The Navy has been working toward the installation of hypersonic weapons on the Zumwalt class by 2025. The hypersonic missiles would be housed in, and launched from, modified Multiple All-up-round Canister (MAC) tubes similar to those installed in the Ohio class SSGN submarines.
Initial reports varied but the plan seems to be to install two MAC tubes on one of the Zumwalts, offset to the sides, port and starboard. The existing, idled Advanced Gun Systems (AGS) does not need to be removed according to CNO Gilday.[1]
Zumwalt has been operating as part of the Navy’s unmanned ship test squadron, Surface Development Squadron One (SURFDEVRON) which was established in May-2019.
MAC Tube
The modified MAC launch tubes will hold three hypersonic weapons.
The MAC tubes on the four SSGNs put seven Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) in the same space of a Trident-II D5 nuclear ballistic missile. The Navy will put three of the larger C-HGBs in the same space, USNI News understands.[1]
Common Hypersonic Glide Body
The hypersonic weapon is the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) which is being co-developed developed by the Army and Navy. The missiles will be housed in a system similar to the Multiple All-up-round Canister (MAC) tubes that are installed on the Ohio class guided-missile submarines (SSGN). The SSGN MAC tubes contain seven Tomahawk cruise missiles per tube. Reports suggest that the Navy will convert the MAC tubes to house three hypersonic weapons.
The Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) is a weapon system that uses a booster rocket motor to accelerate to well-above hypersonic speeds, and then jettisons the expended rocket booster.
CONOPS
Here’s an interesting comment from CNO Gilday:
“Zumwalt gave us an opportunity to get [hypersonics] out faster and to be honest with you I need a solid mission for Zumwalt,” Gilday said.[1] [emphasis added]
I guess you should have developed a CONOPS before building the ship, admiral. I guess you also should have R&D’ed the AGS before you committed to making it the main weapon of the ship. The Zumwalt’s problems and current lack of mission are a purely self-inflicted wound … inflicted by stupidity.
Now, the question for the admiral is, have you learned your lesson about CONOPS or are you just stupidly plunging ahead with this hypersonics-on-Zumwalt idea without a CONOPS that tells you how you’ll use the Zumwalt-hypersonics, assuming it technically works? I’m guessing you haven’t thought this through, at all.
For example,
-Zumwalt currently only has the capacity for 80 missiles. Hypersonics take up more room so there will be even fewer (half as many??) regular missiles? Is that a tactically useful amount?
-If you have to remove the existing Mk57 peripheral VLS and missiles to make room for hypersonics, how will the ship defend itself? Will the ship require a permanent Burke escort (two ships to accomplish a one-ship mission)?
-In what scenario(s) will a ship with hypersonics be useful? How will hypersonics fit in with the rest of the fleet’s missions?
-Does a ship with hypersonic missiles have a use in a carrier task force?
CONOPS, admiral, CONOPS!
CONOPS
CONOPS
___________________________________
[1]USNI News website, “Navy Can Install Hypersonic Missiles Aboard Zumwalt Destroyers Without Removing Gun Mounts”, Sam LaGrone, 14-Mar-2022,
ComNavOps,
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the gun mounts will in fact be removed.
"Last month, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday outlined to USNI News an older version of the hypersonic missile installation plan that included leaving the AGS in place. That has been superseded by the newer plan, USNI News has learned."
https://news.usni.org/2022/03/16/latest-zumwalt-hypersonic-missile-installation-plan-calls-for-removing-gun-mounts
There is no reason to therefore think that any MK57 VLS mounts will be sacrificed.
On a related note, don't you think it's a bit unfair to blame Admiral Gilday for the Zumwalt debacle? Given that he wasn't in charge at the time? Also, I would say the Zumwalt did have a CONOPS; replacing the fire support role filled by the Iowa class battleships. Of course, it wasn't a very good one or well thought out...
"It looks like the gun mounts will in fact be removed."
DeleteYes it will, no it won't, yes it will, no it won't ...
