DDG(X) - Arleigh Burke Replacement

[Moose]

I am not an engineer or a naval architect, so can some one explain why the burke hull can’t just be scaled up 8-15% from the FIIIs and given whatever new iterative technology we want on this ship?

The question is: what are you scaling? If you just use a Photoshop scaling tool to increase the size of the hull, everything inside it is now the wrong size. Compartments, hatches, fittings, shaft runs, and so on are now a problem. On the plus size, if you can find a crew of people 8-15% larger than normal humans they will be quite comfortable.

Applying the DDG's hull lines to a larger ship is very possible, but that means you're designing a new ship rather than increasing the size of an existing one. The "shape" is relatively cheap, everything that goes into making that shape into a warship underway at sea is what's expensive.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I still think that the stealth shaping is worthwhile for DDGX. Make it harder for AShMs to lock on.

The Burke already has stealth shaping in the form of the reduced RCS mast that eliminates a lot of right angles. San Antonio and Burke were considered adequate for littoral dips/runs at high speed and dash out.

If you want a stealth battleship to come in and blast the crap out of things, you use a submarine. Build a Vertical gun unit that fits into a Trident tube. Broach the ship and volley off a bunch of rounds in that tube, submerge again. ~5 minutes total exposure time for 30 rounds per tube.

Zumwalt had a weird development cycle that explains most of its quirks.

The "optimal" Zumwalt would've had a single vertical gun and a bank of VLS along with the Mk 57s. Unfortunately vertical guns are stupid, since they cost a lot of money per shot compared to a VL-GMLRS or something, so replacing the AGS with additional VPM tubes would be smarter. Eight VPMs and the Mk 57 PVLS mated with a proper SPY-3/4 installation, and flat panel low RCS SATCOM, would make a rather mean surface ship for penetrating the SCS and destroying A2AD sites.

As it stands Zumwalt turned out to be little more useful than a Spruance. That's less a symptom of its low RCS nature and more a symptom of GWOT eating all the peri- and post-Cold War modernization programs' money. Zumwalt, EFV, V-22, etc. all come from the OTH amphibious assault which kind of died in GWOT.

RIP Navy budgets 1998-2012.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The Burke already has stealth shaping in the form of the reduced RCS mast that eliminates a lot of right angles. San Antonio and Burke were considered adequate for littoral dips/runs at high speed and dash out.

Hadn't heard that.

Eight VPMs and the Mk 57 PVLS mated with a proper SPY-3/4 installation, and flat panel low RCS SATCOM, would make a rather mean surface ship for penetrating the SCS and destroying A2AD sites.

I like how you think!

As it stands Zumwalt turned out to be little more useful than a Spruance.

I mean, it was supposed to replace the Sprucans...

RIP Navy budgets 1998-2012.

Ain't that the truth!

 

[shin_getter]

GWOT didn't happen until 2001 and Zumwalt PEO was in place in 1998. Prelims were done by then and DD-21/DDX design reqs were drawn up by 1994. So they were designed to fight the Soviet Union and support a MEF landing in Vladivostok and Murmansk, actually. References changed from a Soviet threat to a Bosnian/South American/Iraqi/North Korea threat through the 1990's reflecting the majority threats at the time.

Man bureaucrats can surely come up with new bs to justify the expenditure of money.

I guess the real problem is some people actually accept the claims at face value.

Precedent exists here: both the US and British Empire had trouble believing the Japanese could produce advanced weapons in 1941.

Dysfunctional social structures incapable of prediction and with feedback loops too long to correct would generally generate the same results, yes.

I think the whole discussion on destroyers for "ww3" (like unlike the design of surface raiders in ww2) probably would be recognized as deeply, profoundly flawed in hindsight, sadly the people that actually have insight on what really matters are buried under noise.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Man bureaucrats can surely come up with new bs to justify the expenditure of money.

I guess the real problem is some people actually accept the claims at face value.

DD-21 is a decent solution to the problem of radar observation. It works for planes so it will probably work for surface ships too.

I think the whole discussion on destroyers for "ww3" (like unlike the design of surface raiders in ww2) probably would be recognized as deeply, profoundly flawed in hindsight, sadly the people that actually have insight on what really matters are buried under noise.

Surface ships are pretty vulnerable to observation, yeah. Making them less vulnerable to it is probably a good thing.

 

[Deleted member 29851]

It wasn't meant to address threats decades into the future but genuinely threats of the past.

Okay, but that's not what "future proof" means. It very explicitly refers to growth margin, which Zumwalt evidentially has plenty of. And I would bet the house on Zumwalt being a better platform for SPY-6 than the Burke hull.

Let that sink in, these three multi billion dollar stealth destroyers have to receive extensive, expensive, multi year refits right out the gate in order to be somewhat viable today.

Are you telling me that stragetic environments change? No duh. It's not like Zumwalt was designed after Pivot to the Pacific, hull orders had already been reduced to 3 units before the Radar/Hull Study. This is very much a case of defense priorities changing too quickly.

Future proofing is a mugs game unless you have the equivalent talent of a Warren Buffet

Aren't you the one salivating over Flight III because because of its mechanical drive? The Burke hull lasted a full 20 years before maximizing growth potential, by which point construction was supposed to have stopped.

DD-21 was an all out, and I excuse my language here, piece of shit from the very start. The people who waved it through until it became DDG-1000 were, to quote out british friends, utter muppets.

One common theme I'm noticing is the littoral threat environment grew exponentially in the last decade, well ahead of DoN predictions. For what it's worth, Zumwalt is well suited against the expected threats, namely supersonic sea-skimmers, SSKs, and mines. I don't think anyone could've predicted things would move so rapidly.
But even then, we're still left with a small group of ships that are leaps and bounds ahead of anything else produced to date, and are being dissected for future programs. At least from at technical perspective, NAVSEA properly set the subsystem requirements.

