As you know, the Zumwalt’s main weapon, the Advanced Gun
System (AGS) was terminated some time ago in a major embarrassment for the Navy. Now, seeking to recover some degree of
usefulness for the class, the Navy has opted to convert the Zumwalt, itself, to
a hypersonic missile shooter. The
conversion work has begun and the forward AGS gun has reportedly been
removed. Naval News website has a nice,
short summary of the changes involved in the hypersonic missile conversion.[1]
The main change, of course, is the addition of four Multiple
All-Up Round Canisters (MACs) housing three Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS)
missiles each, for a total of twelve hypersonic missiles. Presumably, additional missiles could be
added in the space currently occupied by the after AGS gun, however, no such
plans have been announced. Even if that
were to occur, that would, presumably, only raise the total hypersonic missile
count to 24 assuming there was sufficient room.
The question is, are 12 (or even 24) hypersonic missiles a
worthwhile use for a cruiser size ship that cost around $14B+ (with costs
continuing to rise!)? The answer would
seem to be an emphatic, no.
Of course, if the Zumwalt conversion is actually a testbed prototype
limited to just the Zumwalt and just the forward missile cluster, then the
effort might be worthwhile. ComNavOps
has long been in favor of prototyping and, let’s face it, there is no better
use for the hugely expensive Zumwalts.
As an actual combat vessel, the Zumwalt with hypersonic
missiles offers very little value. Even
if the missiles were unstoppable and 100% accurate and effective (Russian
experience in Ukraine suggests hypersonic missiles can be stopped and are not
all that effective), 12 (or 24) missiles simply don’t constitute a serious
threat.
In the Navy’s mind, is the Zumwalt an actual combat vessel
or just a testbed? Time will tell.
__________________________
Related side
note: In a scenario eerily reminiscent
of the Zumwalt, LCS, and Ford failures to develop non-existent equipment, the
hypersonic missiles do not yet exist in an operational form and are being
developed concurrently with the Zumwalt’s conversion. Concurrency, as we know all too well, has not
been a successful practice.
_____________________________
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/05/us-navy-removes-first-155mm-ags-from-uss-zumwalt-at-ingalls-shipbuilding/
Harsh reality is that Zumwalt has been downgraded to an experimental ship than a cost-effective tool to executive combat missions. Therefore, this is an experiment provided designated LHRW can become reality in near future. If this works well, then, these missiles will be installed in other ships.
ReplyDeleteBottom line - get LHRW development done quickly, no more delay, otherwise, all talks will become jokes.
DeleteIn a Naval Institute Proceedings article a few years ago (1) the author suggested what strikes me as the best use of the Zumwalts. The suggestion was to put one in the Mediterranean/Gaeta as the flagship for 6th Fleet, one in WestPac/Yokosuka as the flagship for 7th Fleet, and one in San Diego as a primary test bed for new technology (and potential flagship for 3rd Fleet, if deployed).
ReplyDeleteOne thing that should obviously be done in such case is to replace the discarded advanced gun system (AGS) with a viable gun system. Perhaps the land-based Leonardo 155 mm with Vulcano could be adapted. Whatever the choice, it makes no sense to have a gun that cannot use ammo from other guns of the same size.
(1) Kregge, LT Kyle, “Make the Zumwalt a Fighting Command Ship,” US Naval Institute Proceedings, May 2020.
Why do we keep coming back to this gun system? There is 0 probability that the Zumwalt will be used in any NGF engagement to support landing forces. Let’s look for other potential uses with some probability of combat employment. Flag ship sounds like a great idea because of all of the Communication suites.
Delete"flagship ... One thing that should obviously be done in such case is to replace the discarded advanced gun system (AGS) with a viable gun system."
Delete???? You want to put a command and control flagship in gun range of the enemy??? Does that really seem wise?
"The question is, are 12 (or even 24) hypersonic missiles a worthwhile use for a cruiser size ship that cost around $14B+ (with costs continuing to rise!)? The answer would seem to be an emphatic, no."
ReplyDeleteThat seems unfair. Sure, if we could somehow sell the Zumwalts and get the money back, that would be great. But we can't. That $14B has already been spent. We might as well get *some* use out of them, and this seems like as good a use as any. Can you think of some better use for them? Ideally something with current technology, so not lasers or railguns.