If you take the references chronologically, the post ref which says the guns won't be removed is dated 14-Mar. The ref in your comment which says the guns will be removed is dated 2 days later, 16-Mar. So, the winner by two days is the 16-Mar article which says the guns will be removed.
The Navy appears to either be severely indecisive or they have a severe internal communications problem with Gilday not knowing what the 'Program' was planning.
Check back tomorrow and we'll see what the daily position of the Navy is on this!
"There is no reason to therefore think that any MK57 VLS mounts will be sacrificed."
Mk57 removal is referring to long term plans if the Navy opts to commit to a large hypersonic fit. One assumes that an initial couple of tubes would be for test purposes (3 missiles per tube isn't much of a useful combat load) and that, eventually, a much larger fit would be installed. At that point, Mk57 VLS would likely have to be removed to make room. If, on the other hand, the Navy opts to only ever install a two or three tubes, as suggested in the article, then one has to refer to the CONOPS questions in the post about the usefulness and purpose of just a handful of missiles.
"don't you think it's a bit unfair to blame Admiral Gilday"
I don't blame him for the entire Zumwalt fiasco. I'm using the large 'him', meaning the 'Navy' (thought that was obvious from the context) as well as his personal responsibility since he took over as CNO. As best I can tell, he's now engaging in a Zumwalt makeover with, again, no CONOPS to guide the program.
" I would say the Zumwalt did have a CONOPS"
No, the Navy had a technology but not a CONOPS. The Navy has substituted technology for CONOPS. The Zumwalt was a technology, not a CONOPS. Assuming you understand what a CONOPS is, it's obvious that the Zumwalt never had a CONOPS.
"replacing the fire support role filled by the Iowa class battleships"
Incorrect. The Zumwalt, even if it had worked with the AGS, would not, and could not, have replaced the BB fire support capability. The BBs provided close range target destruction, AREA BOMBARDMENT, and suppression fire. The AGS/LRLAP was incapable of area bombardment or suppressive fire. I don't know if it could have performed short range precision target destruction (minimum range???).
"No, the Navy had a technology but not a CONOPS. The Navy has substituted technology for CONOPS. The Zumwalt was a technology, not a CONOPS. Assuming you understand what a CONOPS is, it's obvious that the Zumwalt never had a CONOPS."
DeleteI think it would be more accurate to say that there were several incompatible CONOPS for the ship that eventually became the Zumwalt, which is probably even worse than having no CONOPS at all. The tumblehome hull was a design decision made to satisfy technical requirements derived from the early '90s "Arsenal Ship" CONOPS and the slightly later NFS CONOPS that was related to the "Forward... From the Sea" strategic concept, the radar setup was a design decision made to satisfy technical requirements derived from a CONOPS that envisioned the ship as a new anti-air escort (itself a product of the late-'80s "Group Mike" analysis), the AGS came in to play when the Navy decided they wanted the new anti-air ship and also a Tomahawk shooter but needed a fig-leaf to pretend they were still making a ship that could fulfill the NFS CONOPS to keep the program funded, etc.
Add numerous technical failures to the confused mishmash of ideas as to what the ship is supposed to do, and you're left with the expensive boondoggle that we have: not a capable anti-air escort, not especially survivable nor capable of continued combat effectiveness after taking hits as originally envisioned, not a great Tomahawk shooter (and certainly not cost-effective as one compared to other ships already in the fleet), and no NFS capability to speak of.
"a CONOPS that envisioned the ship as a new anti-air escort"
DeleteAt the risk of engaging in an almost semantics like debate, that's not a CONOPS. A CONOPS is not a list of technologies or even a statement of broad intent like anti-air escort. A CONOPS lays out, in detail, what the ship will do, how it will do it, and how it will fit in with and interact with other ships. It is a detailed description of the ship's role and its functional relationships with the rest of the fleet. A good CONOPS will reveal and address gaps in capabilities, duplication of capabilities, mutual support among ships and ship types, etc. Simply stating that Zumwalt was (once upon a time) envisioned as an anti-air escort is NOT a CONOPS. It's a statement of a technological capability. I'm hammering on this because true CONOPS are so vitally important and so totally neglected by the Navy.