GWOT didn't happen until 2001 and Zumwalt PEO was in place in 1998. Prelims were done by then and DD-21/DDX design reqs were drawn up by 1994. So they were designed to fight the Soviet Union and support a MEF landing in Vladivostok and Murmansk, actually. References changed from a Soviet threat to a Bosnian/South American/Iraqi/North Korea threat through the 1990's reflecting the majority threats at the time.

I don't have a clue what you're talking about, but I encourage you to go read Friedman's chapter in the 1979-82 DDGX program and some reading on Forward... From the Sea.

In the end, BuWeps won, and the ship was made extremely stealthy, like a Visby. The ideal BuWeps surface fleet would be something like a battle force of Visbys, La Fayettes, Zumwalts, San Antonios, and the medium stealth CVNX designed by James David White. Amphibious landing force would be MV-22s and AAAVs with CH-53Ks and Vipers/Venoms with SSCs supporting the landing of heavy armor.

There hasn't been a Bureau of Weapons since 1966, but regardless that's not where DD-21's signature requirements were derived from.
Recall that nearly everything from this era was focussed on land strike. By that point TLAM had been standardized across the fleet in large numbers, but was still too expensive to expend on every Islamist will a DIY bomb kit. Guns were the only weapon system that could provide the requisite range and volume of fire, but their limited range meant entering the littorals. And since the littoral theat environment was already so hostile to large ships, the next best thing is hiding the ship. Also part of the reason they went with electric propulsion, it's dramatically quieter than a mechanical drive.

 

[Scott Kenny]

DD-21 is a decent solution to the problem of radar observation. It works for planes so it will probably work for surface ships too.

Sea Shadow proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, though I doubt that specific SWATH catamaran design would be viable for anything short of SURTASS haulers. Even then, the SURTASS haulers are 6-10x the displacement.

Surface ships are pretty vulnerable to observation, yeah. Making them less vulnerable to it is probably a good thing.

You'd need to do something to break up the visuals and probably thermals from the Zumwalts, though. I'm talking old school WW2 Measure 31/32/33 series dazzle camo for visuals and active thermal control to match superstructure temp to sky temp and hull temp to water temp. Possibly including things to break those long straight lines on the superstructure as well (thermally).

 

[Firefinder]

You'd need to do something to break up the visuals and probably thermals from the Zumwalts, though. I'm talking old school WW2 Measure 31/32/33 series dazzle camo for visuals and active thermal control to match superstructure temp to sky temp and hull temp to water temp. Possibly including things to break those long straight lines on the superstructure as well (thermally).

All the Burkes and the later designs have had thermal control for both the exhaust and hull. General in pumping in water cooled air into the exhaust and the wash down systems.


And dazzle camo is fairly shit again modern electro Optical systems.


Now a counter illumination set up like the Yehudi Lights?

Those work extremely well against both Bio and electro optics. Cutting down the visual detection distance to inside of 4km. Don't really see them much due to cost but modern LEDs have done a lot to bring it down.

 

[Scott Kenny]

All the Burkes and the later designs have had thermal control for both the exhaust and hull. General in pumping in water cooled air into the exhaust and the wash down systems.

For an IEP ship, I'd almost expect some interesting cogeneration setup so that the flue gasses are at ambient air temperatures. Some boiler and turbine generator setup, I think? Wiki seems to call it a COGES power arrangement.

Yes, it means you need boiler techs again, but it gives you more electrical generation capacity and minimizes your IR signature. Both of which are useful!

And dazzle camo is fairly shit again modern electro Optical systems.

Dazzle is mostly for the Mk1 eyeball behind submarine periscopes.

Now a counter illumination set up like the Yehudi Lights?

Those work extremely well against both Bio and electro optics. Cutting down the visual detection distance to inside of 4km. Don't really see them much due to cost but modern LEDs have done a lot to bring it down.

Yes, that's a lot of what I'm after. Both in visible spectra and IR.

 

[EmoBirb]

GWOT didn't happen until 2001 and Zumwalt PEO was in place in 1998. Prelims were done by then and DD-21/DDX design reqs were drawn up by 1994. So they were designed to fight the Soviet Union and support a MEF landing in Vladivostok and Murmansk, actually. References changed from a Soviet threat to a Bosnian/South American/Iraqi/North Korea threat through the 1990's reflecting the majority threats at the time.

Their reference threat for NGFS was a Soviet MRR with D-30s and BM-21s pulled from 1984 (1986?) requirements for OTH amphibious assault.

The stealth was a result of needing to get close to support a landing operation in the USSR and the later targets a result of stealth aircraft performance in Desert Storm. The big debate at NAVSEA at the time was whether Arleigh Burke was sufficient (this is what the former BuShips felt) or whether the ships needed a far greater level of radar reduction (this is what BuWeps felt) after seeing La Fayette and Visby.

Most of this happened too. They just happened to appear in GWOT.

China in the 90s was broadly agricultural, similar to Japan in the 50s, though. Nobody really expected a country with $23 bn of defense budget in 1993 to become a country with a $235 bn defense budget in 2023 and eclipse Japan economically as the second largest economy. That's about as silly as China collapsing into a steady state non-growth economy by 2033 and the United States having a space dock for construction of Mars colonial transports in the 2050s.

China in the 1990's was seen as a threat for the 2020s (if that), not the 2000s, really. I think the expectation was that putting them in the WTO would make them explode economically, like the Japanese and European Union had happen to them, and then the opposite happened. Intelligence estimates in Robert Gates' time was that the Chinese would produce a super Flanker instead of J-20 even then. Oops!

If you invert expectations of Russia (300 F-22s and 1,000 T-14s by 2020), versus the reality of Russia (20 Super Flankers/Rafales [Su-57] and 50 T-14s), you get pretty close to actual DOD intelligence expectations for China in the late 1990s through the early 2010s. Precedent exists here: both the US and British Empire had trouble believing the Japanese could produce advanced weapons in 1941.

Ironically the Zumwalt would be better for operating in the SCS than most warships the USN has today. The primary sea search sensors for surface detection and Chinese weapons guidance are still radar today. Shame GWOT ate the shipbuilding budget.

