Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke/Zumwalt discussion thread.

[Waylander]

Well, if you want to take away the 127mm guns and Phalanx CIWS systems the only close range defense of your cruisers and destroyers are a couple of 25mm ACs and some .50cals.

That means they are fighting it out with small combatants on short distances on an nearly even footing. Not desirable in a number of situations. Remember that even drugged up Somali pirates attacked US cruisers of the horn of Africa. Not to talk of the miryiad of other countries that feature tons of small boats with everything from autocannons up to multiple rocket launchers.

And the coming advances in naval gun technologies like US, British or Italian programmes (Vulcano ammunition for example) means that guns are going to become even more flexible.

Being able to fire GPS guided rounds, base bleed rounds or rounds with an IR seeker will in many situations much more usefull than some more VLS tubes.

Building the Flight III Burkes without a modern gun system would result in the 57mm guns on the LCS being the biggest and only guns in the USN. That would be ridicilous for a country which has a Marine Corps which is bigger than some countries normal armies...

 

[gf0012-aust]

Well, if you want to take away the 127mm guns and Phalanx CIWS systems the only close range defense of your cruisers and destroyers are a couple of 25mm ACs and some .50cals.

That means they are fighting it out with small combatants on short distances on an nearly even footing. Not desirable in a number of situations. Remember that even drugged up Somali pirates attacked US cruisers of the horn of Africa. Not to talk of the miryiad of other countries that feature tons of small boats with everything from autocannons up to multiple rocket launchers.

absolutely,

apart from the fact that removing guns would completely bugger up some of the necessary SOPs in place to deal with standoff threats in harbour (all redone after the USS Cole) - guns provide an effective AAW and ACM capability - new software advances make them highly effective - and much more useful in a number of tactical vignettes. there;s a reason why they reprogrammed the Phalanx in depressed mode..

an all missile ship is not something I'd like to be on....

 

[Juramentado]

absolutely,

apart from the fact that removing guns would completely bugger up some of the necessary SOPs in place to deal with standoff threats in harbour (all redone after the USS Cole) - guns provide an effective AAW and ACM capability - new software advances make them highly effective - and much more useful in a number of tactical vignettes. there;s a reason why they reprogrammed the Phalanx in depressed mode..

an all missile ship is not something I'd like to be on....

Both Task Force Hip Pocket (the tactical commission that rewrote the book on Force Protection/AT measures following the USS Cole incident) and the NDIA Phase I - III studies on behalf of N86 Office of the CNO concluded the most effective kinetic measures for ship defense against small craft is high-RoF small caliber stabilized guns no larger than 25mm-30mm.

Comments about removing guns from surface combatants harken back to the heady days pre-Vietnam when the missile mafia managed to get guns suppressed from front-line US fighters. We all know how that ended.

Manned guns are the most reliable weapon you have aboard. They respond immediately to commands. They can't be spoofed electronically or visually since the engagement is usally LoS - they will keep shooting until they have run out of ammo, the gun fails or they themselves are shot away.

 

[F-15 Eagle]

Building the Flight III Burkes without a modern gun system would result in the 57mm guns on the LCS being the biggest and only guns in the USN. That would be ridicilous for a country which has a Marine Corps which is bigger than some countries normal armies...

They are not building gun less Burkes, the Flight III will still have a 5in gun like all the rest and with at least one CIWs.

But missiles can take out targets well before enemy ships and aircraft get into range though. Plus the USN does not really do shore bombardment anymore. And if they do thats what DDG-1000 is for.

 

[Bonza]

They are not building gun less Burkes, the Flight III will still have a 5in gun like all the rest and with at least one CIWs.

What... he clearly wasn't saying they were being built without guns, he was responding to your contention where you said guns on ships are meaningless:

Two 5in guns means nothing to me, in fact guns on ships are meaningless IMHO, they should replace guns with more VLS. But I have nothing to support this.

 

[Kilo 2-3]

But missiles can take out targets well before enemy ships and aircraft get into range though. Plus the USN does not really do shore bombardment anymore. And if they do thats what DDG-1000 is for.

Eagle, according to this (DDG 1000 Program Will End At Two Ships - Defense News), the Pentagon only plans to build two Zumwalts. Should a global crisis come up, those low numbers don't guarantee that a DDG-1000 is going to be close enough should an urgent naval gunfire support mission be called for.

As for the issue of not doing shore bombardment, I'd argue that shore bombardment is very much a part of their current mission, whether the shore targets are engaged with missiles (SSGNs or VLS-equipped surface ships), aircraft, or guns.

Besides, most modern 3- and 5-inchers in service are DP, which gives gives the air defense capability of the ship a slight boost (although arguably not as much as a covey of ESSMs or RAMs would).

