Building a new Navy

Washington Times ^ | June 13, 2005 | Charles S. Hamilton

[AFPhys]

"... the next-generation destroyer, DD(X), with its two fully automated 155mm guns capable of firing 10 Global Positioning System-guided rounds per minute up to 83 nautical miles from an expandable 920-round magazine..."

Passionate advocates of returning our Nation's two battleships to service maintain that these two ships could be brought back into service quickly, safely and economically to meet Marine Corps requirements for long-range, precise firepower ashore...we should not confuse our fondness for those ships with an assumption of their appropriateness for the task at hand.

...If reactivated, the battleships would not be able to fire munitions "as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of only three minutes."...The current range of an unguided 16-inch round is only 20 nautical miles...half the distance the Navy has fired the latest generations of smart rounds for our new naval guns. The notion that super long-range 16-inch gun rounds are within our grasp is illusory.

...today's battlefields, particularly the densely populated urban jungles in which our Marines and Soldiers currently fight, it would be folly to assume that a battlefield commander would employ a high-yield "dumb" weapon at long ranges without the utmost confidence that it would not inflict massive collateral damage.

...To provide sustained fire for major combat operations, DD(X) can employ imaginative new feature called an unlimited magazine...the ship can simultaneously conduct fire missions while being resupplied...much like a clip is used to reload a semi-automatic handgun or rifle.

...DD(X) will use a devastating new tactic called "multiple simultaneously round impact"...Each round steers to precise aim points, landing in a particular pattern at the same time in a no-notice, lethal salvo that catches targets unaware and unprepared from the very first shot...DD(X) will deliver...four times the range and...20 times the accuracy of a battleship.

[Sam Cree]

What do you make of this thing? I think she is wonderful looking. OTOH, I'm not convinced of the advisabiliy of such a tall superstructure.

[Jeff Head]

IMHO, that will not nearly be enough particularly with large nation states like China rapidly building to challenge us in the future.

[Tallguy]

And a 155mm shell compared to a 16" shell is again, nothing.

I don't know if you caught the part about the 155 gun having the ability to have multiple rounds impact on target simultaneously. With this capability, the 155 would have more destructive power than a single 16" gun. I would exclude certain 'hardened' bunkers from that statement, but you'll probably need an aircraft for that anyway...

[TomasUSMC]

Is it talking about firing both guns simultaneously or holding some rounds in altitude or with a higher angle or what? I stll think we need fire and movement, and in this case, 40 knots is not fast enough for me, not when a missile coming to hit that ship is moving at 10 times faster speeds or more.

I think we need Howard Hughes' vision back. Shoot, you could probably mount a couple of those guns on the Spruce Goose. hehehe Semper Fi

[FreeAtlanta]

Oh, sorry, that is Paul Allen's little boat.

[SamAdams76]

Whatever the cost, let's build a hundred of them - just for starters. Damn the torpoedoes, full speed ahead. You can never spend too much on the military. If we have to cut costs, get rid of some layers of government and cut out some of those useless social programs that only end up reinforcing and creating more poverty.

The military is about the only area of government where we get a bang for our buck.

[68skylark]

They still have some work to do on the aesthetics of that thing. But other than that it looks one hell of a weapon system -- I'm glad the designers are on our side!

[PAR35]

The DD(X) wouldn't be particularly effective in that role anyway. It is basically a shore bombardment vessel, although some of the vertical launch cells could be used for anti-ship or anti-aircraft weapons, at a cost to its primary role.

My suggestion would be to pull off one of the turrets from a BB, and pack that space with vertical launch tubes, and replace the secondary weapons with the new 155s.

[Gorjus]

155 gun having the ability to have multiple rounds impact on target simultaneously. With this capability, the 155 would have more destructive power than a single 16" gun.