But US involvement in Iraq, the catalyst of the GWOT and decades of misdirected US foreign policy. Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm occurred in 1990 and 1991. The Iraq War has become a predictable possibility since the tailend of the 80s. The initial studies that preceded DD-21 were immediately obsolete as the USSR was collapsing at that time. DD-21 and the resulting DDG-1000 fiasco were post 1991 projects and informed by the wars the US had fought in the very recent past and expected to fight in the future, which was falsely assumed to be non-peer expeditionary and escort stuff. Add to that the boomers and their boner for naval fire support and you got a short sighted program that resulted in complete lemons where only individual systems have been worthwhile investments with the ship at large being a clusterfuck that has to bee severely altered to find a semblance of usefulness in the modern naval warfare environment.

Now with that dealt with, your comments regarding China are just flat out wrong. Even back then the growth of China was predictable to anyone with eyes. But of course, if one is high on Post-Cold War "end of history" type copium, paired with a heavy dose of racism and American exceptionalism it's easy to miss the rise of the largest economy by PPP in the 21st century. You're reenacting that on a small scale in this very thread.

"The industrial production kept steady growth. In 1998, the total value-added of the industrial sector was 3,354.1 billion yuan, up by 8.9 percent over the previous year. The value-added of state-owned industrial enterprises and of non-state-owned industrial enterprises with an annual sales income over 5 million yuan totaled 2,004.6 billion yuan, up by 8.8 percent. Of this total, the value-added created by state-owned enterprises and joint-ownership enterprises where state held the controlling share was 1,136.5 billion, up 4.9 percent. The value-added of collective enterprises was 499.0 billion, up 8.7 percent, that of joint-stock enterprises was 133.8 billion yuan, up 11.9 percent. The value-added of enterprises invested by foreigners or investors from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan was 383.5 billion yuan, up 12.7 percent, and the value-added of enterprises of other types of ownership was 75.3 billion, up by 19.6 percent. The value-added of light industry was 898.4 billion yuan, up by 9.1 percent, and that of heavy industry was 1,106.2 billion, up by 8.5 percent."

These agricultural peasant farmers, am I right fellow patriots hehe? Huh? What's that?

"it was found that the urban land area in the BTH region expanded by 71% between 1990 and 2000."

Such rapid growth and expansion of the Urban centers in China and changing industrial and economic landscape surely wouldn't point to a rise in economic power and the consequent military modernisation such a nuclear power would desire to keep their adversary and their regional pawns at bay. Definitely not. What? They were buying a literal aircraft carrier in 1998? Also the associated carrier capable aircraft at the start of the 2000s? On top of several Sovremenny's in the 90s? Nah, they're definitely not attempting a naval build up, that would be silly. They definitely turn this aircraft carrier in a casino, 100%.

To conclude that chapter, the rise of China was predictable, it was self evident and nobody can seriously pretend that it wasn't. Intelligence bodies should have seen that from miles away and inform the DoD on their decision-making based on that. They didn't and now the US is getting increasingly more out gunned in the WESTPAC year after year and scrambling to retain the advantages they still have.

So, we established that the Zumwalt is a POS that was designed based on completely misguided, short term decisions. We established that you evidently have no clue about China of the 90s and 2000s. Let's dissect the fact it was also clear that Russia wasn't going to go away in the 2000s:

So you have a nuclear power, which clawed back most of the most crucial former assets and brought them home, you have a post-Soviet market military in dire need for modernization, an abundance of resources and former soviet engineering talent and an influx of EU cash pre 2014. In that period the Yasen-Class SSN was developed and construction started, the Borei-Class SSBN saw it's construction commence, with a much improved Borei-A coming along in the early 2010s. Then came other programs like PAK FA, the ongoing T-90 modernization, Iskander testing in the late 90s and so on.

So it was clear that the former soviet engineers and their tools wouldn't just be laying around basically since the moment the USSR collapsed. With Russia basically immediately making efforts to bring as much qualified people, high tech equipment and manufacturing into Russia proper. And the need for modernization became apparent in the late 90s and early 2000s which was then fueled by a bunch of EU cash. To keep with your (amusing) aircraft table that now leaves Russia, despite 11 years of sanctions with around:

~ 24 Su-27SM3 (T1-2 Eurofighter Equivalent)
~ 88 MiG-31BM (has no equivalent)
> 130 Su-35S (T3 Eurofighter and Rafale C equivalent)
> 90 Su-30SM (T1-2 Eurofighter Equivalent)
> 20 Su-30SM2 (Rafale equivalent)
> 30 Su-57S (F-35 equivalent)

Total: ~ 382

Compared to

~ 150 Rafales Armée de l'air
~ 100 Eurofighters and around ~40 F-35 RAF/RAN
~ 143 Eurofighters Luftwaffe

Total: ~ 393

(some of these may be off by now, it's what I remember out of the top of my head, I think the UK actually ordered some F-35s for the RAF now)

So the VVS, despite 11 years of sanctions, is predictably the largest single air force in Europe. So big in fact that one needs to combine the three next largest to slightly surpass it in numbers of modern fighter jets fielded. And that also didn't come out of the blue. Neither the ongoing modernization of their submarine force, new frigate/destroyers, new LHDs, a ton of stuff for arctic in particular, you name it. Again, it was clear as day that the Russians weren't going to to go anywhere, just shrink compared to what the USSR fielded. But even that shrinkage made them the largest single military in Europe.

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- So to end this, DD-21 and DDG-1000 were very Much Iraq and Post-Cold War products, their preceding, Soviet focused studies were deemed not needed anymore.