All that said, your basic premise is on the mark. The Zumwalt program led a tortured, twisted life and the result, today, is unsurprisingly poor as a result.
A CONOPS is a document, if you can't thump it on the table it doesn't exist. If you can't sweep it off of an Admiral's desk to piss him off, IT DOES NOT EXIST. Powerpoint presentations, Admiral's discussions, etc. DO NOT COUNT. 5 years doing IV&V System Testing on Zumwalt and I never saw a CONOPS. Best damned stealth document in the Fleet.
DeleteAlong with the Operational Mode Summary/Mission Profile, these 2 documents give you the user vision of how they plan to use the product, in what modes, for how long, and where, etc. Users sometimes get fear of commitment, and non-advancement, and whine about we won't know until we get it. We can't list every mission, we don't want to accidently say this ship can't do everything - that might impact our funding and my promotion opportunity.
EVERY Navy Program I have been on that did not have a CONOPS ended in abject failure. 100% Correlation.
So if you can't thump the CONOPS on the table, DON'T wast my tax dollars.
Hey ComNavOps,
DeleteI agree with your arguments regarding the program indecision and concede the point about any Zumwalt fire support mission being fundamentally different from the battleship role. I also find John Galt's statement quite troubling.
About the Mk57 removal:
I'm not sure how the article concludes that the AGS removal will give room for about 3 tubes. That's a weird statement because there are two AGS which take up equivalent deck space. Perhaps they meant to say 3 tubes each. In any case, it looks like there should be enough deck space there for 2-3 tubes per AGS emplacement. If we assume an additional 1-2 tubes can fit between the deckhouse and the AGS (what Gilday appears to be referring to), then that's 5-8 tubes, for a total of 15-24 missiles, without having to remove any peripheral VLS cells. This seems more than adequate, given that a VPM Virginia can only carry 12 missiles max (I assume the two payload tubes can't carry them).
" for a total of 15-24 missiles"
DeleteThis goes to CONOPS. Is 15-24 missiles a useful load? Well, it depends on what we want the Zumwalt to do. If we're going to attack an air base, it's a woefully insufficient load. If we're going to attack single, fixed targets, it might be adequate. Would the three Zumwalts act as a squadron? Where and how will they obtain targeting data? Will they act in concert with other ships? Will they need anti-air protection or operate on their own? And so on. This is what a CONOPS would describe so that we would know EXACTLY what the ships could and could not do. I am absolutely certain we do not have a CONOPS in mind for hypersonic armed Zumwalts. Like everything else the Navy is doing, we're just blindly stumbling around and hoping something works out.
In all the Zumwalt-hypersonics talk, I've never gotten the impression that adding a couple tubes was the final configuration. (For one thing, it seems like too small an amount of missiles to do any good. I've also not heard anyone say that there are any plans to add more than a two or three tubes. My impression is that this is a prototype experiment and a final configuration, if any, would come later. Unless a useful amount of missiles can be fit without removing Mk57 VLS - and I doubt it can - I assume the Zumwalt would be turned into a hypersonic missile 'barge' which I further assume would require replacement of the Mk57. But, that's all speculation on my part. Of course, a CONOPS would spell all that out!
"should be enough deck space there for 2-3 tubes per AGS"
I'd be cautious about space estimates. Remember that there needs to be room, both above deck and below, for utilities, exhaust handling/venting, local consoles (ala Mk41), electronics runs and diagnostic equipment, etc. In other words, the tubes require more room than just the diameter of the tube. It's all about the packaging and packaging is always more difficult than people want to believe.
