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The $7 billion dollar warship being built to maintain American naval supremacy over China
The Daily Mail ^ | 12 April 2012

Posted on 04/12/2012 9:12:12 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki

The $7 billion dollar warship being built to maintain American naval supremacy over China in the 21st Century

One of the largest, most expensive and advanced warships ever commissioned for the U.S Navy is taking shape at Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.

Named the U.S.S Zumwalt, the $7 billion guided-missile destroyer is at the cutting edge of technology and now deemed vital for defence following President Obama's Asia-Pacific pivot.

Featuring a radical wave-piercing hull known as a 'tumblehome', the odd looking ship incorporates stealth technology that makes the 600-foot, 14,500 ton warship seem like a fishing vessel to enemy radar.

An artist rendering of the USS Zumwalt class destroyer which will be one of the more heavily armed and expensive ships in the U.S Navy

Fitted with diagonally launching missile tubes as opposed to traditional vertical tubes and carrying deck-guns that fire rocket propelled warheads 100 miles, the Zumwalt will be a formidable beast.

Even though it is the largest destroyer the U.S Navy has built in years it will have half the crew because of the extensive automation of systems on the ship.

With 32 ships originally envisioned for the class, that was lowered after a government review to 24, then to seven and eventually shot down to just three.

One of the reasons for this is the prohibitive cost of the Zumwalt class.

On paper each of the powerful vessels costs $3.8 billion a piece, but with research and development costs thrown in the full bill is nearer to $7 billion.

The 600-foot-long ships are so large and complicated to build that General Dynamics, who

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ddg1000; stealth; usn; zumwalt
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To: Minutemen
Yeah and with the well known excellent Chinese QUALITY (extreme sarcasm).

The insane overrating of this crappy nation China has been going on for longtime....

61 posted on 04/13/2012 7:17:56 AM PDT by jveritas (God bless our brave troops)
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To: sukhoi-30mki

That’s about 20 or so feet longer than a Tico, but it’s still a DDG, eh?


62 posted on 04/13/2012 8:03:32 AM PDT by tarawa
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Seven billion dollars better NOT be a DDG. It better be a BBNG or something like that!

Darn thing better be Super Dreadnaught!


63 posted on 04/13/2012 8:11:27 AM PDT by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: New Jersey Realist

Bath is definitely blue collar Maine.


64 posted on 04/13/2012 9:21:07 AM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Jeff Head
It looks like the government finally found a use for all those empty Chinese shipping containers.


65 posted on 04/13/2012 4:26:38 PM PDT by Reeses
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To: Recon Dad; Caulkhead; Jeff Head; sukhoi-30mki
ship incorporates stealth technology that makes the 600-foot, 14,500 ton warship seem like a fishing vessel to enemy radar. ..you better send this ship out with a bunch of fishing boats otherwise all you have to do is look for a radar signature the size of a fishing boat.

Or simply look for a fishing boat that is throwing off more electronic emissions through it's radar searches than a third of Singapore. Once that X-band ESA starts throwing off juice it will be quite difficult to pass that off as some sun-and-salt scarred fisherman's skiff trying to nab some tuna.

Now, back in 2007 the following was said during a congress discussion on the development of a new cruiser based on the stealthy Zummwalt hull: 'The anti-missile cruiser also wouldn’t require the high level of stealth provided by the Zumwalt’s tumblehome hull, analysts said, since the ship would be radiating its radars to search for missiles. Returning to a more conventional, flared-bow hull form would free designers from worries about overloading the untried tumblehome hull.'

So, since the Zummy has a pretty nice X-band radar, and using the radar means that it would be detected (this is not some small aircraft radar that can use LPI), and looking at what was said, does this mean the Zummy will not be using any active sensors and depending only on passive and/or third party sensors, switching it's big @$$ radar only when necessary? And if that's the case, does it mean if something (say an actual fishing boat with a Klub missile hidden in it that is in a fleet of other fishing boats 30 miles away from the Zummy) would have a chance, no matter how small, of taking out a billion dollar boat?

Rhetoric question, but it does seem that the whole 'stealthy' aspect that makes it seem like some innocent fishing boat does not make sense if it is radiating like a freakin' Death-Star.

66 posted on 04/13/2012 5:45:43 PM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: mylife

RR gas turbines burning what? Jet fuel? A giant step backwards, in my opinion.


67 posted on 04/13/2012 6:52:59 PM PDT by Tucker39 ( Psa 68:19Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits; even the God of our salvation.KJV)
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To: Sea Parrot

“....cutting edge of technology....?” Running two gas turbines to generate power? How do you disguise THAT noise and make it “sound like a small fishing boat?” Sounds more like a crock, to me.


68 posted on 04/13/2012 6:57:52 PM PDT by Tucker39 ( Psa 68:19Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits; even the God of our salvation.KJV)
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To: Little Ray; tarawa

The Zummwalts are almost as heavy as battleships from a century ago, or heavy cruisers from World War 2.


69 posted on 04/16/2012 12:08:36 AM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: rmlew

well, the USS Texas from 1914 displaced 27000 tons, while the Zumwalt class should be about 14000 tons.


70 posted on 04/16/2012 6:14:24 AM PDT by tarawa
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To: tarawa
well, the USS Texas from 1914 displaced 27000 tons, while the Zumwalt class should be about 14000 tons.
I was thinking of the South Carolina class battleships, our first dreadnaughts, which displaced 16,000 tons. The older Mississippi class battleships weighed in at 13,000 tons.
71 posted on 04/16/2012 10:33:30 AM PDT by rmlew ("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
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To: Jeff Head

Looks a bit tippy Jeef


72 posted on 05/22/2012 10:28:57 AM PDT by STD ([You must help] people in the communityÂ…feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless)
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To: octex; STD
This must be refering to the complete system cost of all three vessels.

The Pentagon awarded a fixed-price contract to General Dynamics to build these three destroyers, replacing a cost-plus-fee contract that had been awarded to Northrop Grumman. The first DDG-1000 destroyer is slated to cost $3.5 billion (and it is well over 60% complete) see my DDG 1000 Site and watch the video there of the second large section being rolled out and mated up to the first at the bottom of the picturesb.

The second vessel is to cost $2.5 billion, and the third near $2 billion.

Originally both the 1st and second vessel were estimated to come in at 3.5 billion each which would have made the 7 billion.

In my US MILITARY BUILDUP PROPOSAL. I propose that with a strong economic turnaround, we should go ahead and build eight of these.

73 posted on 05/22/2012 11:06:36 AM PDT by Jeff Head (Freedom is not free, never has been, never will be (www.dragonsfuryseries.com))
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