be practically impossible without the type of integrated defenses only a few nations has and what this means is that a US destroyer squadron may probably effectively blockade( and to keep one one station requires 3-4 so that's beyond most nations capacity) 90% of nations... Add Zumwalts, SSN's , carriers and zumwalts/Tico's ( in the combination that pleases you) and it now becomes hard to imagine an alliance of foreign powers that could today, or for the last two decades have formed any kind of persistent resistance.

Personally i think a strong US navy should be a given ( and it could easily be so) but that much in the way of foreign bases can be given up which would entail massive savings as well as allow true strategic flexibility. With the money saved&foreign entanglements prevented one could easily maintain a multiple division seaborne landing force. Either way the US military in it's current form exists to defend the interest of transnational corporations; certainly not US citizens and perhaps not even the United States as a sovereign entity.

As they said about Prussia; most nations have armed forces but the Prussian armed forces had a nation.

Originally posted by renegate326
Tha'ts true, but there is no such thing as the perfect fighter that can accomplish all type of missions with 100 percent effectiveness, the F-35 will be no exception.

That is true and the navalized version (C?) seems in my reading to be the worse of the lot. The hornets( in all incarnations) are poor successors to the F-14's and while they may be tasked to fill the role of fleet defense fighters i am not sure that they can match today the effectiveness of the F-14D's of early 90's. That being said both were/are more than sufficient to deal with likely threats.

Today, the best defence for Nimitz class battlegroups are provided by Arleigh Burke class destroyers ,they are awesome fighting platforms capable of tracking and destroying supersonic sea skimmers as well as enemy fighters and cruise missiles !!

According to the brochures, yes! Ideally one has carriers so that you may launch aircraft that may intercept the launching platform ( 1 target) instead of several of those supersonic sea skimmers which in what few combat situations we can study have proved brutally effective. Either way as i remember ( you might want to check as it's been years) the Aim 54's/AWG-9 were/are probably as good or better at cruise missile interception than the more modern Aim 120's; the F-14/AWG-9 aim 54 combination was in my understanding far ahead of the competition back in it's day while that can not imo be said for the F-18 E/F APG-79 and aim 120's.. Again the combination is still probably more than a match for most rivals under likely conditions but i am now speculating even more than is my norm.

Stelar

reply to post by hp1229

think about how much money is pumped back into the economy in the manufacturing sector or how many jobs are sustained/created by such projects.

Do you really believe that crap? It is better like Greece and Portugal that have to import their ships (submarines), to keep the money at home by securing the construction and technology but I hope you understand that there would be better places to invest at home than military might ? Just consider the return on investment, the purpose it is directed at ...

Tax payer money should be primarily be invested in tasks that secure and expand the taxes collected. From education to keeping people alive, to legal and regulatory shifts of the economic and social fabric as to increase competitive in exports and reduce imports. Where do you place in that spectrum a battle ship for a nation that has no read direct military adversary nor as a nation (the people) benefit from any war?

Originally posted by Panic2k11
Do you really believe that crap? It is better like Greece and Portugal that have to import their ships (submarines), to keep the money at home by securing the construction and technology but I hope you understand that there would be better places to invest at home than military might ? Just consider the return on investment, the purpose it is directed at ...

Agreed; as i remember reading there is no sector in the economy where jobs are more expensive to 'create' than in the defense industry and depending on sector you can sometimes create orders of magnitude more! A country really should do what is vital for it's security ( Conscription can be both cheap and actually very good for the wider economy) and standing forces should be kept as small as absolutely possible. I am pretty sure that is even in the US constitution!

Tax payer money should be primarily be invested in tasks that secure and expand the taxes collected.

There is that corporate capitalist thinking sneaking in! A government should can in theory aim to balance the books but some services must be rendered independent of cost. It is in societies where these services are rendered efficiently and cost effectively that people don't live on anti depressants and eventually kill themselves when they run out of self respect and or money.

