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Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org)
An anonymous reader writes: The first Zumwalt-class destroyer, the USS Zumwalt, the largest ever built for the U.S. Navy, headed out to sea today. Departing from shipbuilder Bath Iron Works, the ship left to undergo sea trials. The AP reports: "The ship has electric propulsion, new radar and sonar, powerful missiles and guns, and a stealthy design to reduce its radar signature. Advanced automation will allow the warship to operate with a much smaller crew size than current destroyers. All of that innovation has led to construction delays and a growing price tag. The Zumwalt, the first of three ships in the class, will cost at least $4.4 billion."
First off, there are no hypersonic missiles and will not be for a good 5 or 6 years at least. Secondly, swarming with missiles is, indeed, one way to kill warships. Its exactly what the Soviets planned to do in order to prevent the US from reinforcing Europe in the event of a NATO/Warsaw Pact war before the end of the Cold War. However, the US is very, very, very good at fighting this sort of war. A Zumwalt has 80 VLS cells that can be packed with missiles (though these are meant for attacking, not defending on the Zumies, except when using the ESSM self defense missile (4 to a VLS cell)). However, the Burke class, which would accompany a Zum, each have 90+ VLS cells themselves and an excellent radar system. You'll probably need a minimum of 50 to 75 missiles to get a ship for each Burke defending the Zum. It starts getting really expensive. The US is really good at the hot missile on missile action: even against ballistic missiles. The best way to attack a Zum is with a sub. Defenses against subs are not nearly as good as against incoming missiles. There are NUMEROUS examples of even 'bitty' SSK subs sneaking up on even the big carriers.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
the rod hit it might just put a small hole
You have a point about the ship maneuvering but you've completely underestimated the kinetic energy involved in a projectile that fell from orbit.
Projectiles just don't fall from orbit you know. They are already just falling, and falling, and falling some more. In order to get them out of orbit, you have to apply some kind of force to them and get them to reenter the atmosphere... Where they will be falling at terminal velocity for the most part...
Problem is that kinetic energy is related to mass and velocity squared so you want to maximize the speed, which is eventually not going to vary with changes in projectile size and the terminal velocity of an object starts to get slower.... Of course all this is dependent on the projectile shape...
Yes, it was used extensively in wooden sailing ships. That was a different world, and ships had entirely different designs, and reacted to physics differently than today's ships.
First, wooden sailing ships all have deep keels. A lot of the weight above the waterline was counterweighted by that keel. That is, a lot more weight than just the mast and sails, all of which were high above the main deck, adding to the tendency to roll over.
Also - virtually all of the material used to build the ship was lighter than water. Not so today.
I can only refer you once more to the study of the tumblehome's righting arms. A lot of experts have agreed that the tumblehome doesn't have inherent stability of an Arleigh Burke, or an Adams, or any of dozens of other steel, iron, or aluminum hulled ships.
Conventional hulls acquire greater and greater righting arms, the further they roll. Tumblehome starts losing that righting momentum around 50%, and it falls off yet a little more with every degree of roll.
I can tell you that I would desert if I were sent to the North Atlantic in the winter time aboard a tumblehome ship. I missed the "perfect storm", but we survived a couple other storms that were deadly. If you find yourself out on those waters on an unstable vessel, about all you can do is put your head between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbuy.
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