US Navy DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) has been moving through the process since it arrived in San Diego in 2016.

Ha...yea right. This ship, Zumwalt, has not been to sea only once since December 2016. That was this past September. Nearly two years of inactivity. Pitiful & embarrassing. The USN needs to get these ships fully operational. Period.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
I am starting to be reminded of the Yamato class battle ships of the IJN. Which were supposed to be ready but until the battle of the Philippines were never used as either she didn't have the shells for ground attack, was to deep a draft or consumed to much fuel.
The Zimwalt class has the potential to be a good combatant but it seems constantly sabotaged.
The AGS gun might have been a great gun but when the class was cut from 32 ships to 3 what was the point? The result they only have enough 155mm ammo for one ship to be armed once, and only for ground attack.
The Mk57 has the capacity to carry any existing VLS missile but because there are only three of the class why bother with the integration.
She was supposed to be for ground attack from the latorals so why add ABM?
The composite super structure is expensive so only the first two get it the Johnson gets a steel deck housing it's cheaper. Since the class is so rare why bother with the stealth?

When the Navy had the Sea Wolf slashed they turned about and created the highly successful Virgina class. I wish those guys that took the time and came up with that, that could take the failure shake it off and turn about a weapon were in the Zimwalt leadership because the more this goes on the more I feel like this is a bad joke.
 
... the more this goes on the more I feel like this is a bad joke.
you're faster than with LCSs
Oct 28, 2018
LOL keep listening to Analysts selling "growing pains" to you, I'm telling you the LCS Program is botched

some craft would have to founder before you'd get suspicious (not sure here)
but the Zumwalt class is just three game-changers, while LCSs: 35 so far
Sep 18, 2018
now
Congress to buy 3 more LCS than the Navy needs, but gut funding for sensors that make them valuable
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:


"Congress loves buying
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, but when it comes to the packages of sensors and systems that make the ships useful, lawmakers have been less enthusiastic.


In the
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that just left the conference committee, lawmakers have funded a 33rd, 34th and 35th littoral combat ship, three more than the 32-ship requirement set by the Navy. But when it comes to the mission modules destined to make each ship either a mine sweeper, submarine hunter or small surface combatant, that funding has been slashed."

and I quit
and FFG(X) is vapor according to me Oct 30, 2018
...


oh and for the SDF record, I posted
Jul 19, 2018
the USN may cancel FFG(X),
before the first indication appeared inside
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
With 35 units built or bought conventional weapons and upgrades in the works those ships actually occasionally on operations those are to some degree working.
And despite your pessimistic view of the FFG (X) it's part of that future. Even if the FFG(X) is a block 2 LCS build.
Basically the Navy seems to have an idea of where they are going with them.

With DDG1000, DDG1001 and soon DDG1002 they are all basically buildings at Naval bases.
There is no plan thanks to the AGS there is an impasse, and the Navy doesn't seem to have a clue of what to do. If they keep the gun but don't buy ammo then the ship might as well be Trojan horse replica.

If tomorrow morning bright and early in the Pentagon press room some one announces that the Navy will remove one of the AGS from each of the three ships and replace them with a 5" Mk45 gun in a stealthy turret. Then the Navy has shown that it has a decision. It has a future it has a program a next step the ship will be used in some way. But that hasn't happened.
We know the biggest issues of the ship and the one that seems to keep it from joining the actual fleet. It was built around this gun. The AGS hell two of the damned things. But they don't have ammo. With no ammo why deploy? You have pointed out over and over that they only put in 80 VLS cells. For a modern destroyer that's small. As they sit today the armament of the Zimwalt class is what?
Because of the issues with the AGS all they have is 2x Bushmaster 30mm guns
And 80 VLS missiles.
For a ship that size that's a major let down.
Until they pass that impasse.
Until they make a choice and fix that main gun The ships might as well be sent for mothballs.

They there options as I see it are.

Buy compatible ammo for the AGS like say the BAE 155mm VOLCANO that was proposed in a trade show earlier this year.

Replace one or both guns with a more conventional gun system like the 5" Naval. It may seem odd, why leave one? Because they can later buy ammo or replace it with something better like a developmental weapon like a railgun down the line. As is it doesn't seem like rail guns are a option for a while. Or replace the other with VLS cells.

Replace both with a VLS system and repurpose the class.

Any one of these starts the works and will get the ship out of port and into the fleet, maybe not today but before the end of then next decade.