- Designing a ship around naval fire support with literal guns in the 21st century was already stupid back then

- it was clear in the mid to late 90s that China was growing and uparming

- it was clear that Russia wasn't going to just disappear from the map

All in all, it was clear that DDG-1000 in it's whole entirety was not a smart idea. That has nothing to do with hindsight, that was evident in the period where it was designed already. Individual components or systems utilized by the ship have merits, but the ship itself doesn't. And the three ships won't ever utilize the full potential of their subsystems. It's already a wonder that the Navy was throwing money away by modifying these three triangular lemons to make them somewhat useful. They won't put another massive sum on the table later down the line to put the newest radar suite, command suite, DEW system or whatever on these vessels. Just because the power system was decent doesn't change the fact that the entire ship as a whole is a massive pile of garbage. The fact that the Navy is in such a desperate need for hulls that they weren't abandoned and broken up is telling in of itself.

I'll see myself out.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The simple answer is the surface navy isn't as important as it used to be and it's struggling to find a place in a world where it can't hide.

Zumwalt wasn't as bad as you claim it is and the vertical gun was its most problematic trait, but at the time nobody had any real concrete evidence that a guided shell would be more expensive than a guided missile. You can also hardly blame the United States Navy for 9/11 and America's resulting occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, which is essentially what you're doing, tbf.

America could get by fine with 6-8 carriers (two forward deployed to Japan and Med plus three on each coast) and enough escorts to form a pair of FCTFs in each ocean. Divert the rest of the budget to building up another submarine shipyard and spinning up additional 774s.

You still need surface ships, but not for major conflicts, but rather just for bombing colonials like in Yemen. The modern era of PGMs and always-available orbital surveillance makes surface ships as vulnerable to dying as the WW2 battlegroups were in the thermonuclear age. This is probably not lost on the PLAN in theory, but making a robust submarine force is extremely difficult without decades to do so, and they will still need carriers to achieve a blockade of the ROC anyway.

That said, it seems the only defense programs that America has running on time are B-21, the 774s and the Space Force's satellites. Perhaps not coincidentally these are the only weapons programs that matter in a future Pacific War and everyone else is just sorta hangers-on or chaff from earlier eras, like the MRAPs, and the Connies/Fords. So yeah, it sure is a good thing that surface ships aren't too important anymore, or else the USN would be in quite a pickle.

Also the comment about Su-57 being a F-35 equivalent is also funny because it's more like a Tornado 2000 equivalent tbh.

You'd need to do something to break up the visuals and probably thermals from the Zumwalts, though.

Thermal suppression and visuals are already broken up by the haze gray scheme and large, buried exhausts with multiple insulation layers.

Infrared guided missiles like Penguin already existed when Zumwalt was being designed so they pretty easily accounted for that in the design. Zumwalt is a stealth ship in the sense that it's really annoying to target effectively, not a stealth ship in the sense that it's impossible to track or whatever, so it isn't going to surprise anyone. It's just going to be bothersome unless you hit it with a torpedo in transit because about the only thing it's vulnerable to (as is any surface ship) are wake homers.

OTOH the PLAN and submarines mix like oil and water so that's probably not a huge problem in this case.

 

[MihoshiK]

Are we still on the bullshit that the Zumwalt's rounds are so expensive and therefore Zumwalt sucks?

Yeah, no shit. When you cut down the numbers by several orders of magnitude and kill a production line, what's left is putting them together by hand, almost artisanal. Yeah, that's going to be expensive.

If we'd had the original amount of Zumwalts, the munitions would have been a LOT cheaper.

 

[EmoBirb]

Are we still on the bullshit that the Zumwalt's rounds are so expensive and therefore Zumwalt sucks?

Yeah, no shit. When you cut down the numbers by several orders of magnitude and kill a production line, what's left is putting them together by hand, almost artisanal. Yeah, that's going to be expensive.

If we'd had the original amount of Zumwalts, the munitions would have been a LOT cheaper.

The AGS being functional wouldn't have made it a good Arleigh-Burke replacement either way. And that undeniable failure across the whole board now puts even more pressure on the DDG(X) program. The Burke Flight III is the end of the line for the venerable Arleigh-Burke.

 

[MihoshiK]

The AGS being functional wouldn't have made it a good Arleigh-Burke replacement either way. And that undeniable failure across the whole board now puts even more pressure on the DDG(X) program. The Burke Flight III is the end of the line for the venerable Arleigh-Burke.

...It wasn't meant to be an AB replacement. If anything it was a Spruance replacement.

 

[EmoBirb]

That said, it seems the only defense programs that America has running on time are B-21, the 774s

The Virginias? Aren't these literally behind schedule with regards to being introduced for months if not years? Lol

Also the comment about Su-57 being a F-35 equivalent is also funny

It's not entirely accurate, given that the F-35 can't supercruise, has worse flight performance, is a single engine design and can't carry ALCMs internally. But the J-20 and F-22 are air superiority one trick ponies, while the Su-57 and F-35 are the more versatile offerings.

The simple answer is the surface navy isn't as important as it used to be and it's struggling to find a place in a world where it can't hide.

The naval powers of this world seem to disagree. Investing heavily in bigger and bigger and more and more capable vessels. China, South Korea, Japan are leading the way in that sense.

So yeah, it sure is a good thing that surface ships aren't too important anymore, or else the USN would be in quite a pickle.

 

[EmoBirb]

...It wasn't meant to be an AB replacement. If anything it was a Spruance replacement.

And that's why the USN canceled Zumwalt in favor of restarting AB production which seized before?

 

[Kat Tsun]

The AGS being functional wouldn't have made it a good Arleigh-Burke replacement either way. And that undeniable failure across the whole board now puts even more pressure on the DDG(X) program. The Burke Flight III is the end of the line for the venerable Arleigh-Burke.

DDG(X) isn't that important because the carriers aren't that important, though.

The last time carriers enjoyed preeminence was the late 90s-early 00s, and the last time they had any favor in a major superpower conflict was the late 1980s, because observation was hard back then. They may enjoy preeminence again, at some point in the future, but it's a very hard to imagine one since it would require them to avoid being detected and tracked by every sensor in orbit. The PLASSF is actually quite robust here and has a fairly significant stranglehold on surface force observations in Western Pacific. When Long March 9 shows up in its reuseable form that is going to explode massively.