"Zumwalt fire support mission being fundamentally different from the battleship role"
DeleteThis was what never made sense from day one even if the AGS/LRLAP had worked perfectly. Recognizing that the Zumwalt could not have been a BB fire support replacement, we see that the AGS/LRLAP was actually a deep strike (as deep as 70 miles gets!), precision strike weapon. Given that LRLAP was only effective against KNOWN (there was no provision for deep targeting), fixed targets, the obvious question is how many known, fixed targets did anyone think there would be within 70 miles of the ship? An enemy is not going to offer many known, fixed targets so what role was this really filling? We had/have so many other ways to strike targets within 70 miles that we have to ask why we needed a $9B ship to service a relative few known, fixed targets that we could already attack multiple other ways?
Again, this is what a CONOPS would have revealed. The entire Zumwalt project should have ended ten minutes after it began as someone started to think about the CONOPS and instantly realized that there was no good, viable CONOPS for this concept. Now, had they opted for a NATO standard 155 mm gun mount, perhaps they could have come up with a viable CONOPS but, I digress ...
Every officer involved with the gun system program should be recalled, tried, convicted, and dismissed.
ReplyDeleteRear Admiral Chuck Goddard - PM Zumwalt and then PEO Ships, got removed and run out of the Navy - for drunkenness and personal behavior that was downright criminal. He then was hired by Lock Mart for LCS and moved to Fincantieri. Guess what ship they are working on.
DeleteIt would appear the Army/Navy hypersonic boost glide LRHW/CPS is estimated at a mouth watering $100+ million each, plus the cost of the expensive modified Trident VLS cells is not the way forward for land attack missile. Don't see any conops justification for $20+ billion spend for just a nominal 200 missiles by 2040 (the Air Force hypersonic boost glide AGM-183A ARRW has failed for three times to conduct a successful test of the rocket booster).
ReplyDeleteDARPA reports that with its HAWC program, Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept missile, scramjets, both trials a success with the Raytheon/Northrop Grumman version tested in September 2021 at a speed Mach 5+ and the more recent Lockheed Martin/Aerojet Rocketdyne HAWC released from a aircraft was boosted and the scramjet engine “quickly accelerated to and maintained cruise faster than Mach 5 for an extended period of time. The vehicle reached altitudes greater than 65,000 feet and flew for more than 300 nautical miles .
The scramjets seem much more cost effective for hypersonic missiles for most target types compared to the expensive boost glide efforts, Aerojet Rocketdyne claim by 3D printing the scramjet engine have been able to construct it using 95% fewer parts than were needed to build its previous scramjet which powered the Mach 5 capable 2010 USAF X-51A Waverider.
I would argue a variant of the Army 17" dia PRSM at $1.5 million each fired from the Mk41 a better option again.
How much will it cost to modify the 3 Zumwalts to fire the CPS, a $billion?
Well, the nice thing about scramjets is, that like ramjets, they basically have very few moving parts other than the fuel injection system.
Delete$50 says they bolt these tubes with the superstructure for support.
ReplyDeleteThese add-ons will look like they're straight out of the Jegs catalog
I worry about cost and bang for the buck, especially since it is sounding like we are talking about 6 shots per hull. Really curring onto the hull seems like the pricey, time consuming option. Some cannisters on deck replacing the gun weight, along with some LO attributes still feels like the way to go. PRSM/ER-GMLRS quad packed, Tomahawks, SM-6 etc. Leave hypersonic to the Air Force until we have a ship that can plug a functional missile in from the start.
ReplyDelete"Some cannisters on deck"
DeleteThat seems unlikely. The hypersonic missiles are far too large. From a Drive article,
"... each one of these missiles will reportedly be some 34 and a half inches in diameter and could be 30 feet or more in length."
That's 50% larger than a Tomahawk and 100% larger than a Harpoon, if you're envisioning a Harpoon cannister rack type launch system.
I don't want the hypersonics on deck. Just give more ammo. Seems one can reach out and touch at least the Russians without the hypersonics.
DeleteWhat targets out there need to be taken out that fast, matter of minutes from discover, targeting and flight path? What targets are that worthwhile and expensive to justify using a $100 million dollar hypersonic missile? I know that's not how it's done, worrying about the price tag but still, what target justifies using it?
