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Largest Destroyer Built For Navy Headed To Sea For Testing (ap.org)

Posted by samzenpus on from the big-boat dept.

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."

6 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Catch the captain's name? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Captain James Kirk

  2. Crazy. Naval swarm warfare. by Etherwalk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  3. Re:Perspective by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  4. Tumblehome is a poor French joke by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re: Tumblehome is a poor French joke by khallow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As I understand it, the idea is that you have an unstable control situation where multiple opposing forces pull the vehicle away, relatively quickly, from an equilibrium point., but these forces pull the vehicle towards useful directions. The active control is needed to stabilize this equilibrium point and help keep the vehicle out of bad instability.

      So for example, it allows fighter jets to have more aggressive and responsive maneuvering because the system readily veers from equilibrium in the desired way.

      The problem here is that rollover is not in a desirable direction. In addition to the capsizing threat, it makes turning more difficult as well as providing less stability for firing weapons perpendicular to the ship's axis (firing stability apparently is the reason for the "wave piercing" hull). Sure, one can adjust for this in other ways, particularly via an active control system, but ultimately, it's a straight trade off of radar stealth for somewhat worse maneuverability and handling.

  5. A rather large "destroyer" by tsotha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.