Book Review – Electronic Greyhounds

The Spruance class destroyer (DD-963) was, arguably, the best ASW vessel ever produced but it had another, more impactful claim to fame.  It was the first ship designed by industry instead of the Navy/BuShips.  This practice of abdicating design capability and responsibility to industry has plagued become the standard Navy practice ever since.
 
The Spruance construction contract was awarded in 1970, prior to the advent of the digital age and widespread Internet use.  Thus, documentation on the class is sparse and limited largely to brief, repetitive entries in a handful of books.  This changed, however, in 1995 when Capt. Michael C. Potter, USNR, authored Electronic Greyhounds, the definitive book on the Spruance class design, construction, capabilities, and operations.[1]
 

The hardcover (roughly 8.5" x 11") book is a 270 page masterpiece of documentation with hundreds of references and citations from all manner of sources.  In fact, the note citation sources are nearly as fascinating and informative as the chapters themselves!
 
The book’s content can be best summarized by the chapter headings:
 
1.   Destroyers during the Cold War, 1948-1962
2.   Destroyers on Trial:  McNamara, Rickover, and Vietnam
3.   The Navy Adopts Total Package Procurement
4.   The DX/DXG Project
5.   The DD963 Design Competition
6.   Design Selection and Completion
7.   Construction and Controversy
8.   Fleet Introduction, Engineering, and Supply
9.   Gunnery, Electronics, and Antimissile Weapons
10. Strike Weapons
11. Antisubmarine Warfare
12. The Kidd (DDG993) Class
13. The Shield of the Fleet:  The Aegis Cruisers
14. Operations
 
Even the Appendices are fascinating:
 
Appendix A. Documents on the Origin of DX/DXG
Appendix B. A Tour of a Spruance-Class Destroyer
Appendix C. Name Histories
Appendix D. Specifications
 
Dozens of photographs and drawings support each chapter and illustrate key points.  The ship’s internal layout schematic is particularly interesting as is the profile photo with every electronic sensor/comm device labeled.  Understand, though, that this is not a coffee table ‘picture book’ by any means.
 
If there’s something you want to know about the Spruance class and it’s not in this book, it’s probably classified.  That said, be aware that this is not a lively, entertaining, near-fictional storytelling.  It is a deep-dive, scholarly tome with an emphasis on documented facts.  As such, it is not for the casual reader looking for adventure stories about ships although the chapter on ‘Operations’ is fascinating.  This book is a comprehensive reference for the reader looking for facts and details about the Spruance class and, as such, is very highly recommended.
 
 
Author:  Among Capt. Potter’s impressive and varied naval assignments, he served on a Spruance destroyer and as a defense contracting officer.  He also worked in industry as a systems analyst and project manager.  His background makes an ideal basis for researching and writing the history of the Spruance class.
 
 
Disclaimer:  I had a brief correspondence with the author suggesting that he write a similar book about the LCS.  Beyond that, I have no connection with the author, the book, or the publisher.
 
 
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[1]Capt. Michael C. Potter, USNR, Electronic Greyhounds, The Spruance-Class Destroyers, Naval Institute Press, 1995, ISBN 1-55750-682-5

Naval Guns

The Burke class DDGs have a single 5” gun.

The Ticonderoga class CGs have two 5” guns.

The Spruance class DDs had two 5” guns.

A WWII Fletcher class DD had five 5” guns.

For better or worse, the 5” gun is the mainstay of naval gun armament for the modern U.S. Navy.  As such, our ships are woefully underarmed.  The Navy believes that gunnery engagements are a relic of the past much like the supposed demise of the dogfight after the Korean War.  The only problem was that the Viet Nam war proved that dogfights are eternal, planes need guns, and the Navy’s all-missile F-4 Phantom was ill-equipped for aerial combat.  The Phantom’s follow on, the F-14 Tomcat, reverted to guns and every Navy fighter since has retained that valuable lesson.

Now, though, the Navy believes that ship’s guns have no place in the modern age of anti-ship missile combat.  The single 5” gun on the Burke is a token placement intended more to placate Congressmen who want to see obvious weapons on ships than it is a serious weapon.  When conflict comes, the Navy will find that its ships, much like the Phantom, will have to fight up close and personal and will be ill-prepared.  We can make all the solemn pronouncements we want about the end of naval gun battles but that won’t change the inevitability of their need and use.  And, of course, there’s always the need for guns to provide fire support for troops on the ground.



Fletcher - Lesson for the Future?



Now, I recognize that short of actually going to war and finding out the hard way about the need for naval guns, there’s no way to prove my contention.  You either believe along with me or you don’t.  I won’t belabor the need any further.

Moving on and accepting the need for guns for the sake of further discussion, let’s look at the Navy’s application of guns. 

As noted, most ships in today’s Navy have only a single gun.  Similar to the rule of thumb for the helo (if you have one, you have none) which recognizes their susceptibility to failure, a single gun represents a single point of failure.  If anything goes mechanically wrong, you have no guns.  The Navy doesn’t accept single points of failure in other areas.  For instance, there’s a reason why Navy planes all have two engines (although, the Navy is about to break that common sense rule with the JSF);  it’s to accommodate Murphy’s Law and the single point of failure.  The Navy got rid the versatile Mk13 single arm missile launcher, in part, because it represented a single point of failure.  Why, then, does the Navy accept a single point of failure regarding guns on major warships?

If you only have a single gun, wouldn’t you want to protect it to the maximum extent possible?  WWII 5” gun mounts were protected by 1-2 inches of steel armor.  While this was not proof against a direct hit by a major caliber gun, it did ensure that it would take a direct hit to incapacitate the gun.  In other words, simple shrapnel couldn’t put the gun out of action.  Contrast this to today’s 5” gun mounts which are totally unprotected.  The mount covers are simply for protection from the weather and elements.  Shrapnel or even small arms fire can put a modern 5” gun out of action.  How long will today’s guns survive in battle?  Not long.

The Navy needs to recognize the continued combat utility of the naval gun by,

• upsizing guns on major combatants to the 8” Mk71
• armoring all 5” or larger gun mounts
• providing multiple mounts on destroyer or larger sized ships

The Navy needs to get serious about combat and start designing ships that can fight up close as well as over the horizon.

Fact or Fiction?

Fact or Fiction?

Here’s a few interesting tidbits that I’ve heard but been unable to independently verify.

- The LCS started as an industrial technology and concept demonstrator.  The manufacturers never intended it as a functioning warship but the Navy insisted on pushing ahead with it.  This explains some of the puzzling design aspects.

- The Navy’s current lack of armor in warships stems from the immediate post-WWII belief that future combat would involve nuclear weapons and the subsequent recognition that no amount of armor would stand up against atomic bombs. 

- Cyclone class PCs were built for Special Operations forces who then rejected the ships after they were built for reasons not completely clear.  That left the Navy with a class of ship they didn’t want and tried repeatedly to get rid of.

- The Burke Flt III is going to have significantly improved passive armor protection.

- The Burke DDGs were originally intended to have remote mine hunting vehicles and, indeed, several were built with it.  That capability was then dropped.  Supposedly, the reason it was dropped was to prevent a threat to the procurement of the LCS from people who might ask why the LCS was needed if any Burke could conduct mine countermeasures.

- The entire Spruance class was SinkEx’ed to eliminate them as a threat to the then newly developing Aegis program.  At that time, the Spruance with a New Threat Upgrade (NTU) would have rivaled or surpassed the Aegis system in performance.  The Navy decisively eliminated the threat to the favored program.