Largest destroyer built for Navy headed to sea for testing

frfly172 said:
If this new ship that doesn't even look like a ship,is so good,why did they cut the order to three ? Maybe it should be a drone ship.
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That's actually not so far fetched. My guess is that all phases of warfare are being looked at with "unmanned" in mind. I can see remote controlled ships, tanks, planes, robotic soldiers, etc in our future. The question is when warfare becomes virtual, and somewhat "riskless" to the combatants, where will the deterent be? And then there is Skynet.........
 
frfly172 said:
If this new ship that doesn't even look like a ship,is so good,why did they cut the order to three ? Maybe it should be a drone ship.
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All the talk of how good it is is PR spin. The program has taken a tremendous amount of congressional heat. The scope was reduced because the program was being poorly managed and no real end in sight.

The Navy still is not fully sure what this thing is supposed to do.

It is essentially the latest incarnation of what was referred to as the Arsenal Ship back in the 90s. A larger surface combatant whose sole purpose is to lay off the coast and launch a whole lot of land attack missiles.
 
Fearless Tower said:
All the talk of how good it is is PR spin. The program has taken a tremendous amount of congressional heat. The scope was reduced because the program was being poorly managed and no real end in sight.

The Navy still is not fully sure what this thing is supposed to do.

It is essentially the latest incarnation of what was referred to as the Arsenal Ship back in the 90s. A larger surface combatant whose sole purpose is to lay off the coast and launch a whole lot of land attack missiles.
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Developing them into autonomous ships may be the best program for them. Navy ships aren't known for carrying augmented stabilization systems for ride comfort, and that don't look like a comfortable hull to ride. The title of Vomit Comet may change hands.:lol:
 
Henning said:
If it doesn't have some serious stabilization system, the ride is going to be wild with all that tumble home.
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Yeah, that will be a fun ride in the North Atlantic. USS Vomit.
 
Fearless Tower said:
All the talk of how good it is is PR spin. The program has taken a tremendous amount of congressional heat. The scope was reduced because the program was being poorly managed and no real end in sight.

The Navy still is not fully sure what this thing is supposed to do.

It is essentially the latest incarnation of what was referred to as the Arsenal Ship back in the 90s. A larger surface combatant whose sole purpose is to lay off the coast and launch a whole lot of land attack missiles.
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We have just as effective ways of doing that now.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Which is part of the reason for cutting the scope of the program while trying to find a useful purpose.
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So buy it, then tell everyone make up a reason why we need it. Now I see why you say it's a Defense Acquisition 'Darwin' moment.
 
Jaybird180 said:
So buy it, then tell everyone make up a reason why we need it. Now I see why you say it's a Defense Acquisition 'Darwin' moment.
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Unfortunately, it is not uniques. There really aren't many good news stories in defense acquisition these days.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Unfortunately, it is not uniques. There really aren't many good news stories in defense acquisition these days.
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Well, what has become apparent is that we have spent ourselves into impotence. We have so overpowered everything, we can't win a fight anymore without introducing annihilation. We are in the end game of MAD. Ike warned us, Kennedy warned us, we didn't want to listen. We didn't want to think about what we could do for our country, we wanted what our country would do for us. Well, this is it, robbed blind and all the money and resources wasted. Too bad it took Greenspan too long to figure it out.
 
ralarcon said:
Yep that's the runner up ! :D

Cheers
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How do you like his other boat? image.jpeg
Personally I like the hull on this one, this is one of the best riding boats at sea, and quite efficient and fast as well. I would have done a different superstructure, but I think he wanted to go for the old Korea era Soviet sub look.
 
Below is the only known illustration of the next Navy skunkworks stealth ship. Note the probable ICBM launch tube amidships.

Merrimac-deck.jpg
 
Henning said:
How do you like his other boat? View attachment 42923
Personally I like the hull on this one, this is one of the best riding boats at sea, and quite efficient and fast as well. I would have done a different superstructure, but I think he wanted to go for the old Korea era Soviet sub look.
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Same guy, right?
 
I remember seeing a History Channel special on when that thing fought the Merrimac in 1865.

Oh, wait a minute...
 
Jaybird180 said:
Maybe the keep the inertial dampers under the water line. :D
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Are they using gyros, fins, or what for stabilization? The Rolls Royce 'u tube' fluid stabilization I always thought was cool, and for passive stabilization, flume tanks are incredible.
 