"That $14B has already been spent" Aye, it's a "sunk cost". My compliments on avoiding that expression on a naval blog.
DeleteCPS, the joint Army/Navy Dark Eagle Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, that despite the $8.3 billion in R & D invested in it have so far failed to successfully fire a single AUR, all up round, it doesn't fill you with confidence after the cancellation of the Air Force AGM-183 ARRW, both are/were hypersonic glide missiles.
Delete"That $14B has already been spent. We might as well get *some* use out of them"
DeleteYou're missing the point. You're partially correct that the initial construction funds have already been spent. What you're missing is the vast operating, maintenance, conversion, and modernization costs that incur from this point forward. While I don't have actual operating costs for the Zumwalt in front of me, presumably they're somewhere between a Burke and a carrier. We're spending $10M for the hypersonic conversion planning and $155M for the actual conversion work. If we opt to add the additional 12 missiles in place of the second gun, that will be another couple hundred million dollars. And so on. For that investment, you'd like to give the ship some significant capability - whatever those capabilities might be.
If we're going to risk a $14B+ ship in combat, we'd like to get combat capability commensurate with the cost out of it.
You ask, somewhat snarkily I suspect, whether I can think of a better use for the ship. I can offer two+ answers:
1. Retire the ship and cut the future expenditures. That's opportunity cost. Those future monies can be much more effectively applied to some other weapon system that offers much better 'bang' for the buck.
2. If kept in service, there are better uses for the ship. One example would be as a dedicated electronic warfare (EW) ship similar to Aegis but for EW. The Zumwalt would be a pretty good choice for a task force EW ship with its [supposedly] extreme stealth and plentiful excess power for offensive EW emitters. A dedicated EW ship would be far more useful in combat than a cruiser size ship with 12 hypersonic missiles of dubious value. There are other possible uses that I'm sure you can think of on your own.
According to Wikkipedia the ship is not set up for BMD but could be. My take : those Mk 57 missile tubes are located port and starboard. ( my point is that that there is less "protection" from hits in these areas.... not sure about any armor protection at all ) Conversion to an EW ship is a thought !
Delete"not set up for BMD but could be."
DeleteAhh ... be cautious. Zumwalt has some serious shortcomings regarding its missiles. See "Zumwalt Status Update" and
"Zumwalt Self-Defense Problems"
Zumwalt borders on non-functional missiles. It can be upgraded with lots of time and money ... maybe ... but is it worth it?
I would think you would want a smaller and cheaper ship to use for an electronic-warfare platform, since it can be easily located by its emissions and would be vulnerable to attack by home-on-jam missiles.
Delete"I would think you would want a smaller and cheaper ship ... since it can be easily located by its emissions and would be vulnerable to attack by home-on-jam missiles."
DeleteYou're missing multiple aspects of this.
-We're trying to find an alternative, useful function for an existing ship. If (and I'll circle back to that in a moment) a smaller and cheaper ship is better, that's nice in the ideal world but we have an available ship right here and now so why not make use of it?
-If home-on-jam is the threat than it doesn't matter what size ship we use. All that matters is that it's emitting. A canoe would be just as vulnerable as a Zumwalt if the threat is due to the ship/boat emitting. Therefore, size doesn't matter. In fact, size confers a degree of defendability due to a greater number of defensive missiles, room for more jammers and other EW equipment, more power for the EW equipment, bigger and better radars, more passive sensors, etc. So, a strong argument can be made for a bigger ship.
-EW is mainly passive until you have missiles inbound. Only at that point do you radiate radars and EW emitters.
"You ask, somewhat snarkily I suspect, whether I can think of a better use for the ship. I can offer two+ answers:"
DeleteNo I meant it as a sincere question. Thanks for answering. Maybe you're right that just scrapping the ships to save the maintenance costs would be best, but that seems like a drastic option. If we do that, I would want to see someone court-martialed to send a message.
Having a dedicated EW ship sounds interesting. Do you have any links for that? I would have thought it's best for each ship to have its own integrated EW like the Burkes though.
