If it were just a matter of VLS cells, sure, and it would help overall numbers. But the fleet would still lose the command facilities and associated spaces the CGs have, the gigantic Ship's Mission Centers on the 3 Zs will be the only decent command facilities not on a carrier or LCC. Whole lotta people, even many who should know better, try to handwave away the problems of cramming Alpha Whiskey, or a SAG command staff, into a Burke's CIC for the long term. I'd also point out that command hulls should have additional survivability, which an overloaded DDG-51 hull would not.
The first 5 Ticonderoga class were built without VLS because Mk41 wasn't ready in 1980 and the Navy didn't want to wait until it was. The plan to re-arm these 5 hulls with VLS during a major refit ran into a lot of cost issues, and keeping them as-was would mean keeping the MK26 supply chain and the production line for Non-VLS Standards going. The Gordon England-Donald Rumsfeld-era Navy decided they'd rather retire the non-VLS combatants way ahead of time to save money than pay for a comprehensive refit plan. To make matters worse, right around 2003 they suddenly fell in love with SINKEXing modern combatants. There's plenty of good reasons to sink a recent ship once in awhile, but it became something of a fetish for the mid-to-late 2000s navy. Valley Forge and twenty five Spruance class were sunk in half a decade.
Not all that easily, the Burke class is well designed as a multi-mission combatant but doesn't have the designed-in flexibility or reconfigurable spaces that some more modern concepts have. A "Command" version needs additional command space that doesn't really fit anywhere easily, which is why the Japanese and Korean command destroyers descended from the Burke both are larger (longer, wider, taller) and have additional decks.
Is there a reason we can't use the bigger Japanese and Korean designs as the base for the Flight IV Burkes instead of the current hulls? That should go part way into solving the problem.
IIRC they're built to commercial standards, not military.
It comes up somewhat regularly. The short version is, the cost of American-izing them would essentially run the same as taking a Flight III and inflating it to the same size and would produce largely the same end product. While there's appeal to that idea, the resulting destroyers would be so distinct from the existing Burke variants as to have an impact on the budget and logistics similar to that of having an entirely new class of ship, but without the future-proofing baked into an all-new ship.
I was being sarcastic. Most of them have been sunk.
I particularly liked the old CGNs.
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That is exactly what the White House is telling them to do.
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Obama had a 308 ship goal which Maybus upped to 355 with the 2016 FSA. The Trump administration started with 350+ and now we have 357. All this appears to be mostly talk. Unless they buy more Destroyers, more Frigates, and more Submarines within annual budgets it is highly unlikely we ever go beyond 315-320 or so as a best case scenario. Without an increase in budgets you have to make cuts either in the type of ships you buy or in readiness. Thankfully, the CNO seems to have drawn the line and is not prepared to gut readiness to buy more ships..though that will be the option that would appeal the most to politicians so it remains to be seen whether this position changes. The other alternative is to buy different classes..Less carriers for more destroyers etc etc etc. Short of a budget increase those are the only options I see..CNO Gilday Calls for Budget Increase to Reach 355 Ship Fleet; New Battle Force Count Won’t Include Unmanned Ships - USNI News
ARLINGTON, Va. – If the nation wants a 355-ship fleet in the next decade, the Navy will have to see an increase in its shipbuilding budget, the head of the service said on Tuesday. “355 in 10? Sure, if we get the dough,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday told the audience at the …
If carriers can't carry multipurpose conventional stealth aircraft (specops transport, manned tanker, c2/AWACS, medium bomber versions ) and a stealth tactical bomber like the A-12 w/ large internal bay then many carriers could be replaced w/ a ship like the Mission Essential Unit V/TOL cruiser/carrier.Navy Needs 'Distributed' Fleet, Says Acting Secretary—Hints At Fewer Carriers
A question mark hangs over the future role and numbers of U.S. aircraft carriers the Acting Secretary of the ...m.theepochtimes.com
Navy Needs 'Distributed' Fleet, Says Acting Secretary—Hints At Fewer Carriers
A question mark hangs over the future role and numbers of U.S. aircraft carriers the Acting Secretary of the ...m.theepochtimes.com
Why do I get a bad feeling about this...
To Deter China, the Naval Services Must Integrate - War on the Rocks
Change on the scale envisioned by the National Defense Strategy isn’t always easy, or pretty. Observers of American strategy often wonder how the Unitedwarontherocks.com
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