Thursday, December 10, 2015

DDG 1000 USS Zumwalt leaves BIW for sea trials


The USS Zumwalt, the US Navy's largest and most expensive destroyer ever built, began sea trials Monday in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship, with its angular design, departed the Bath Iron Works in Maine and made its way down the Kennebec River to the ocean.
The ship is 600 feet long and weighs nearly 15,000 tons, (the size of a Cruiser) making it the largest destroyer in the US fleet. But with an angled hull and deck house, it is designed to look no bigger than a fishing boat on radar.


Zumwalt Sails! But Does It Matter? « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary
The Zumwalt does boast major innovations, which could end up on future classes, even if the DDG-1000 class itself stops at two or three ships. Most visually striking is its “stealth” hull. Most fiscally appealing is the use of automation to allow a much smaller crew, less than half the DDG-51’s for a ship 63 percent larger. (Similar manpower-reduction principles are at work on the controversial Littoral Combat Ship, but LCS sailors may be run ragged as a result).
Most important, though, is the DDG-1000’s electric drive. It still uses gas turbines to generate the power in the first place, but it dispenses with bulky, unreliable shafts to convey that power to the propellers. What’s more, the ship’s integrated power system allows the energy to be shifted to other systems besides propulsion, rather like the USS Enterprise on Star Trek. The ship can sail along at a brisk 20 knots and still have 58 megawatts to spare — more than six times the 9MW available on an Arleigh Burke.
What to do with all this energy? Radars and other sensors are the power-hungry systems of today. But the most exciting possibilities are weapons now in advanced testing such as lasers and rail guns, weapons which could change the balance of power between US warships and incoming missiles.



America's Zumwalt-Class Destroyer: Too Few, Too Advanced and Too Late? | The National Interest Blog
The Navy plans to build only three DDG-1000s. Originally, it had planned to build thirty-two ships. That was later reduced to twelve and later to just three. The Navy simply couldn’t afford the ship’s astronomical price tag—each vessel costs roughly $4 billion not including research and development. Total program costs are near $23 billion.
Additionally, the DDG-1000 design is not particularly well suited for the ballistic missile defense role. The ship relies on the AN/SPY-3 X-band active electronically scanned array radar—which can provide guidance for the SM-2 and the Evolved Sea Sparrow, but it can’t provide area air defenses because it lacks volume search capability. Originally, the ship was supposed to have an S-band radar as part of an integrated dual-band system called the SPY-4—but that ran into technical trouble and cost issues. It was removed in 2010. The Zumwalts also need a slightly modified version of the Standard missile to be compatible with the vessel’s fire-control system—which is a logistical problem.
The dual-band radar was superseded by the Gallium Nitride-based technology, which will be used on the Flight III DDG-51’s Air and Missile Defense Radar. Because of the growing ballistic missile threat, the Navy has opted to build Flight III DDG-51s instead of more DDG-1000s. But the DDG-1000’s technology will live on and will likely be used on a new Future Surface Combatant.

Related/Background:

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)