From education to keeping people alive, to legal and regulatory shifts of the economic and social fabric as to increase competitive in exports and reduce imports. Where do you place in that spectrum a battle ship for a nation that has no read direct military adversary nor as a nation (the people) benefit from any war?

Hey you ( place battleships) don't unless your upper/corporate classes gains their wealth from extorting the third and developing world while reaching deeply into public funds ( they do not contribute much to the national tax income) to fund the security apparatus that protects them from their victims very justifiable anger. It's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor!

But i am preaching to the choir&converted so that's a star for you keep up preaching that gospel.

Thanks
Stellar

reply to post by StellarX

Conscription can be both cheap and actually very good for the wider economy

Disagree, if the goal is not a quick and "profitable" victory conscription never has any benefit to an economy. How could it ? (Removes and reduces economic exchanges, consumption and production) It could have social benefits (debatable) but never economic ones.

There is that corporate capitalist thinking sneaking in! A government should can in theory aim to balance the books but some services must be rendered independent of cost. It is in societies where these services are rendered efficiently and cost effectively that people don't live on anti depressants and eventually kill themselves when they run out of self respect and or money.

I defend anarcho-communist views so capitalism never sneaks in. What I was stating is just realism.

Today capitalism is really not a political ideology, if it ever was, its an economic system with impact in many areas starting by the social aspects and ending in the ecological.

Perfect (strict) capitalism is the path for hell on earth and totally impractical. That is why any nation that has aspired to promote it as an ideology needed to subvert the concept, imposing limitations common to central planning, restrictions needed so to permit humans to coexist under it, even if never addressing the problem of sustainability (that is why it is collapsing, its a 0 sum game).

You say

It's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor!

But not really the 1% will tend to devour themselves and constantly increase the risk of being beheaded, as a reaction they tend to Tyranny and Absolutism as to maintain control. Those that control capital have no real class mentality (even if some think it is about class, that started because of old money and inheritance, today it is not really about that).

The capitalist mentality is but an illusion resulting from propaganda that is why it is shifting to the notion of liberalism that to a point is also unsustainable as ordered collaboration and consistent progress can not come about based on individualism and only self interest (as it depends on education and mental maturity, something that takes time and effort and is impossible in a liberal system as to impart the notion that "the need of the many outweigh the need of the few" is even valid in defense of self interest).

Self interests can only be contextualized properly when understood as part of the meaning of human life and the path for the human race...

When I stated

Tax payer money should be primarily be invested in tasks that secure and expand the taxes collected.

It was simply to indicate that any reform needs to be financed in a system that has been sublimated to only economic interests (capital interests)

You said

A government should can in theory aim to balance the books but some services must be rendered independent of cost.

That is an utopic view in a world that everything is given a value and a cost and nations compete (that is why Communism is impractical and Socialism barely survives). There will never be a free lunch until we shift the value to the people and the future...

First i want to add that i enjoyed reading your post and might even follow that link someday soon...

Originally posted by Panic2k11
Disagree, if the goal is not a quick and "profitable" victory conscription never has any benefit to an economy. How could it ? (Removes and reduces economic exchanges, consumption and production) It could have social benefits (debatable) but never economic ones.

Ok. My reason for a theoretically preference of conscription over standing professional armies is in what it does for that sense of national unity as well as the social benefit of knowing what you have learnt about yourself and others. I am not sure it is advisable as the most efficient way to prosecute a 'real' war (when you are expecting such) but i have a hard time imagining ( no serious study thought) that it's year on year cost is much or any higher in than a volunteer army. While you may be right that conscription does not serve the economy very well we can perhaps agree that the current economy is not worth serving either way and many more young men with self discipline and training in how to defend their persons would probably not be good for the current system ( in democracies where the resort to the rule of law is still possible)? I mean it is sort of a cart/horse argument but i do not for a moment discount the effect that the 20 million American servicemen could and would have had on the American social economy if ignored like the first world war veterans were; the GI bill is something they wanted and after the problems with veterans from the first world war it is not a problem that would have gone away the second time round.

