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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."
A nice book about this ship and its class in an alternate future is Ghost Fleet.
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Fleet-Novel-Next-World/dp/0544142845
I hope it's not running Windows... like the last time
Captain James Kirk
This is crazy. Any nation seriously interested in naval war should be spending their money on developing a swarm-based navy. If you could develop a small swarm warfare ship with a price tag of say, $250K, you could produce 16,000 of those at this cost. Good luck fighting those 16,000 ships with this one.
Yeah, and as long as voters keep voting for warmongers, taxpayer's money is going to be endlessly squandered on weapon systems we will never use. The entire NIH budget is something like $35 billion. Cancer deaths alone in the US are over half a million a year. How many lives are these destroyers going to save?
We are not going to be at war with Russia or China, so please don't try and bring that up as a justification (although I know some of you will nonetheless).
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
voting for warmongers
Guess what? There are large groups of militant types out there that would gleefully kill you and everyone you know, just because you're from the U.S.
but we made them what they are!
What's that got to do with anything, even if it's true? Are we supposed to just sit back and let them destroy everything?
it's not even our fight, we shouldn't be involved!
Sure thing, buddy. We'll just sit back and enjoy living in the West, while Sunni extremists and all the other terrorist groups of the world divide up the Middle East, kill millions, and gain power. We'll see how you're feeling about us being so-called 'warmongers' when they're kicking in your door, taking your wife and daughters to use as sex slaves, your sons to be brainwashed into suicide bombers, and sawing off your head with a machete. Allahu Ackbar!
How many lives are these destroyers going to save?
It's about more than saving lives: it's about preserving our way of life (you know: little trifles, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and useless little things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, your daughters being allowed to go to school and learn math and history, have their own lives, etc, or are you so jaded that these things mean nothing to you now?) instead of being dragged back into the Dark Ages.
We are not going to be at war with Russia or China
I got news for you: we are already at war with them, it's just not being fought with guns and bombs -- YET. Or do you not ever read/see/hear the news? China and Russia sabre-rattle all the time, China especially. THEY want to expand, THEY want an empire. If you think for one single moment that China wouldn't happily take over the U.S. and any number of other Western countries if we were weak enough, then I'm afraid you're not living in the real world. You think having a strong military is 'warmongering'; I shudder to think what verbage you use to describe certain Sunni extremists who are currently kidnapping people and cutting off their heads on YouTube, and going out of their way to radicalize teenage boys all over the world, and recruiting them, and either getting them to go to Syria (to learn to cut off people's heads!) or to mass murder people in their home countries! The U.S., and it's allies, with their strong militaries, are what are standing between you, sitting at home on your computer posting comments on Slashdot, all safe and sound, well-fed, and comfortable, and the violent assholes of the world, who would rather you were messily dead, just because you live in the West and have all that you have. All I can say is if you don't believe all of that is true, then you're what I'd call 'blissfully ignorant'. I suggest you look up and start paying attention to what's going on in the world, and think about how it affects everybody else in the rest of the world, and not just you on your little suburban street. The world is too small anymore for anyone to get away with thinking "that's going on on the other side of the planet, it's not our problem". IT IS OUR PROBLEM.
Peace, out.
This "futuristic" hull design isn't anything new. The French did this already, long ago. They sold a small fleet of these "rollover" design ships to Russia. And, Russia lost the only engagement in which they participated to Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Arleigh Burke class has 1.5 times the righting arm that the Zumwalt does, up to about 50 degrees. From 50 to 90 degrees, the Burke has three times the righting arms. Right around 95 degrees of roll, the Zumwalt stops trying to right itself, and capsizes. The Burke continues to right itself all the way to 110 degrees - that is, when the ship is lying on it's side, with the mast underwater, it can still roll itself back upright.
http://www.phisicalpsience.com...
Long story short - the Zumwalt is a fair weather sailor, and it won't be worth a shit in the real world.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The government got a first generation of the next generation of ships for $4.4 billion
The zumwalt does things no other vessel can do. It will be the platform from which the rail gun will be mounted. Need to fire faster? reroute power from propulsion to the rail gun. Need to go faster? ramp up the generators to 110% and cut off primary power to secondary systems. Yep it can do that. from the control room, which looks more like nasa mission control than the helm of a bridge.
I actually support the zumwalt. not because it is an awesome ship. but because it is using new technology and new concepts like being totally electric. You do have to push boundaries.
now the real waste is the F-35. To slow and easily out maneuvered in close air combat. BVR stealth is useless in the Close air support role, etc. An upgrade to the F-16 is needed, but they tacked on too much. For the $400 billion we have currently spent the Navy could have built an entire carrier battlegroup.(Ford class carriers are $14 billion)
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The navy has been playing this game where it builds a large ship and call it something smaller, because Congress is willing to build small-sounding ships without checking to see that they're actually small. The Zumwalt, at 14.5k tons, is more than half again as big as Tico-class cruisers at 9.6k tons. "Oh my God, that new destroyer is expensive," say critics. Well, yeah, because by displacement it's really not a destroyer; it's a cruiser. Maybe even a heavy cruiser.