"These slower, thin-skinned vessels are to be equipped with an unproven Advanced Gun System designed to fire rounds weighing only 63 pounds but costing nearly $100,000 each. "
Don't know about the price, but the DDG-1000's AGS throws the LRLAP, a 250 lb munition with a 25 lb charge that is guided up to 90 nm to a precise kill 1 sq meter. Cyclic rate of 6 rnd per minute...That beats the reach and precision of a 16 inch at only 26 miles.
But I do love the Iowa!
"Don't know about the price, but the DDG-1000's AGS throws the LRLAP, a 250 lb munition with a 25 lb charge that is guided up to 90 nm to a precise kill 1 sq meter. Cyclic rate of 6 rnd per minute...That beats the reach and precision of a 16 inch at only 26 miles"
It does not, however, beat the volume of fire from an IOWA class. Not even remotely close.
"the DDG-1000's AGS throws the LRLAP, a 250 lb munition with a 25 lb charge that is guided up to 90 nm to a precise kill 1 sq meter. Cyclic rate of 6 rnd per minute"
Updating the Fire Control systems with something resembling Crusader...
The possibilities for such a platform are ENDLESS, especially with modern artillery improvements, but if we kill the platform, we'll NEVER know what the potential could have been, will we??
FACE IT, in the Modern America we have today, projects of the is size and scale simply are not possible anymore. Besides the cost, the politics would be a nightmare.
Just look at what's happened with a bridge in Aalska that could have opened up an entire REGION to development, while a highway INTERCHANGE in Indiana gets a 2 BILLION dollar redo, and no one whines...
Bottom line: If they kill it, it's gone FOREVER...
That's cute ... and useful, but the Iowa throws a VOLKSWAGON of explosives 25 miles and usually as accuarately as a long range sniper.
BB's are grid square killers ... nothing else even comes close.