ReplyDeleteI know it's not appropriate or how it's done but at some point, don't we have to wonder a little bit about the price tag to target ratio?
I was one of the few out there wondering and worrying about the price tag of our weapons we were using in Afghanistan to kill Taliban, these hypersonics to me aren't that different than using a $500k bomb to kill a Taliban dude with a AK that cost 1000 bucks to train and equip....and we know who won that war.....
You are spot on. I've got a post coming on this exact topic.
DeleteBreaking news, rumor!!!
ReplyDelete"A Ukrainian navy missile battery reportedly has struck the Russian navy cruiser Moskva off the coast of Odessa, a strategic port city on the Black Sea in southwest Ukraine.
Multiple Ukrainian government officials claimed Wednesday that a Neptune anti-ship battery, apparently hidden in or around Odessa, scored two hits on Moskva, setting the 612-foot vessel ablaze."
Russia is saying some ammo blew up and damaged the ship, maybe already evacuated?!? Hearing maybe a many as FIVE ASMs were fired with 2 hits!??!? Wow, if this is true and we have to wait for confirmation!!!!, we might have just witnessed a true real live moment in naval warfare with this one, this might FINALLY FORCE USN to test for REAL what happens to DDGs and AEGIS when not 1 or 2 ASMs approach but maybe you have to stop a volley of them!!!
Surprise testing would be good, why didn't the Moskva defence systems down the Neptunes ?
DeleteWas this a Stark like incident ?
Some thought the radar was engaging a UAV and pointed away from the attack vector. Because the radar is that old school.
DeleteMy personal view is that Pentagon should officially announce that all Zumwalt now becomes ships for R&D. They will not be deployed. Obviously, there are only 3 and no more plus heaps of unresolved problems not worthy to solve.
ReplyDeleteSo, install hypersonic weapons (if they come out) should be experimentals for future ships. They also be configured to install other advanced weapons and sensors to test various new ideas.
Hopefully, they can prevent future ships ended up like them.
@ANON. DoD and USN won't say it but for all intent and purposes, they will be prototypes and demonstrators. They will have a pretend IOC and a pretend cruise and will just stay tied to a pier until USN can "discretely" retire them like its already doing with some LCSs.
DeleteIf they keep pretending, nothing can be done well.
DeleteUse them as test vehicles can actually help a lot. After public announcement, after mounting criticizes, real works can start. No one will them question if you need keep all 80 cells so they can be modified, replaced to test new weapons. Their stealthy can also help on developing new radar to detect enemies' stealthy ships. They can be used in many R&D so working ones can be deployed in future combat ships.
On Hypersonic missile, FIRST, you need to have these missiles developed and made than keep talking how will them be deployed.
The Navy abandoned the Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) after the unit costS started approaching $800,000. I wonder if the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) weapon will suffer the same fate.
ReplyDeleteTwenty-four tubes equates to 72 deployed missiles. Between reloads, attrition, and test missiles, how many missiles does the Navy? Maybe 300, give or take?
Granted this is in development with the Army, but I wonder if the Navy ends up buying so few missiles that the unit cost makes them unaffordable.
Plus, there is the conversion costs to modify the three ships. Knowing the Navy, that could easily total a billion dollars.
It's possible that the abandons this effort over costs.
Your point about cost is extremely well taken. Even if the technology is a success, the program can still fail if its unaffordable in useful quantities. I've got a post coming on this.
DeleteIt's extremely hard to find authoritative data on hypersonics but the best I've seen, so far, is that the Navy is planning to buy 240 missiles with a unit cost of something on the order of $90M EACH!!!! That's the cost of an F-35 except the missile is a one use item. I don't see how we can justify that kind of cost for the value the missiles would provide.
I know a hypersonic missile is more complex than a 'simple' Tomahawk but $90M? That's hard to believe. I'm still looking for more data.
