Slashdot Mirror
Long-Range Projectiles For Navy's Newest Ship Too Expensive To Shoot (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) is the U.S. Navy's latest warship, commissioned just last month -- and it comes with the biggest guns the Navy has deployed since the twilight of the battleships. But it turns out the Zumwalt's guns won't be getting much of a workout any time soon, aside from acceptance testing. That's because the special projectiles they were intended to fire are so expensive that the Navy has canceled its order. As [Ars] described [Zumwalt's Advanced Gun System (AGS)] in a story two years ago: "The automated AGS can fire 10 rocket-assisted, precision-guided projectiles per minute at targets over 100 miles away. Those projectiles use GPS and inertial guidance to improve the gun's accuracy to a 50 meter (164 feet) circle of probable error -- meaning that half of its GPS-guided shells will fall within that distance from the target." The projectile responsible for that accuracy -- something far too complex to just be called a "shell" or "bullet" -- is the Long Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP). Each projectile has precision guidance provided by internal global positioning and inertial sensors, and bursts of LRLAPs could in theory be fired over a minute following different ballistic trajectories that cause them to land all at the same time. Lockheed Martin won the competition to produce the LRLAPs, and the company described their capabilities thusly: "155mm LRLAP provides single strike lethality against a wide range of targets, with three times the lethality of traditional 5-inch naval ballistic rounds -- and because it is guided, fewer rounds can produce similar or more lethal effects at less cost. LRLAP has the capability to guide multiple rounds launched from the same gun to strike single or multiple targets simultaneously, maximizing lethal effects." The "less cost" part, however, turned out to be a pipe dream. With the reduction of the Zumwalt class to a total of three ships, the corresponding reduction in requirements for LRLAP production raised the production costs just as the price of the ships they would be deployed to soared. Defense News reports that the Navy is canceling production of the LRLAP because of an $800,000-per-shot price tag -- more than 10 times the original projected cost.
They have to be expensive, they are made of the very VERY finest pork!
Reminiscent of the remark made regarding firing $1 million cruise missiles at Afghanistan in 1998. "I can't think of anything in Afghanistan worth $1 million".
I propose that the ships should be financial organizations rather than military ones. For example, to fund the operations and perhaps to turn profitable even the smart missiles could pick and deliver goods to nearby customers before striking the targets.
All the scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses not trained, all the people that didn't get help when they needed it, all the tax money not spent on roads, education, bridges and hospitals, everyone made a willing and needed sacrifice so that the Navy could use that money developing a weapon system that is too expensive to use because that saves money.
It makes perfect sense.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
We can save a lot of money if we stop with these expensive weapons systems and just start killing our enemies by throwing heavy bags of money at them.
I'd say this all is classic over-engineering. As with the F35 JSF, Airbus A400M and Jaeger90 ... errrm, sorry, "Eurofighter". These projects have been running over time and budget for *decades* (you may guess when the Jaeger90 was supposed to enter service ...) and are just about outdated by drones and new types of asymmetric warfare when they'll finally will be finished.
Meanwhile the russians are gradually updating their Mig29s and Sukolevs with junkyard scraps or something and can actually fly. Like, they have pilots trained on them that can strap in and take off in 3.5 Minutes flat.
If I were king of the US i'd cancel these projects inmediately and do a maintainable iteration of existing aircraft.
Upgrade/iterate the F15, F16 and A10, get some new upgraded missiles and stuff and built 700 of each and get some pilots to learn to fly them.
This new warship is also not much more than some PR move/dick measuring contest of the US Navy vis-a-vis the other forces.
Insanely expensive and not really of any pivotal value in a conflict I would guess. Not much different than in WW1.
New-toy-cash would be way better invested in stealth drones or something.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
A few things, after 5 minutes of Googling, in no particular order:
1) That max range was 100 km, not 100 miles; so, 53 miles. It's only been tested to 83km/45mi. And that's just the "let's see how far it will go" test.
2) Yeah, it's 155mm, but not compatible with any other 155mm munitions.
3) The elevation is 70 degrees, so it's really a guided missile launcher, not a "gun".
4) There's so much guidance and propulsion crap onboard, there's hardly any (24 lbs) room for the High Explosive for the warhead.
5) Most of the lethality estimates involve using the Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact theory. So the plan is to have half-a-dozen rounds land on target, at the same time. Good luck with that.
6) So, $80,000 per shot was the pie-in-the-sky target cost??? From a glorified cannon?
Don't worry - the UK are busy building aircraft carriers without any jets. So perhaps if you bring the jets the UK can provide some ammunition and Canada can provide the fuel? Clearly the reason recent conflicts have required coalitions is so each government's incompetence can be cancelled out.
how much of that $800K/shell is from sunk costs like R&D that has already been spent.
They expected that the shells would be reasonably cheap when produced for 60 ships, but that same startup cost now is only being spread across 3 ships because the others have been canceled.
That doesn't make the production costs of individual shells _that_ much more expensive, just the overall program costs are split across far fewer shells, so the overall program costs per shell are much higher (even if the total cost of the program is less)
This is the same stupid logic that is applied any time they reduce production of something and then want to reduce it more because if they cancel 90% of a production run, the remaining 10% that are produced still are charged with the full R&D (including testing) budget, they actually only save 5-10% of the overall program costs. But they then act surprised that the remaining 10% now 'cost' 10x as much as before.
The B-2, and F-22 also suffered from this, if they had been built to the original quantities, the 'cost' of each plane would be 1/10 the 'cost' that they are listed at now.
For these shells, what is the cost to finish production from this point, forget about the money that's already been spent on the program, canceling the program doesn't make that money re-appear. I guarantee that it doesn't cost $800K to produce each shell once they are being manufactured.
David Lang
The Navy originally projected that they would buy thousands of rounds (to outfit 28 ships). Then they cut the order because they decided to only make 3 ships.
Well, you have a large fixed development cost.
The "per missile" cost = (DevCost + RealPerMissileCost)/N
naturally, when N goes down by a factor of 10, then the "per missile" cost will go up by nearly a factor of 10.
that just tells you that you can't look at it as a "per missile" cost.
This sounds like a complete screw up from the Navy; not at all clear how much of a screw up by the contractor.
For what we're spending, we could simply outbid any potential enemy for their own soldiers' services.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
We have other 155mm artillery, such as the M284 (commonly mounted on a M109 Paladin chassis). Current versions of the Paladin have capabilities eerily similar to the desired capabilities of the Zumwalt's guns.
So, how exactly did these geniuses develop what appears to be the same gun, with the same capabilities, but somehow make it incompatibly different?
See that "Preview" button?
Social Security and the majority of Medicare are paid for by a tax specifically for that purpose, which congress does everything in their power to use on everything else they can.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
...Dwight Eisenhower
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Only 50 Meters accuracy for this expensive crap?
Since cheap drones could send guided missiles through a tiny the bathroom window of a bunker 10 years ago, this seems a bit poor.
For a projectile aimed at something 100 miles away, it's going to be very difficult to tell, in real time, whether you've hit the target or not. The best you could do would be to have a drone nearby to report back. But if you can operate a drone in theatre, why not use that to fire a missile of its own?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
And if any of the senators survive, the enemy will gladly accept a trade.
"We'll give you three of our leaders and lay down arms if only you take this ****** back!"