It'll be curtains for surface navy ops in a denied environment. They'll be able to skirt the edges of the SCS near the Second Island Chain and take brief dips towards/into the First Chain, but it would only be under significant anti-ship missile attack. Pretty sure 7th Fleet's BATGRU will just die. Again. Par the course for the USN in the Pacific though.

Unless the PLA has some super duper mega cool anti-submarine technology (they don't), they'll be suffering the same, too. Between Japan, ROK, and the USN, there's a roughly even matching of undersea forces hull for hull against the PLAN's Kiloswarm and handful of 093B/095s. Difference being the USN is way better trained and I'd doubt the Japanese or Koreans, middling as they are, are worse than the PLANSF.

Anyway a compelling alternative at the time would have been the Lockheed POLAR but at the time I think Congress was aghast over GMLRS per round cost.

The Virginias? Aren't these literally behind schedule with regards to being introduced for months if not years? Lol

They're in production and extremely numerous, which is more than most, so here's looking at you Husky and 095.

It's not entirely accurate, given that the F-35 can't supercruise, has worse flight performance, is a single engine design and can't carry ALCMs internally. But the J-20 and F-22 are air superiority one trick ponies, while the Su-57 and F-35 are the more versatile offerings.

Su-57 isn't quite as stealthy as F-35 but it has a lot of cool electronic gizmos that will help it survive in an environment full of them.

The naval powers of this world seem to disagree. Investing heavily in bigger and bigger and more and more capable vessels. China, South Korea, Japan are leading the way in that sense.

Japan and South Korea peaked in the 1980s economically, so their thoughts on naval warfare is simply doing what they did because they can no longer shift to do things which are new. China is in a weird place where it never really had a navy beyond its immediate coast before about 20 years ago.

The reality is that surface ships in the 1980s were able to hide in commercial traffic because VID had to be done within eyeball distance. VID can now be done from low orbit several thousand kilometers away. This obviates a lot of the innate advantages of a surface naval force. Movement by itself is no longer a viable survival strategy.

This doesn't make surface ships useless. Their role has shifted from centerpieces of a strategic attack campaign like detailed in "From the Sea" to a force for colonial policing like bombing Houthis or providing jamming support in Midnight Hammer. It also means they won't contribute to the fight until after culmination.

The next Pacific War will be won by intercontinental bombers and submarines guided by satellite constellations that provide real time multispectral intelligence of the theater. The United States maintains competitive advantage in all those areas, regardless of China's impressive leaps, and there is still a long way to climb for the PLAN to win. They have their carrier, they have their surface escort, and they have their amphibious ships. Soon they'll have their submarine. Then they need to build enough to match the U.S.

Give them a couple more decades and they might even have decent crews for all of them. They might only have a few months though.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

Are we still on the bullshit that the Zumwalt's rounds are so expensive and therefore Zumwalt sucks?

Yeah, no shit. When you cut down the numbers by several orders of magnitude and kill a production line, what's left is putting them together by hand, almost artisanal. Yeah, that's going to be expensive.

If we'd had the original amount of Zumwalts, the munitions would have been a LOT cheaper.

Not only cutting the numbers of ships in order, but also the number of rounds in the magazines per ship.

 

[Firefinder]

To point it into prospective.

In 2006ish the Navy expected to buy North of 16000 AGS shells for all 30 odd ships starting in 2015 irc. With money being put aside for the factory and like to start in that year going for the next decade with assumation of the Army and Marines also buying in.


By 2018 when they cancel it?

90.

They bought 90 handmade rounds.

The Army made more Excalibur rounds for the 08 field test in Iraqi then that.

Yeah you can see how the cost balloon like an explosion.


Also the Zumwalt design with both Radars, Spy3 and 4 with the WHOLE SONAR system for High Low Frequency and Towed Array made it a very solid contender for the Burke replacement. All those can still be added mind you.

Like wow 12-16 less VLS cells, 80 bout how much the Burke deploy with any how cause we don't have enough missiles.

And if we did need more missiles the AGS was design to be pulled either on the ways mid build or in a refit for more cells. As seen now with the VPM giving it a similar load out. Pretty sure they used the same size deal as the KEI which was design during the Zumwalts gestation. Throw in its outright better computer system set up?

Zumwalts design very much put it as Burkes successor spiritually if not in actuality.

Only thing it needs is more crew cause you have a limit on man-hours per body and the Zumwalts breaks that hard.

Dazzle is mostly for the Mk1 eyeball behind submarine periscopes.

Which is rapidly being replaced by electro thermal optics masts that the Virginia started using when that launched.

 

[CV12Hornet]

The Virginias? Aren't these literally behind schedule with regards to being introduced for months if not years? Lol

Because COVID screwed over the workforce; for a solid 15 years before that they were consistently on budget and ahead of schedule.

 

[Moose]

Because COVID screwed over the workforce; for a solid 15 years before that they were consistently on budget and ahead of schedule.

COVID and the need to transfer workforce they did have onto the SSBN work.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Because COVID screwed over the workforce; for a solid 15 years before that they were consistently on budget and ahead of schedule.

Something the PRC isn't immune to, either, although they may bounce back a tad faster. It's why some DOD people think the 2027 window has shifted to 2030-2032 for the PLA to be ready to invade.

 

[Deleted member 29851]

And that's why the USN canceled Zumwalt in favor of restarting AB production which seized before?

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on MAMDJF and the Radar/Hull Study.

 

[Scott Kenny]

America could get by fine with 6-8 carriers (two forward deployed to Japan and Med plus three on each coast) and enough escorts to form a pair of FCTFs in each ocean.

Those forward deployed carriers still need at least one backing them up, if not 2. Which means not 8 carriers, but 10-12.

Which happens to be what the US has right now.

Said FCTFs also need their escorts.

OTOH the PLAN and submarines mix like oil and water so that's probably not a huge problem in this case.