Actually, no. It would take 10 155mm rounds (about 260 lbs each) to match 1 16-in round (2700 lbs each). More than that, for penetration, you can never match the 16-in shell because you'd end up with solid steel (or tungsten, DU, whatever) before you can match the case thickness of the 16-in shell). I know you (wisely) excluded hardened bunkers in your comment, but as soon as you exclude a class of targerts, potential adversaries start making lots of that class of target.

The RAdm who posted the opinion article in the Washington Times wants a new ship - and the DDG(x) would be a great ship to have. But the technology to boost the range, and to make guided projectiles, applies to larger shells at least as well as to smaller ones. The RAdm doesn't want any competition for his new baby.

We lost over 100 planes trying to take down and keep down the 'Dragon's Jaw' (Thanh Hoa) bridge in Viet Nam, and it was well within the range of a battleship firing from off the shoreline. IF the target is within range, the safest, most cost-effective, and most lethal way to take it out is with guns. That might seem like a harsh limitation, but when you realize that something like 70% of the world's population is within 200 miles of sea water, there's a very worthwhile array of targets to consider.

And one thing DDG(x) has to worry about that would not threaten the battleships is counter-battery fire. That's not a trivial problem - especially when you include things like Silkworms in the counterbattery threat.

They won't bring back the battleships because of staffing (as another poster has noted), but if people were no object, and you sat down to design the most effective new ship for a whole host of littoral missions, you'd end up with something very like a battleship, not a destroyer with a new ammunition technology on a slightly oversized (6.1-in vs traditional 5-in) gun.

[Gorjus]

Is it talking about firing both guns simultaneously . . or what?

This is the same technique used on the M109 howitzer, plus the cancelled 'Crusader'. You fire (typically) three rounds with three different powder charges so that one takes a high (long time-of-flight) trajectory, one takes a medium, and one takes a low, fast trajectory. They all end up on target at the same time. Of course, this requires that you can fire three rounds in rapid succession, changing barrel elevation in between. However, you could do the same thing with the three guns in a single turret on an Iowa class, and they have three turrets. Nine tons of simultaneous impact (versus one ton, on the DDG(x), even using both guns) would be pretty dramatic.

(Note: They actually delay the center round in an Iowa full-turret firing so that the overlapping shock waves don't degrade the accuracy - but the delay is something less than a tenth of a second, which still counts for pretty close to simultaneous in my book.)

[MosesKnows]

The notion that super long-range 16-inch gun rounds are within our grasp is illusory.

All very doable; but why?

[Paleo Conservative]

I think someone in the Navy doesn't want the BB's back under any circumstance.

They're too labor intensive. They were designed with much less automation than a modern ship would have.

[MosesKnows]

capable of firing 10 Global Positioning System-guided rounds per minute

These comes in different sizes. The larger size is called a cruise missle.

[Tallguy]

Is it talking about firing both guns simultaneously or holding some rounds in altitude or with a higher angle or what?

As I understand it, both. The 155 would have some of the capability that was planned into the Army's Crusader SP that the SecDef cancelled. You'd be rapidly firing at different elevations with shells calculated to arrive on target simultaneously.

Having naval artillery on-call is nice, but it complicates as much as it solves. If there's a stack of F/A-18's orbiting the area, somebody is going to have to sort-out who gets targeted with what. My understanding is that artillery has 'right of way' so the airspace will have to be clear before the guns can open up. The only time that I see this being useful is when there's no air.

[MosesKnows]

The sheer cost means that the navy is not going to be able to afford enough of them to get the job done.

There is an important element missing in the discussions of cost. The primary objective of the new ships programs is to dramatically reduce crew size. This dramatically reduces the ship's life time cost. It is expected that the newer, more costly, technologies will allow the Navy to achieve its objective.

[PAR35]

s is to dramatically reduce crew size. This dramatically reduces the ship's life time cost.

Except that the crew will be more highly qualified and highly paid. You could pay for a lot of 1905 vintage coal shovelers for what you are going to have to pay one guy to watch the computers controlling the electric drives on a DD(X).