For what it's worth, let's keep the cost in perspective. $14B is of course a lot of money, but it's still only 7% of the Navy's ~200 billion annual budget. And that's in peacetime. If we got into a serious naval war, we might expect that budget to triple or more. So spending a few billion to prototype and test a new weapon like hypersonic missiles might be worth it. The US in WW2 definitely could have benefited by spending a little more testing their weapons before war broke out...
"I would want to see someone court-martialed to send a message."
DeleteWell ... given the number of people court-martialed over the incredibly early retirements of the failed LCS (that would be zero), you shouldn't hold your breath waiting.
" I would have thought it's best for each ship to have its own integrated EW like the Burkes though."
Every ship does have its own EW but the are limited in every way: limited power, limited number of sensors, limited installations, no ship-to-ship integration, etc. I'm envisioning the EW equivalent of the Navys Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC).
For example, instead of each ship acting independently regarding EW - and possibly causing interferences and redirects onto other ships - a group should have an integrated EW response for overall optimum effect.
"$14B"
First, the cost was not $14B. That's just for one ship. We have three useless ships and the total cost was something on the order of $42B-$50B with the costs still rising.
The problem with that amount of money is the opportunity cost. We could have bought so much more that would have given us much more combat capability. We're compounding the problem now by keeping the ships in service and racking up operating costs, maintenance, etc. for very little combat capability in return.
You're also looking at the budget incorrectly. The $14B represents something on the order of 70% of a single year's construction. That's a LOT to spend on a ship that has so little combat capability. Again, opportunity cost.
" I would have thought it's best for each ship to have its own integrated EW like the Burkes though."
DeleteThe Zumwalt's could be the counterpart to the Atlanta class anti aircraft cruisers of WWII with an EW focus. Each ship in a WWII task force did have anti aircraft capabilities, but the Atlanta's.. well.... they were a whole nother smoke of anti aircraft fire. Though, again, it's money we could have spent on more important items.
Look, I don't think anyone thinks the Zumwalts were a success. Maybe the navy can't admit it publicly, but it's pretty obvious they were a failure.
DeleteThey question is still: what do they do going forward? We can't get back that $14B. Or $50B or whatever. All of that money is gone. We have to move forward.
We could scrap them. Just break them down and sell them for scrap metal. Or maybe bring the Iowas out of retirement and sink them with gunfire? Maybe you could sell tickets to watch and recoop some money that way...
Or do something else. A stealthy, hypersonic missile ship seems reasonable to me. At least it's some kind of weapon, and it's a weapon the navy currently doesn't have. The alternative is... nothing.
"The alternative is... nothing."
DeleteNo, there are several, probably better alternative uses.
-Retire them and save the billions of future dollars in maintenance, operating costs, conversions, upgrades, etc. and put the money towards something with much better return on investment.
-EW/SigInt ship
-Dedicated scout ship (passive sensors, mainly) since it has supposedly good stealth and a basic self-defense capability.
-Intel collection ship for peacetime battlefield prep. Given its basic self-defense, at least it won't be another Pueblo.
-Convert it to a 5" and/or 8" fire support ship. Given the size, could probably fit about five gun mounts if we give up the useless hangar and flight deck.
Check the following post on LCS alternative uses for more ideas: LCS Alternative Uses
I thought hypersonic missiles had a large range (intercontinental?), Why put these on a ship? Other than to let the Navy play in the hypersonic moneypool.
ReplyDelete"Why put these on a ship? Other than to let the Navy play in the hypersonic moneypool."
DeleteAsked and answered!
Pentagon had done study to load ICBM on ships but found that this is a bad idea, ICBM should be in submarines.
DeleteHowever, since intended under development hypersonic missiles won't load nuclear warheads but will be used as cruise missiles, thus use Zumwalt to check how they would perform.
Little evidence that Russian hypersonic missiles have been stopped in Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteAs just one example, from the Center for European Policy Analysis website,
Delete"On May 9, US Department of Defense Press Secretary Brigadier General Ryder confirmed that Ukrainian forces had indeed shot down at least one hypersonic Kinzhal missile using Patriots, marking the first publicly confirmed intercept of a hypersonic weapon. Since then, Ukraine claims to have shot down at least six more Kinzhals in one night over Kyiv, along with 12 other missiles of various types, though it is unclear if the Patriot system was involved."