I'd say more like hydrazine and Chlorine Trifluoride.

BOOM!

The AGS being functional wouldn't have made it a good Arleigh-Burke replacement either way.

Just in case it hasn't been hammered home enough yet:

The Zumwalt was supposed to be the Sprucan replacement! You'd have 30something Zs, plus ~30something** of their CG21 cousins that were supposed to replace the Ticos, and IIRC 60something Burkes (up through all the Flight IIAs).

**Maybe more to allow for 2x CG21s per carrier group and more than ~6 freely available. But there were only 30 Ticos built so I'm assuming 1:1 replacement.

The minimum assignment would be 1x CG21 per carrier (~12x), 1x CG21 per ARG (~12x), and ~6 extras on convoy duty. Then you have 1x Z per carrier, 1x Z per ARG, and ~6 on convoy duty. And finally, 2x Burkes per carrier, 2x Burkes per ARG, and ~12 on convoy duty. While it looks like you could have 6 convoys, in wartime you'd be looking at a maximum of 4 convoys; each with 1x CG21, 1x Z, and 2x Burkes, same escort group as a carrier or ARG.

Difference being the USN is way better trained and I'd doubt the Japanese or Koreans, middling as they are, are worse than the PLANSF.

The Japanese sub crews I'd rate as just as good as the USN. Highly trained, they honestly spend a lot of time at sea doing things, which is how you get good crews in the first place.

And they take immense pride in their boats. When one of their boats was visiting Pearl Harbor (let me tell you, it's weird seeing a big Rising Sun flag there!), I got to take a tour. So clean you could have eaten off the bilge in the engineroom!

 

[Kat Tsun]

The Japanese sub crews I'd rate as just as good as the USN. Highly trained, they honestly spend a lot of time at sea doing things, which is how you get good crews in the first place.

And they take immense pride in their boats. When one of their boats was visiting Pearl Harbor (let me tell you, it's weird seeing a big Rising Sun flag there!), I got to take a tour. So clean you could have eaten off the bilge in the engineroom!

This is fair. They also have 20 diesels to the roughly 30-40 nukes the USN can about muster into the vortex of SCS.

That's a hull for hull match against the PLAN which is all that matters. Really dilutes the power of their big Kilo force.

I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on MAMDJF and the Radar/Hull Study.

DDG-1000 was so depressed over the news it tried to kill itself in the Panama Canal. A common L for TSCE.

 

[johnpjones1775]

The simple answer is the surface navy isn't as important as it used to be and it's struggling to find a place in a world where it can't hide.

Zumwalt wasn't as bad as you claim it is and the vertical gun was its most problematic trait, but at the time nobody had any real concrete evidence that a guided shell would be more expensive than a guided missile. You can also hardly blame the United States Navy for 9/11 and America's resulting occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, which is essentially what you're doing, tbf.

America could get by fine with 6-8 carriers (two forward deployed to Japan and Med plus three on each coast) and enough escorts to form a pair of FCTFs in each ocean. Divert the rest of the budget to building up another submarine shipyard and spinning up additional 774s.

You still need surface ships, but not for major conflicts, but rather just for bombing colonials like in Yemen. The modern era of PGMs and always-available orbital surveillance makes surface ships as vulnerable to dying as the WW2 battlegroups were in the thermonuclear age. This is probably not lost on the PLAN in theory, but making a robust submarine force is extremely difficult without decades to do so, and they will still need carriers to achieve a blockade of the ROC anyway.

That said, it seems the only defense programs that America has running on time are B-21, the 774s and the Space Force's satellites. Perhaps not coincidentally these are the only weapons programs that matter in a future Pacific War and everyone else is just sorta hangers-on or chaff from earlier eras, like the MRAPs, and the Connies/Fords. So yeah, it sure is a good thing that surface ships aren't too important anymore, or else the USN would be in quite a pickle.

Also the comment about Su-57 being a F-35 equivalent is also funny because it's more like a Tornado 2000 equivalent tbh.



Thermal suppression and visuals are already broken up by the haze gray scheme and large, buried exhausts with multiple insulation layers.

Infrared guided missiles like Penguin already existed when Zumwalt was being designed so they pretty easily accounted for that in the design. Zumwalt is a stealth ship in the sense that it's really annoying to target effectively, not a stealth ship in the sense that it's impossible to track or whatever, so it isn't going to surprise anyone. It's just going to be bothersome unless you hit it with a torpedo in transit because about the only thing it's vulnerable to (as is any surface ship) are wake homers.

OTOH the PLAN and submarines mix like oil and water so that's probably not a huge problem in this case.

The rounds are only expensive because we only ever bought 6 guns.

Imagine how expensive missiles would be if they weren’t as mass produced as they are.

 

[johnpjones1775]

The Virginias? Aren't these literally behind schedule with regards to being introduced for months if not years? Lol


It's not entirely accurate, given that the F-35 can't supercruise, has worse flight performance, is a single engine design and can't carry ALCMs internally. But the J-20 and F-22 are air superiority one trick ponies, while the Su-57 and F-35 are the more versatile offerings.


The naval powers of this world seem to disagree. Investing heavily in bigger and bigger and more and more capable vessels. China, South Korea, Japan are leading the way in that sense.


View attachment 779758

Tbf what the navies are doing doesn’t make the person you’re replying to wrong.
That’s just an appeal to authority which is a logical fallacy.

 

[johnpjones1775]

And that's why the USN canceled Zumwalt in favor of restarting AB production which seized before?

Zumwalts weren’t cancelled because they were a AB replacement and they were bad at it.
They were cancelled because of massive cost over runs and delays.

 

[Scott Kenny]

To point it into prospective.

In 2006ish the Navy expected to buy North of 16000 AGS shells for all 30 odd ships starting in 2015 irc. With money being put aside for the factory and like to start in that year going for the next decade with assumation of the Army and Marines also buying in.


By 2018 when they cancel it?

90.

