Could this concept have been salvaged? Stealth meme aside I think the hull design was pretty successful and the stealth cover plates increase longevity of deck-side equipment. In the ‘60s they would have just made improvements on the concept and continued with the same program budget.
I fricking love this platform. In any other decade they would have ordered in enough scale for these to really come into their own. But congress are homosexuals.
A lot of concepts can be salvaged if Congress is less corrupt and NAVY/Army leadership becomes less braindead. From stealth frigates to Commanche.
This.
The DDGX program was actually pretty good - until boomers in congress got involved and went "MY DADDY IN DUBYA DUBYA 2 TALKED ALL THE TIME ABOUT HOW SHORE BOMBARDMENT SAVED THEM AND DID SO GOOD BACK IN THE PACIFIC! WE NEED OUR NEW SHIPS TO BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME THING NOW THAT WE'RE RETIRING THE BATTLESHIPS!"
Then a buttmad Admiral got pissy that people were figuring out that the LCS was dead in the water and started saying crazy shit about the Zumwalt, like it somehow couldn't fire Standard missiles despite the SM-2 (now SM-6) being it's primary armament. The Zumwalt class is a case study in what happens when you move the goalpost all the time during development. The original goal of basically being a modern, more survivable DDG-51 class with more growth potential is great - but congress and politics fricked it all up.
Supposedly it's been proving itself very useful in Fleet Problem exercises, there was some talk about it being very good at coordinating sea and air drones during those exercises.
tl;dr, none of this is true.
Zumwalt failed because its hull design is bad and runaway costs are normal when you put too much new equipment on a new design at once. No ship should be built with a new hull, two types of new type of engines, some doubly expensive dual radar system, along with as many missions as possible for a surface ship. All in a crunch time when any and all delays would endanger Tyco replacement. Shit design.
Look at how Japan designs new subs. Only one thing changes at a time with each sub they produce. As a result, when they make a change they don't like, like the AIP sub, then it's a small loss and the sub isn't as likely to turn into a disaster like the Zumwalt.
you wrote all this shit out like a gay and i didn't even read lmao. go be wrong somewher else
>Zumwalt failed because its hull design is bad
stopped reading right here
Then keep reading, because you're wrong.
Tumblehome hulls are not safe at high speeds in rough waters. Destroyers are required to sail at high speeds in rough waters because they are expected to protect larger vessels in any condition. The Zumwalts were never assigned escort duty for this reason, they just land attack ships.
Right, the captain says the ship is stable as it sits still in a storm, we know.
>Zumwalt failed because its hull design is bad
t. clueless moron
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-stealth-destroyer-zumwalt-sails-very-rough-stormy-seas-2021-3
>Hull design is bad
Literally one of the only things that's good about the vessel. Seakeeping capability is superb and multiple captains sing it's praises as a highly survivable platform in bad conditions
The "remove guns and replace with extra VLS/oversized VLS for hypersanics" updated zumwalts are gonna be very nice ships I feel. Shame we'll never get more.
>Zumwalt failed because its hull design is bad
source? everything i've ever read says the opposite
Maybe. It would have been difficult, though, because a lot of the initial requirements that went into it were flawed. Just as LCS had the 40-50kt requirement that made sense when it was a wolfpack of ~500-ton FACs but not when it became the replacement for Perry AND Osprey AND Avenger, so too did ZumZum have the Marine fire support mission that was congressionally-mandated throughout the '90s. Plus, like LCS, it tried to integrate too many undeveloped technologies at once on a tight timeline, and when some of those (such as the Permanent Magnetic Motor) fell behind schedule, it blew up the schedule for the whole ship--and blew up the price in the process.
Also, both programs got hit by the Navy's attempt to cut costs by reducing the number of sailors at sea, because that's one of the biggest expenses they have. Nevermind that they could have saved almost as much by canning half the admirals (there are more admirals than warships). And on top of a host of smaller issues, there was also at least some impact from the elimination of most civilian procurement staffers in the Peace Dividend; the services had to learn how to pick up the slack, and it took them an entire generation to replace the lost expertise (look at all of the programs that failed (FCS) or at least were behind schedule and over budget (F-35) under decent procurement teams could gain the skills they needed to manage procurement programs).
So, that's a lot of resistance that the program was doomed to face from the outset. The SM-2 brouhaha that mentioned was an obvious face-saving measure: it had never been a requirement until then, but the Navy made it one so that they could cancel the program without admitting all of the other issues where they'd gambled and lost. It was a scapegoat that was offered up in order to sweep the rest under the rug.
So, how to fix it? First, either reduce the guns to "normal" 155s with a naval-style autoloader, perhaps using some of the tech being developed at the time for Crusader, or ditch them altogether and use a MLRS-based system for fire support. There was a proposal at the time for a navalized GMLRS called POLAR, but it never went anywhere because the rounds for the new superguns were supposed to be substantially cheaper (it turned out that they were far more expensive than GMLRS). Second, delay the whole program right at the outset until more of the technologies are ready. Do a tech demonstrator, a la Sea Shadow, for stuff like PMMs. Develop a Burke Flt. III as an interim solution, and build the ZumZums ten years later, when the tech is ready.
Oh, and toss the 57mm guns. They were supposed to be the great new thing, capable of killing FACs, drones, helos, and ASCMs alike; they've apparently succeeded at none of those tasks since their introduction.
Its a great platform, theres alot you can do with it. Sadly not much yas been done to it
You've got it all wrong. The hull is flammable at high temp. If it gets heat by a heat tandem warhead the whole thing will turn into one giant class D fire. Does anyone know what you do with a class D material on fire at sea?
is this the new "the bradley is unsafe because it's aluminum and aluminum burns" cope?
>Does anyone know what you do with a class D material on fire at sea?
You jettison the material. Hey, is the hull not HY-80? I never bothered to look at the materials science behind this monstrosity but it'd figure if it was a step backwards in that department too.
there are still people who think HEAT burns through armor?
Zumwalt is literally better than any LCS being built. We should have kept the Zumwalt program and gutted the LCS.
The engines are the main problem. You can't replace a power plant easily.
>stealth meme
The Burkes have a great hull design for seakeeping and a very robust main propulsion and power generation system. The SPY-1D is great for air search, and the Mk41 is an excellent VLS.
We should have taken those things that are great and made a flight III Burke and gotten rid of the worthless 5 inch, CIWS, TACTAS, sonar dome (along with the STGs who are all fat women), and actually modernized the electronics. Expand the forward VLS to fill the gap left by the now missing 5 inch, give me a COMNAV radar that is worth a shit so I don't have to blast high power SPY on surface contacts, and add some damn thrusters because using tugs in the current year is moronic.
t. Used to be the 1ST LT then AUXO onna Burke
>uh huh....right...mhm...I know some of these words
Navy, DoD and Congress are over-reactive to every little criticism in the news no mater how untrue it is.
F-35 is the same thing where it is being fixed into an excellent aircraft, but everyone repeats the same outdated Russian propaganda.
You might as well repeat the anti-Sherman and anti-Bradley propaganda about tommy-cooker and useless bloat.
Honestly with only 3 built and thier huge size the navy might as well pack them full of missles, pair them with some destroyers and replentishment ships and form a heavy strike group for the South China Sea.
Salvage what? We already salvage water its called desalination.
Also a picture of the ocean is not /k/ related gtfo
If anything, keep the journalists out of military technology development. They always get details wrong (because they're morons without a technical background) and it fricks up the perception of everything.
Should be retrofitted to be a drone carrier.