You also make an excellent point about the conversion costs. Most people don't realize that the Zumwalt was designed and built around the gun system, literally. If they mean to remove all of that, it entails opening the ship stem to stern and top to bottom. That would be hideously expensive. If they just mean to seal off the unwanted parts of the gun system, that's doable but then they lose lots of potentially useful space.
A better approach would be to convert one Zumwalt for test purposes and then, if warranted, build a purpose designed hypersonic ship/barge.
Another cost point occurs to me. 72 missiles at $100 million each means there would be $7.2 BILLION worth of missiles on that ship. That's an awful lot of eggs in one basket. A basket which isn't even particularly well armored. Is that really wise?
Delete"That's an awful lot of eggs in one basket."
DeleteThe voice of wisdom!
On the other hand, we think nothing of putting a $6B air wing on a carrier. Of course, the carrier is very well defended!
I'll keep harping on it ... this goes back to CONOPS. What do we want the Zumwalt-hypersonic ship to do? Venture out on its own? Stay cozied up to a carrier group? Stay in port and launch missiles? Form a squadron of Zumwalts? The degree of risk depends, in large measure, on what we expect the Zumwalt to do and how it will do it.
"Is that really wise?"
You ask the right question but without a CONOPS, there is no answer!
"Is that really wise?"
DeleteCare to speculate? What do you think a Zumwalt-hypersonic ought to do and how should it do it? Having answered that, then do you think the risk is worth it?
"Another cost point occurs to me. 72 missiles at $100 million each means there would be $7.2 BILLION worth of missiles on that ship."
DeleteIf each Zumwalt fields 8 MAC tubes (an estimate), that is 24 missiles per ship or roughly $2.4 billion per ship. Which doesn't make it sound much better.
Wiki put the cost of Trident D5 missile at $70 million (in 2011 dollars), which equals $90 million today when adjusted for inflation. If you're right, this isn't looking good.
RE: CONOPS
DeleteI'm a little fuzzy on the capabilities of the hyper sonic missiles. Perhaps you could bring me up to date. Specifically:
(1) Do they have terminal guidance, such that they can attack a moving target like a ship? Assuming of course adequate reconnaissance -- which the Zumwalt probably lacks.
(2) What sort of range are we talking about?
Here's a vague initial thought.
At this price, the missiles seem like a niche capability. Only really usable for a rather small number of physically small point targets. Unless of course they get nuclear warheads, which no one in US DOD is talking about (although I believe the Russians and Chinese are both using nuclear warheads with at least some of theirs). Think a high value command center but NOT an airfield. Airfields are too spread out and would require dozens of such missiles to really do the job (recall the dozens of Tomahawk/JASSM missiles we fired at a single airfield in SYria a few years ago). China has MANY airfields. Spending $5 billion or so to attack each one seems like a rapid path to national bankruptcy.
If it's really a niche capability, especially if it can't attack ships, maybe a half dozen missiles on a Zumwalt isn't such a bad idea after all.
"Perhaps you could bring me up to date."
DeleteUnfortunately, no, I can't. Hypersonics are not an existing weapon. They're a developmental effort and there are several different varieties being pursued. Rocket boosters, scramjets, warp drive … there's not even a single engine type! So, details like guidance, sensors, warheads (if not pure kinetic), range, speed, etc. are all unknowns, as yet.
As is typical of the military/Navy, we've jumped on the hypersonic bandwagon without a CONOPS, without a solid idea of what the weapons can do, without a good idea of the applicable target set, without a concept for providing targeting data, etc. But, hey, it's hypersonic so let's do it! It's the same as with unmanned vessels. We have no idea if or how they can be useful but we're firmly committed to making half the fleet unmanned. Testing be damned!
Your best bet to get some idea of hypersonic weapon capabilities is to search for articles on the Navy's Common Hypersonic Glide Body. That's a good starting point.
"I'm a little fuzzy on the capabilities of the hyper sonic missiles."
DeleteSo is the military!