They bought 90 handmade rounds.

The Army made more Excalibur rounds for the 08 field test in Iraqi then that.

Yeah you can see how the cost balloon like an explosion.

Agreed.

See also the Excalibur. The cost-per-round in 2015 was 260k. The cost-per-round in 2016, just one year later, once the assembly line was going? 68k.

See also the XM25 CDTE. During the field tests, troops were shooting rounds that cost over 25k each. But those rounds were hand assembled, expected cost-per-round once adopted was on the order of less than 1k.

Only thing it needs is more crew cause you have a limit on man-hours per body and the Zumwalts breaks that hard.

Agreed. The only way the Zs could stay functional at their planned manning was to explicitly order the Navy to stop the bullshit "if the sun is up so are you" policy the surface fleet does, and allow people standing night watches to sleep during the day. I would NOT recommend the old submariner 6 on 12 off, that destroys circadian rhythms. But 8 on 16 off might be viable.

Which is rapidly being replaced by electro thermal optics masts that the Virginia started using when that launched.

I'm not convinced that the EO masts aren't dazzled by dazzle camo.

 

[Firefinder]

I'm not convinced that the EO masts aren't dazzled by dazzle camo.

It doesn't to any measurable degree.

The Army and Air Force is LEAGUEs ahead the Navy in the Electro Optical game, With the Army doing all types of tests for the varouis camouflages types. Those tests are why military vehicles are mainly monocolor instead of having a pattern.

Basically with semi modern gear you can fair easier pick out the Dazzle camo then just by the MK1. Add in the new thermal highlighter and stuff like imagine analyst of real time?

Basically make trying to camouflage while in the Open, like say on the ocean, a pain.

Cause Dazzle Camou Fucks with you mind via several methods. Said methods get block by the cameras systems.

The Navy did similar tests with one of the Freedoms and basically found the army was right.

 

[MihoshiK]

And that's why the USN canceled Zumwalt in favor of restarting AB production which seized before?

Oh for fucks sake.

USN got cold feet over the costs, cancelled the Zumwalts, and then they had the problem of not having any new combatants in production.

So yeah, they restarted the AB line, the only ship design relatively modern that was mature. What a surprise.

 

[Dilandu]

If we'd had the original amount of Zumwalts, the munitions would have been a LOT cheaper.

And if AGS was designed compatible with army 155-mm munition, instead of specially-made shells, the cuts to the Zumwalt program would not cause so much troubles for AGS.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The rounds are only expensive because we only ever bought 6 guns.

Imagine how expensive missiles would be if they weren’t as mass produced as they are.

The engineering time and costs introduced by shifting from VGS to AGS is but one reason why the Zumwalts came in overbudget tbf.

I would NOT recommend the old submariner 6 on 12 off, that destroys circadian rhythms. But 8 on 16 off might be viable.

Hey listen your next watch starts in fifteen. I know it's been six hours. No, you're gonna be on port watch. I know you already did two twelves yesterday and before but also by the way we need to fill the next twelve after this. Don't worry you'll get 48 off tomorrow trust me bro you know in Pax they do 48/48s so this is easy.

The big issue with Zumbo is mostly it needs another 30-80 sailors but that should be easy since it's a big boat. IDK just turn the gym into racks or something. Or the magazine for the non-existing LRLAPs.

And if AGS was designed compatible with army 155-mm munition, instead of specially-made shells, the cuts to the Zumwalt program would not cause so much troubles for AGS.

This would be really hard to do I think, but it would be nice if it were compatible with Excalibur tbh, even if it was a refit.

Even better would have been fitting about eight Trident sized tubes where the guns are for either 56 TLAMs/LRASM or self contained VGS.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

The engineering time and costs introduced by shifting from VGS to AGS is but one reason why the Zumwalts came in overbudget tbf.

I don't believe there was much in the way of any lost engineering time or increased costs going from VGS to AGS (aside from the fact that the resulting ships ended up being larger than they otherwise would have been), as Congress forced the change to AGS before the US Navy issued the RFP contract to the two competing design teams.

 

[johnpjones1775]

The engineering time and costs introduced by shifting from VGS to AGS is but one reason why the Zumwalts came in overbudget tbf.



Hey listen your next watch starts in fifteen. I know it's been six hours. No, you're gonna be on port watch. I know you already did two twelves yesterday and before but also by the way we need to fill the next twelve after this. Don't worry you'll get 48 off tomorrow trust me bro you know in Pax they do 48/48s so this is easy.

The big issue with Zumbo is mostly it needs another 30-80 sailors but that should be easy since it's a big boat. IDK just turn the gym into racks or something. Or the magazine for the non-existing LRLAPs.



This would be really hard to do I think, but it would be nice if it were compatible with Excalibur tbh, even if it was a refit.

Even better would have been fitting about eight Trident sized tubes where the guns are for either 56 TLAMs/LRASM or self contained VGS.

You mean the magazines that will be having VLS in them?

 

[shin_getter]

This doesn't make surface ships useless. Their role has shifted from centerpieces of a strategic attack campaign like detailed in "From the Sea" to a force for colonial policing like bombing Houthis or providing jamming support in Midnight Hammer....

The next Pacific War will be won by intercontinental bombers and submarines guided by satellite constellations that provide real time multispectral intelligence of the theater.

Human technology simply work better on land than in water. Navies never outfought the land forts and continental powers could not be directly defeated by navies. It was only due to unparalleled power of the US for a period that such extremely ambitious ideas gets raised. Carrier aviation itself is less cost effective than airbases are can be practically invulnerable to attack via hardening, dispersion repair capability and tunneling, with aircraft that is more efficient due to not having the constraint of being STOL and fit in a tiny box. For offensive weapons in general, reuseable turbojet engines simply is a better payload throwing 1st stage than non-reusable rockets or size constrained guns, so other ships are even worst.

If you look at navy history of naval powers say the UK, the primary role is control of sea trade. The primary value of the sea is that it offers the lowest cost of transport, and surface ships' persistence and mobility fits perfectly in transport protection while its drawbacks are not important in the role.

