Posted on 12/06/2017 7:30:02 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
The future USS Michael Monsoor, set to become the U.S. Navy’s second stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyer, is underway for the first time for sea trials. The milestone comes as the service continues to reformulate the role of the ships, now saying they will be focused on attacking surface targets at sea, as well as on land, while the vessels' future seems as uncertain as ever in the face of continuing budget shortfalls and personnel problems.
The second Zumwalt-class ship, also known as DDG-1001, sailed down the Kennebec River in Maine, on its way to the Altantic Ocean from Bath Iron Works (BIW) shipyards, giving journalists and others on the shoreline ample opportunity to grab a peek and take photos of one America’s most advanced warships. The Navy expects to commission the USS Michael Monsoor in 2018. BIW laid down the hull of the third and final ship in the class, the future USS Lyndon B. Johnson, in January 2017.
“Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) is currently on Builders Trials, testing the hull, mechanical and engineering components of the ship,” Bath Iron Works said in a statement, according to the Portland Press Herald. “While all these systems are tested pier-side, there is no substitute for the real world testing taking place in the Gulf of Maine.”
Getting the second stealthy ship out to sea is an important achievement for both the Navy and BIW. The Zumwalt-class has been controversial to say the least and is the end result of a meandering set of often changing requirements and proposed ship concepts dating back to the 1990s.
The class was originally supposed to consist of 32 ships in total and has shrunk to a planned purchase of just three, with each one having a price tag of $4 billion. That’s not counting another $10 billion in research and development costs, either.
At the same time, though, the Navy has steadily hacked away at various requirements, stripping planned systems from the design, in no small part to try and control any further cost overruns and delays. Close-in protection, ballistic and air defense capabilities, and various other associated systems are no longer part of the base design, something The War Zone’s own Tyler Rogoway explained in detail in a past feature, leaving it with limited utility despite its size and cost.
In September 2016, he wrote:
“The various omissions in the Zumwalt’s capability have resulted in a ship that is focused on chucking cruise missiles and sending GPS guided cannon shells dozens of miles inland. But if the Navy wants a stealth Tomahawk chucker, guess what? They already have four of them with far more vertical launch cells than the DDG-1000 has. These are the converted Ohio class nuclear-powered guided missile submarines (SSGNs). In the coming years, Virginia class nuclear fast attack submarines with extended payload modules will take up this role as the four converted Ohio class SSGNs are retired.
“Minus its 155mm guns, has the stripped-down, anti-air mission-less Zumwalt become a far more vulnerable above-water guided missile submarine? A stealthy anti-submarine, special operations, and land attack arsenal ship? If so, why not build more submarines instead? They would be far more survivable and can stay on station much longer than the Zumwalt.”
To add insult to injury, in November 2016, the Navy admitted it had cancelled plans to buy the specialized and exorbitantly expensive Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), each of which would have cost some $800,000, for the Zumwalt’s main guns without an immediate replacement shell in the works. This effectively left one of the ship's key weapons as dead weight. There ships will also receive various additional systems in the form of add-on packages attached to the deckhouse and elsewhere, which can only impact the ship’s finely tuned, complex, and expensive stealth shape in a negative manner.
The Portland Press Herald reported that, while she is officially in service, Zumwalt is still in the process of receiving unspecified weapons and critical mission systems at her homeport of San Diego. Now, struggling to find a job for the ships, the Navy says it wants to turn them effectively into floating arsenal ships full of stand-off weapons to strike at targets ashore and at sea.
JOEL PAGE/PORTLAND PRESS HERALD VIA AP
The future USS Michael Monsoor sits at Bath Iron Works in Maine during her christening ceremony in 2016.
On Dec. 4, 2017, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Ron Boxall, the service’s director for surface warfare, told USNI News that officials were rethinking the Zumwalt-class’ requirements in light of experiences with the much maligned Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the new Guided Missile Frigate Replacement Program, or FFG(X). The stories definitely having some similarities, with the Navy struggling to improve the capabilities of the chronically under-performing LCS ships, before deciding to curtail its purchases and pursue a new design, which you can read about in more detail here.