 

[gf0012-aust]

But missiles can take out targets well before enemy ships and aircraft get into range though. Plus the USN does not really do shore bombardment anymore. And if they do thats what DDG-1000 is for.

You could carry 80-90 rounds in the same space as a VLS missile.

You cannot use missiles everywhere, and in the case of GW1, GW2, AF Peninsular, guns were far more useful than missiles. Guns allow barrage creeping, they allow relative immediacy of target tracking.

in the case of vessel protection requirements for US vessels standing off in "at risk" ports (which the do for safety reasons as a legacy of the USS Cole attack) - missiles are useless.

these vessels have companion systems for a reason.

 

[IronsightSniper]

I am curious if anybody has any official numbers or unofficial(forum nerd guesstimates) of the Antenna height of the AN/SPY-1 on either or both classes of ships. Thanks in advance.

 

[Waylander]

@F-15 Eagle
Others already covered why I brought up the Burkes Flight III.

You may want to look up what a 127mm/64 lightweight gun with Vulcano rounds is going to achieve.
Reaching out at more than 100km with either dumb, GPS guided or IR-homing rounds is impressive.
What kind of missile system can offer you that with the same rate of fire and for the same price. With the NLOS-M desaster fresh in mind I can't think of any missile with such specs.

And as far as I know the USN doesn't only operates right out in the ocean where fighting distances are always 300+ km.

Such a gun system is usefull in a number of possible operations and not only for dumb shelling of some coastline.

 

[Juramentado]

They are not building gun less Burkes, the Flight III will still have a 5in gun like all the rest and with at least one CIWs.

But missiles can take out targets well before enemy ships and aircraft get into range though. Plus the USN does not really do shore bombardment anymore. And if they do thats what DDG-1000 is for.

DDG-1000 was stopped after two hulls projected because the strategic outlook for force structure requirements CHANGED. There is STILL a gap existing for a future Naval Gunfire Support model. The Marines still consider it to be a key capability for forced entries.

Missiles can't help you when you're anchored in a crowded foreign port full of civvy hulls and need to stand self-protection watches. Missiles can't help you when you're underway in a major shipping channel and you can't tell the sheep from the wolves until they break out of the pack and are inside your minimum launch range before you can even designate him.

There is no "magical" weapon that solves all possible scenarios at all ranges and altitudes. This is why layered defense are implemented on self-ship protection measures.

 

[F-15 Eagle]

DDG-1000 was stopped after two hulls projected because the strategic outlook for force structure requirements CHANGED. There is STILL a gap existing for a future Naval Gunfire Support model. The Marines still consider it to be a key capability for forced entries.

Missiles can't help you when you're anchored in a crowded foreign port full of civvy hulls and need to stand self-protection watches. Missiles can't help you when you're underway in a major shipping channel and you can't tell the sheep from the wolves until they break out of the pack and are inside your minimum launch range before you can even designate him.

There is no "magical" weapon that solves all possible scenarios at all ranges and altitudes. This is why layered defense are implemented on self-ship protection measures.

They are building 3 DDG-1000 ships not two....hopefully those don't get canceled.

But I agree with what you said it makes me wonder if they should build a modern navel battleship for the NGFS.

 

[Belesari]

They are building 3 DDG-1000 ships not two....hopefully those don't get canceled.

But I agree with what you said it makes me wonder if they should build a modern navel battleship for the NGFS.

Last i heard it was 2 are a definate build the third is doubtful and only if authorized.

In my opinion they should be canceled and there technology that is useful incorperated into the next gen DDGM Like the FIII burkes or whatever.

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Maybe build a new gun support ship. Say 3 to 4 maybe 5 tops. However it would be more like a heavy cruiser like the Des Moines class.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Des_Moines_class_cruiser"]Des Moines class cruiser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:USS_Des_Moines_CA-134.jpg" class="image"><img alt="USS Des Moines CA-134.jpg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/USS_Des_Moines_CA-134.jpg/300px-USS_Des_Moines_CA-134.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/f/f4/USS_Des_Moines_CA-134.jpg/300px-USS_Des_Moines_CA-134.jpg[/ame]

Wait for the railguns for the next battleship class.

Design it for close in fighting good layered close range AA weapons. Phalanx, RAM, etc.

However did they ever work out all the problems with the new gun system i remember hearing they were having a problem figureing out how to resupply the guns at sea.

 

[AegisFC]

They are building 3 DDG-1000 ships not two....hopefully those don't get canceled.

But I agree with what you said it makes me wonder if they should build a modern navel battleship for the NGFS.

That is what DD(X) (now known as DDG-1000) was supposed to be. A low cost general purpose destroyer with a specialization in NGFS.

There is funding for 2 ships and 2 ships have been named.