As it sits they seem to be playing coy and waiting for a option to emerge. The rail gun but unless they actually say "we are waiting for a railgun" it just seems to be clueless.

Zimwalt' s hull and systems are critical for the Navy down the line fire the next destroyer as the Navy it's self said it can't built a block IV Burke class. It's at the end of growth. The next step will need more power and a larger hull it will need stealth and advanced technology that's what Zimwalt class is.
 
...

Replace both with a VLS system and repurpose the class.

...
you might want to check the Pentagon's idea linked Dec 5, 2017
New Requirements for DDG-1000 Focus on Surface Strike
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and Dec 8, 2017
The Navy Is Changing Its Plans for its Dumbed-Down Zumwalts and Their Ammoless Guns
December 5, 2017
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and Jan 7, 2018
US Navy’s Most Advanced Destroyers to Get New Primary Anti-Ship Mission
December 14, 2017
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sounding like she could become the biggest surface raider since the Bismarck
[snort]
 
Last edited:

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
It was supposed to share parts of the radar with the Gerald Ford class carriers right? Are they still going to stick with the regular legacy AEGIS radar?
Other than the hull and perhaps the command room I think the program is a mess.
 
It was supposed to share parts of the radar with the Gerald Ford class carriers right? Are they still going to stick with the regular legacy AEGIS radar?
...
"Regarding the change to the ship’s design affecting its primary radar,
the DDG-1000 originally was to have been equipped with a dual-band radar (DBR)
consisting of the Raytheon-built X-band SPY-3 multifunction radar (MFR) and
the Lockheed-built S-band SPY-4 Volume Search Radar (VSR).
(Raytheon is the prime contractor for the overall DBR.) Both parts of the DBR
have been in development for the past several years. An attachment to the June 1, 2010,
letter stated that, as a result of the program’s restructuring,
the ship is now to be equipped with “an upgraded multifunction radar [MFR] and no volume search radar [VSR].”
The change eliminates the Lockheed-built S-band SPY-4 VSR from the ship’s design.
The ship might retain a space and weight reservation that would permit
the VSR to be backfitted to the ship at a later point."

Navy DDG-51and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs:
Background and Issues for Congress

Updated October 22, 2018
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
It was supposed to share parts of the radar with the Gerald Ford class carriers right? Are they still going to stick with the regular legacy AEGIS radar?
Other than the hull and perhaps the command room I think the program is a mess.
Also only the Ford and the Zimwalt class will have that radar. The JFK and Enterprise will both have the Enterprise Air Survalence radar.
Additionally the Block III Burke class will replace the AN/SPY 1 series radar found in the existing AEGIS system with the new AMDR AN/SPY 6 radar this is also for the future Large Surface Combatant.
 
Also only the Ford and the Zimwalt class will have that radar. ...
I don't mean to talk grammar here LOL but it's been known since 2010 the Zumwalt will NOT have a DBR,
only the Ford has had a DBR

Yesterday at 2:19 PM
"Regarding the change to the ship’s design affecting its primary radar,
the DDG-1000 originally was to have been equipped with a dual-band radar (DBR)
consisting of the Raytheon-built X-band SPY-3 multifunction radar (MFR) and
the Lockheed-built S-band SPY-4 Volume Search Radar (VSR).
(Raytheon is the prime contractor for the overall DBR.) Both parts of the DBR
have been in development for the past several years. An attachment to the June 1, 2010,
letter stated that, as a result of the program’s restructuring,
the ship is now to be equipped with “an upgraded multifunction radar [MFR] and no volume search radar [VSR].”
The change eliminates the Lockheed-built S-band SPY-4 VSR from the ship’s design.
The ship might retain a space and weight reservation that would permit
the VSR to be backfitted to the ship at a later point."

Navy DDG-51and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs:
Background and Issues for Congress

Updated October 22, 2018
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EDIT
by the way I've noticed in last pages you spelled Zumwalt as "Zimwalt"; is thas what a spell checker (LOL) does to you?
 
Last edited:

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Okay Jura... let me rephrase that
The Zumwalt ( it was spell check) was supposed to share a identical duel radar system made up of the AN/SPY 3 an X band and the AN/SPY 4 an S band with the Ford class.
However they removed the S Band. Leaving the AN/SPY 3 from the Zumwalt class but left it in the Ford. However the John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and Enterprise will use yet another radar the Enterprise Air Survalence radar And the Burke III will use yet another not the SPY 1 but the SPY 6.
 
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