The original GI bill is for all practically purposes the root of what remains of the American middle class today ( access to the massive wealth that is gained from property ownership/education grants) and again i think this should be seen in the context of what may be had when their is some common struggle and a proper reward due to civic responsibility. It really is a open question where the United States would be today without conscription/ the GI bill as well as the 'gap' given to unions which they state ( and most others) have been trying to undo since just about right after that war. I think one can argue that much of what we call middle class American today exists because of conscription, the camaraderie of surviving a war, and the common struggle during and after it for a due reward for great services&sacrifices rendered.

Would a conscript army still be in Iraq&Afghanistan or would they simply have refused to go? I think a conscript army may be a great way of attacking the bloated pentagon budget and that perhaps is why the military ( and the pentagon) now much prefers volunteers over conscripts a substantial portion of which will (as before) refuse to partake in the current and ongoing crimes.

So my argument suggest to me that it would be better for the social fabric ( but not when 90% , as in Russia, can dodge it) and that since the strength of the social fabric largely determines stability, and thus economic productivity, the poor might be much less so and the wealthy much less suspicious of them and thus less inclined to attempt insulating themselves trough the acquisition of wealth; right? I wonder about the GINI coefficient and how that relates to countries conscription? I would certainly be interesting if it seems that wealth distribution is more equally in countries with REAL ( the large majority serve) conscription or how that number is affected by the type of social/political system in place there ( at a cursory glance it didn't look obvious).

www.economist.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

If it doesn't seem like a particularly coherent argument to you that is OK but it should serve to explain what i was thinking when i made the earlier comments. I could go on with more such 'thoughts' but i will rather address some of your other interesting points&observations. As final comment i should perhaps add that i just happen to think that conscription is the safer choice ( something like the thinking of the 'founding fathers' fears of standing armies and the resulting military industrial&intelligence complexes) over volunteer or selective drafts but that ideally countries should not be faced with the type of threats that demands either.

Regards,

Stellar

reply to post by StellarX


Thanks, I will respond in parts since you have amalgamated several concepts (even the real, the possible and the utopic).

My reason for a theoretically preference of conscription over standing professional armies is in what it does for that sense of national unity as well as the social benefit of knowing what you have learnt about yourself and others.

Now nationalism should not be confused with regional identity, most nations (if not all) are artificial constructs. I'm all for the defense of cultural diversity (and arms are not required) but my view on nationalism is that it generally causes more problems than it solves.

Granted that it has served a function of protecting national identity against attacks from outside (and so national security, via social stability) but when we think about it in global terms today it has no real value in modern societies (most Western nations and few others) or a future globally to cling to the concept of nationalism, there must be a better path without the dangers of the artificial rifts that nationalism creates and the problems it potentiates.

Conscription is the forced participation in a military force, I don't see being forced to participate in anything a good thing unless what forces you is self preservation. I'm certain you can remember being forced into many things you didn't like (as part of you life) and for most of them, you have today a distiled disdain sometimes even irrational .

reply to post by Zaphod58


The combat radius of a SH varies depending on loadout. The figure you mentioned was 4x AIM-120, 2x AIM-9, 1x external fuel tank, combat radius is 229 nm with 2.3 hour loiter..

The range of the F-14 was mostly likely inferior to that of the Super Hornet, given the F-14 only carried 2,650 lb more fuel, despite being almost 12,000 lb heavier with less capability to carry external fuel tanks. The fuel fraction of the F-14 is/was abysmal.

EDIT:
F-14:



Super Hornet:

4x AIM-120, 2x AIM-9, 3x external fuel tank, combat radius is 805 nm.

My opinion: The F-14 is romanticized, therefore its abilities are massively over exaggerated.