Speaking of the weapons systems, this was always one of the interesting features of the Zumwalt class I thought. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9PItPL7EZEc#action=share and it seems to still be slated (that's why I asked if you had read of a cancellation) from what I can find.

I guess it's actually a hybrid with a gas charge as well as electric, or is there some plasma effect from the electric part of the gun?
 
Henning said:
Speaking of the weapons systems, this was always one of the interesting features of the Zumwalt class I thought. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9PItPL7EZEc#action=share and it seems to still be slated (that's why I asked if you had read of a cancellation) from what I can find.

I guess it's actually a hybrid with a gas charge as well as electric, or is there some plasma effect from the electric part of the gun?
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They've talked about putting the under-development free electron laser on the DDG-1000's too haven't they?
 
Fredbob711 said:
They've talked about putting the under-development free electron laser on the DDG-1000's too haven't they?
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I imagine that when they get it into production, it'll go on a lot of things, but yeah, this was supposed to be a platform for a few new systems.
 
Henning said:
How do you like his other boat? View attachment 42923
Personally I like the hull on this one, this is one of the best riding boats at sea, and quite efficient and fast as well. I would have done a different superstructure, but I think he wanted to go for the old Korea era Soviet sub look.
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Could be worse ! :D

Cheers
 
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HR
 

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Can you guys think of an American weapon system that wasn't decried as a total disaster before it was tried? People always seem to bash the new thing until it goes to war and guess what? It usually works pretty good, or gets a few tweaks it becomes phenomenal.

But sure, America's always wrong, so I'm sure it'll sink, or end up blowing up on the first shot fired. :rolleyes2:
 
Dav8or said:
Can you guys think of an American weapon system that wasn't decried as a total disaster before it was tried? People always seem to bash the new thing until it goes to war and guess what? It usually works pretty good, or gets a few tweaks it becomes phenomenal.

But sure, America's always wrong, so I'm sure it'll sink, or end up blowing up on the first shot fired. :rolleyes2:
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I am not so sure about some of the recent systems. They may be good in battle, but I am not so sure they will help us fight our true enemies. They may be a deterrent to Russia, and China, however, and if they help us avoid a war, then that's even better.
 
Dav8or said:
Can you guys think of an American weapon system that wasn't decried as a total disaster before it was tried? People always seem to bash the new thing until it goes to war and guess what? It usually works pretty good, or gets a few tweaks it becomes phenomenal.



But sure, America's always wrong, so I'm sure it'll sink, or end up blowing up on the first shot fired. :rolleyes2:
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Aegis, Standard Missile program, CIWS come to mind off the top of my head.

The fact that this program has already been significantly cut is very telling. You aren't doing much of anything with only 2 of 3 hulls. That won't even support a deployment rotation.

As far as your comment about troubled systems doing well once in actual combat, do you realize that most of the big systems we have were never fully operationally tested like we do today and have never been fired in anger?

Most of our self defense systems, for example, have never been employed in combat ops because we have been fighting jihadis on the ground for the last 20+ years.
 
Henning said:
Outside of sea keeping, does it do anything well?
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It makes the executives and large stockholders of the company that made it wealthy.

It probably also financed a few political campaigns.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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RalphInCA said:
It makes the executives and large stockholders of the company that made it wealthy.

It probably also financed a few political campaigns.
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Yep. Everything you need to know about big-buck military projects.
 
RalphInCA said:
It makes the executives and large stockholders of the company that made it wealthy.

It probably also financed a few political campaigns.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I'm not so sure in this case. Bath is probably going to lose a fair amount on this project; I don't think they will recover everything the put into it. Some of it is probably their fault, but the vast majority of blame rests squarely on the Navy not being able to develop effective requirements.

Now, don't get me wrong; Bath isn't going out of business over this. They are making plenty of profit off of the ever expanding DDG production, that it will more than offset the loss.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I'm not so sure in this case. Bath is probably going to lose a fair amount on this project; I don't think they will recover everything the put into it. Some of it is probably their fault, but the vast majority of blame rests squarely on the Navy not being able to develop effective requirements.

Now, don't get me wrong; Bath isn't going out of business over this. They are making plenty of profit off of the ever expanding DDG production, that it will more than offset the loss.
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I think he was referring to Austal/Trinity with the LCS. I doubt it makes a big profit either, but it kept some people working. There are better things we could do with the resources though that would provide security to a bunch more people than these shipyards, as well as keeping them busy. Trinity does pretty well on yachts these days though. What these programs do most is grow debt, that's what the wealthy profit from to build yachts.
 
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