The surface ships shall have the very important job escorting convoys into Japan and various bases needed to support the war effort.

But people just love "more offensive weapons, TIP OF THE SPEAR blah blah"

Really get back to figuring out practical convoy escort scheme instead.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I don't believe there was much in the way of any lost engineering time or increased costs going from VGS to AGS (aside from the fact that the resulting ships ended up being larger than they otherwise would have been), as Congress forced the change to AGS before the US Navy issued the RFP contract to the two competing design teams.

With how the DDG-1000s turned out in a compact VGS would have been better. Give it 57s for the deck guns port/stbd and fore/aft.

This requires hindsight but thankfully we have shipyards.

You mean the magazines that will be having VLS in them?

The A turret got pulled and replaced by four Trident tubes. Do the same for the B turret.

The reserve magazine room can be converted into berthing space for additional sailors to bring manning up to European standards (~190-220 minus aviation) and allow for engineering watches instead of reliance on TSCE. Maybe possibly rip out the computing system and replace it with an Aegis Baseline and replace the SPY-4 spot with an EASR derived SPY but that's a bit far.

Navies never outfought the land forts and continental powers could not be directly defeated by navies.

Navies can't exist if they can be detected and attacked thousands of miles from shore. Their basic survival strategy has been target ambiguity but this is unlikely to exist for surface ships in the coming decade or two. It will still exist for submarines because the ocean is noisy.

Really get back to figuring out practical convoy escort scheme instead.

The USN has realized it has neither the ships nor the shipbuilding capacity to escort convoys so it's basically given up and focused on CVBGs. That's smart even if it's a gamble. Unlike the Japanese, though, the USN has competent submariners and anti-submarine forces so it can probably make Kantai Kessen work just fine against a degraded PLAN.

The PLAN actually has that shipbuilding capacity although it isn't clear how they'll leverage it, considering they're boxed into the Western Pacific and won't have enough muscle to force a breakout at Malacca or anything, and likely never will. They don't have the submarines to do that even if they have the ships to escort convoys. That's the strategic reasoning behind the One Belt One Road and its Central Asian to Europe railways: eliminating or obviating the need for trans-Pacific shipping.

It's going to be quite an amusing fight to watch if you're from Brazil or something.

 

[johnpjones1775]

With how the DDG-1000s turned out in a compact VGS would have been better. Give it 57s for the deck guns port/stbd and fore/aft.

This requires hindsight but thankfully we have shipyards.



The A turret got pulled and replaced by four Trident tubes. Do the same for the B turret.

The reserve magazine room can be converted into berthing space for additional sailors to bring manning up to European standards (~190-220 minus aviation) and allow for engineering watches instead of reliance on TSCE. Maybe possibly rip out the computing system and replace it with an Aegis Baseline and replace the SPY-4 spot with an EASR derived SPY but that's a bit far.



Navies can't exist if they can be detected and attacked thousands of miles from shore. Their basic survival strategy has been target ambiguity but this is unlikely to exist for surface ships in the coming decade or two. It will still exist for submarines because the ocean is noisy.



The USN has realized it has neither the ships nor the shipbuilding capacity to escort convoys so it's basically given up and focused on CVBGs. That's smart even if it's a gamble. Unlike the Japanese, though, the USN has competent submariners and anti-submarine forces so it can probably make Kantai Kessen work just fine against a degraded PLAN.

The PLAN actually has that shipbuilding capacity although it isn't clear how they'll leverage it, considering they're boxed into the Western Pacific and won't have enough muscle to force a breakout at Malacca or anything, and likely never will. They don't have the submarines to do that even if they have the ships to escort convoys. That's the strategic reasoning behind the One Belt One Road and its Central Asian to Europe railways: eliminating or obviating the need for trans-Pacific shipping.

It's going to be quite an amusing fight to watch if you're from Brazil or something.

Pretty sure both AGSes are being removed…

 

[Scott Kenny]

Even better would have been fitting about eight Trident sized tubes where the guns are for either 56 TLAMs/LRASM or self contained VGS.

You mean like they did? Both AGS have been removed entirely, so I'm assuming that both "barbettes" have been replaced with Trident tubes to take TLAMs or CPS.

Really get back to figuring out practical convoy escort scheme instead.

If your merchant ships can do over 15 knots, don't bother with convoys. Let them scatter. Patrol the shit out of natural chokepoints where the merchies have to be to keep subs out.

 

[Kat Tsun]

You mean like they did? Both AGS have been removed entirely, so I'm assuming that both "barbettes" have been replaced with Trident tubes to take TLAMs or CPS.

It was just the A turret that was removed. The B turret and AGS handling equipment remains. That's probably a weight thing.

If your merchant ships can do over 15 knots, don't bother with convoys. Let them scatter. Patrol the shit out of natural chokepoints where the merchies have to be to keep subs out.

They all have to go to Taiwan lol. The escorts are there to keep the blockade open rather than prevent in-transit interdiction. China quite simply doesn't have the submarines nor the aviation necessary to attack things outside of Taiwan's immediate EEZ.

There was actually a good report produced by CSIS on this very topic published today! Convoy escort is a possibility in a limited war/Berlin blockade scenario of Taiwan by the CCG and auxiliary forces of the PLAN. Provided the war doesn't explode, as it didn't in 1948, it would be the most likely outcome that surface units escort convoys into Taiwan for energy and basic foods while engaging at arm's length with tactical aircraft. Usually results in major surface unit losses (Burkes) for the U.S. 20-30 or so is typical.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/lights-out-wargaming-chinese-blockade-taiwan

The most high intensity engagement wargamed (one of the Free Play scenarios) sees the U.S. losing two carriers and the PLAN one. Most large war scenarios see the U.S. losing at least one carrier and a 3:1 ratio in favor of U.S. for surface combatants. Losses for subs range from 10-20x in U.S. favor though.