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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."

10 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. Perspective by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To compare, NASA s 2011 budget was 18 billion. Compare this to one project for one branch of the military, not counting ongoing ops.

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    1. Re:Perspective by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It surely does. Let me list some with government run and/or heavily regulated healthcare that run better than ours.

      UK (although quickly changing), Canada, Japan, Sweeden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland....

      The bottom line is that healthcare deals with pain, disease and death. There will always be a very vocal group that is unhappy with the current state of things because they or their loved ones are sick or dying despite best efforts. The least we can do is not have private corporations or government stick their hands so far in the pockets of those affected as to bankrupt them and ruin their lives.

      Case in point. My grand mother recently had a stroke. I am her power of attorney, and signing papers for her. She is paralyzed and unable to speak. After Medicare, the skilled nursing facility is billing ME over $4000 a month. If needed I can likely get that debt reassigned to her, but that will also cost in time and legal fees and probably still leave a stain on my credit. I do not have $4000 a month. I make roughly 3k per month. Extra is reinvested in a business I am starting as my retirement vehicle (as an ex felon with 10 years in I have no savings or safety net). Medicaid denied covering her care for two very stupid reasons. 1. No balances on provided bank statements (untrue), and an unclaimed life insurance policy. I did not know of the policy, and found no paperwork on it. My grandmother cannot speak, and I asked the social services office to inform me of any assets they found that I was unaware of. They did not (even though the caseworker said she would).

      Where in any sane world dose this make sense? Would it not make more sense to say that these absolutely normal parts of life such as illness and injury are covered by the payments you made earlier? And before you say, she could have saved or prepared for this eventuality, not everyone is financially or mentally capable to do so, and not all illness and injury is foreseeable.

      So yes, my argument does follow. We have a failed system. Others work better even if not perfect. Even our new system (obamacare) was corrupted from the start by 'free market' interests. To act like the magical hand of the market will fix it is like relying on the tooth fairy for your retirement fund.

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

    Captain James Kirk

  3. Re:Crazy. Naval swarm warfare. by paiute · · Score: 5, Funny

    Admiral, are you prepared to fight a hundred duck-size destroyers or one destroyer-size duck?

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  4. Re:one ugly ship by sexconker · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's 600 feet long, so it would only cost $3000 at Subway. Unless you add guac. Guac is extra.

  5. Re:Boondoggle and can it combat other ships? by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Repurposing missiles as ship killers? You have heard the term "guided missile cruiser", haven't you? The first purpose built guided missile cruisers were put in service in the early 80s, and could sink ships at 10x the range the big guns on the New Jersey could hit. The Harpoon anti-ship missile went into service in the 70s.

    Now I understand the big criticism of the Zumwalt is that it has limited anti-ship capability; but it's supposed to be a destroyer. Destroyers traditionally play mainly anti-submarine and anti-aircraft roles, and in the US Navy mount modest 5" guns for anti-ship use. The Zumwalt's gus are actually 6.1 inches and have considerably longer range -- if they work as advertised. The idea of making it more potent in the anti-ship role would fall into the F35 trap: building cost-is-no-objecdt, do-everything wonder-weapons.

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  6. Re:Defense systems? by anzha · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  7. Re:Boondoggle and can it combat other ships? by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ships really are not good at killing other ships, planes and submarines are better. Ships are best to house huge artillery to bombard inland targets with, or as cargo/carrier vessels.

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  8. 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.

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  9. 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.