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks speaking during an April 12 Defense Writers Group breakfast
ReplyDelete"Asked if she favors curtailing any hypersonics programs and advancing others that have been more successful, Hicks said, “I think we were pretty clear in our budget request about that portfolio. I’ll let that stand.”
The Air Force’s 2023 budget request emphasizes HAWC [scramjet] over the boost-glide AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW, but USAF budget director Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III said the service is “not walking away” from ARRW—yet. Peccia said the service is continuing to assess that program."
Is it too late for Congress to follow suit and cancel the Army/Navy hypersonic boost-glide LRHW/CPS estimated at $100 + million each after $billions already spent in R&D, FY2023 budget "Navy requesting $1.4 billion associated with developing hypersonic weapons, most of which is going to the service’s CPS, Conventional Prompt Strike program"
https://www.airforcemag.com/hicks-to-congress-be-patient-allow-failures-new-developments-like-hypersonics/
They're just making stuff up to pretend that the Zummies aren't worthless so they can ask for (lots) more money and keep them around for a few more years even though they're not exactly useful.
ReplyDelete(Hypersonics! Shiny! Wowee!)
By five years or so they'll be quietly retired like the LCS.
Okay ... so what do you suggest we should we do with the Zumwalts?
Delete"Okay ... so what do you suggest we should we do with the Zumwalts?"
DeleteI'll bite. Use (as you suggested) ONE of them as a prototype for the hypersonic missile launcher, and put the others into a well-preserved reserve status in case something comes up where they'll be useful. Then use the savings on ships that will actually serve a purpose in a war with China.
There's just two (wood) plus one (steel) of them so they won't matter much in war, you could turn them into arsenal ships but they're way too expensive for that.
DeleteSo:
1) AA test: Add as much AAW systems to one as possible, put everything on full auto and see what happens when you fire multiple missiles at a stealthy AA platform.
2) Strip as much stealth-reducing crap from one as possible, maybe pull a Visby to see if the signature can be reduced even more, then use it as a spy ship.
(Operational costs might kill this idea.)
3) Throw a huge party for top military brass on a Zummie, then SINKEX it and blame Putin or sunspots or whatever.
"AA test"
DeleteI like the idea although we actually have a dedicated self-defense test ship that we fire live missiles at. Inexplicably, we rarely use it and when we do, we refuse to test the most important systems. Aegis, for example, has never been tested.
The Zumwalt self-defense system is almost non-functional, as documented in previous posts. The missiles and the fire control can't talk to each other and specially modified missiles are required. I don't recall whether we've actually acquired any of those missiles yet, or not.
I really like option 3.!
Ships that lack a strong ability to manage a UAV swarm, actively thwart a torpedo, and have some idea when they are about to hit a mine will be more and more a liability. Those 2 30mm and SEWIP aren't a tight enough defense, for starters.
DeleteDid anyone estimate how much it could to install AEGIS on a Zummie?
Delete"Okay ... so what do you suggest we should we do with the Zumwalts?"
DeleteThe best suggestion I have seen comes from Lieutenant Kyle Cregge, USN, in the May 2020 USNI Proceedings, "Make the Zumwalt a Fighting Command Ship," (1), specifically send one to Yokosuka and one to Gaeta as flagships for the 7th and 6th Fleets, respectively, and the third to San Diego as a weapons test ship.
(1)https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/may/make-zumwalt-fighting-command-ship
Command ship would work.
DeleteI have combed through the archives but can't seem to find what I am looking for. Didn't you write a post laying out all the acquisition programs of the last 20-30 years and rating their success? For example, LCS - Fail. Growler - Success. Etc. If not, could be a great post!
ReplyDelete"I have combed through the archives"
DeleteTime very well spent!
" post laying out all the acquisition programs of the last 20-30 years and rating their success"
Witch! Get out of my head (or stop browsing my computer). I've got exactly that post written and due up shortly.
I'm in your OODA loop.
DeleteSadly, I'm not even in my loop!
Delete