Reported on 2-Jan-2024 by Yahoo News,
“Today, the Ukrainian air force downed 10 out of 10 Russian ‘Kinzhal’... aeroballistic missiles with the help of the Patriot AD system,” the Ukrainian army’s commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny said on social media."
So, there is certainly evidence of hypersonic missiles having been shot down. How valid the claims are is an open question.
Your comment failed to meet the standards of the blog.
The next time you decide to comment, do your homework first.
Ukrainian government announcements are jokes. They keep scoring "big" but today, they don't even have enough people to fight. Simply because Russia refrains from attacking common people thus only military and key infrastructure (power plant, etc.) are hit, as most civilian buildings are still intact, thus Ukrainian government keeps telling lies.
DeleteDo you keep "winning" but lost almost everything?
"Ukrainian government announcements are jokes."
DeleteYou're simply repeating what we established long ago which is that ALL parties involved are issuing propaganda with a scattering of truth and it's very difficult to distinguish the few facts from the propaganda.
Please make your next comment much more informative. Thank you.
Deep dive by British OSINT: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-mim-104-patriot-destruction
ReplyDeleteTo be accurate, it's a deep speculation rather than facts and the few facts are peripheral not directly related.
DeleteSorry, no additional analysis to offer except to agree with anyone who says these are just hugely expensive testbeds! (Even then you need to have some idea why you’re testing what you’re testing and it’s not clear the Navy is up to that)
ReplyDeleteLaser is another problem
DeleteWith so little of a Zumwalt battery, the only other useful usage of ship for me is to integrate with the Marines MLR. Take advantage of the Marines battery while utilizing the naval radar inside the Zumwalt to find targets for the Marines to search and destroy.
ReplyDeleteOn other notices, I have been following the FD2030 closely for a long time and I'm pretty sure there is no ground naval sensor for the entire regiment and the CONOPS borderlines suicidal. Here are the radars they have been testing so far:
Simrad HALO24 (a civilian naval detection radar).
MQ-9 Reaper (non-stealthy).
Stalker VXE30 sUAS (a new prototype drone).
RQ-20 Puma.
RQ-12 Wasp.
RQ-11 Raven.
Some kind of Boeing Scan Eagle.
Their CONOPS consists of a naval ship being detected by the Simrad radar (or other sources) which then prompt the unit to send their constantly overhead drone swarm to come check it out. After making visual contact (and presumably somehow maintain a radar lock), the NMESIS battery would then take turn to fire at the targets. It was bad from the beginning with the whole transport aspect but this just took a turn for the worse. This is a non-survivable, radiating beacon of EM.
Zumwalt's self defence is pretty weak, only Sea Sparrow, no Sea Ram, no CIWS.
Delete"Take advantage of the Marines battery while utilizing the naval radar inside the Zumwalt to find targets for the Marines to search and destroy."
Delete?? Are you suggesting that the Zumwalt sail among enemy waters, by itself, using its radar to find targets which the land missiles will then attack? I must be misunderstanding you because that would be even more problematic than the Marine's original concept. Try explaining it again.
Well, supposedly the Zumwalt has at least the foundation of decent ASW capability (if not the training). There is a hull mounted sonar (unlike the Constellation frigate) as well as a towed sonar (according to Wikipedia). The acoustic stealth is pretty good (similar to an LA class submarine, again according to Wikipedia), probably better than Constellation. And it can carry two helicopters and fire ASROC missiles (again, Wikipedia).
ReplyDeleteObviously too expensive to build more for this purpose alone, but I understand that, in the event of major power war, we lack enough escorts to provide escort for merchant convoys. So, in that case, we'll wish we had more of this capability. And these are already paid for.
So, how about just upgrading them a little, to improve ASW capability (maybe add torpedo launchers and close in weapons), then put them in some sort of reduced operating status (crewed mostly by reservists) and hold them in that status in case of a major power war, where they can be used as convoy escorts. Or maybe even ASW escorts for amphibious or Carrier Battle group units.
Perhaps we could keep one of the three on active duty to do training for the crew from all three who need constant practice on the ASW skills.
Minor correction. Wikipedia does not say it carries two helicopters, it says one MH-60R and 3 vertical takeoff drones. However, this site:
Deletehttps://allhands.navy.mil/Features/Zumwalt/
does say EITHER two MH-60R OR One MH60-R and 3 drones.