“Let’s get this same type of team together and take DDG-1000, which has some of the most advanced capabilities of any ship we’ve ever produced, and at the same time look at some of the challenges we’ve had,” Boxall explained. “So looking at where we go with that [155mm] gun, how we can take advantage of what that ship is good at, and come up with a new set of requirements.”
“Obviously, a lot of those are classified, but the good news is that we’re going to look at focusing that ship more on offensive surface strike,” he continued. “And so this ship was already designed to do some of that mission, but we were focused on the very clear requirement we wrote for this ship in 1995, and the world has changed quite a bit since then. And so we’re modifying the missions and where we are with it.”
It’s not necessarily a bad idea, at least in principle. As we at The War Zone highlight routinely, developments in various, so-called “anti-access/area denial” systems, such as supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship missiles and progressively longer range integrated air defenses, pose an increasing threat to surface ships and any aircraft they might be carrying on board.
But more realistically, this is just the cheapest and easiest way to find an useful operational niche for the ships to fill. Focusing the stealth destroyers on this particular mission set is almost just a matter of filling the ships’ vertical launch system cells with a mix of land-attack and future over-the-horizon anti-ship cruise missiles, and maybe even finding usable ammunition of some sort for its main guns, but that isn't really even a show stopper.
The Navy may not even have to split the Zumwalt's 80 vertical launch system cells between two types of weapons as it proceeds with development of new versions of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) that have an anti-ship capability. At present, the cells are partially dedicated to highly localized air defense, stuffed with quad-packed RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles. Those weapons could also offer a limited close-in defense against small swarming ships, as well.
The guns would present a different challenge. Even with the now cancelled LRLAP round, which featured a combination of GPS and inertial navigation as the guidance method, these weapons would have have been mainly useful against static targets, not mobile ships on the high seas. Using existing Army guided artillery rounds, such as Excalibur, would have run into the same problem, but the range of each shell would suffer badly compared to the LRLAP.
The Navy is working on a shell that can hit moving targets and do so in the increasingly likely event that an enemy is jamming GPS signals, but this ammunition is still in the research and development phase and it would require a forward deployed "third party{ asset to laser-designate the target. Work on an advanced electromagnetic railgun, which was one possible eventual replacement for the Zumwalt’s 155mm guns, but it is still similarly not in a state where an operational weapon is viable.
In high-threat scenarios, these newly refocused Zumwalts would be best suited to operating ahead of a larger force, making use of networked data links for stand-off targeting information, but still under the outer edge of an air defense umbrella provided by other assets, such as the Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. They will undoubtedly leverage the Navy's expanding Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air, or NFIC-CA, for this surface strike role, something that it is almost certainly planning to do already.
This ambitious networking plan focuses on providing common data links between ships, aircraft, drones, and any other relevant asset to rapidly pass targeting information back and forth seamlessly. With the system in place, a Zumwalt could potentially launch cruise missiles at land or naval targets at maximum standoff range and in its maximum stealth mode, using data from various external sources, life stealth aircraft and satellites.
It could also pass control off of its launches cruise missiles to other assets operating nearer to the target area if necessary. With their own limited close-in defenses and degraded low observable design, the Zumwalts may still not be able to get close enough to take out more heavily defended targets ashore, though, including long-range radar sites.
But there's a real question about whether or not giving the three-ship Zumwalt-class this operational mission makes practical sense or not. Making the stealth destroyers the service's premier means of striking at enemy surface vessels, as well as land targets, in denied areas ahead of a major naval task for might give the ships something to do, but there would be few of them to go around in an actual contingency or during normal patrols. Also, this role is better served by submarines, both guided missile SSGN and fast attack SSN types, although the Zumwalts bring some networking and flexibility advantages to the fray. But are these small advantages enough to justify this limited role for the $22B class?
The fact that the service will stick the stealthy ships into Zumwalt Squadron One, rather than a unit that describes its function, such as a destroyer squadron, is another possible hint that it might still not know exactly what it wants to do with the ships.
On top of that, the costs to deploy and operate the unique ships could be significant separate from any other considerations. The Navy would have to weigh those costs against a number of other, more pressing priorities, including just making sure the surface force can meet its most basic operational obligations. A string of embarrassing and deadly accidents earlier 2017 has exposed serious, systemic issues that will take years to correct, even with appropriate funding, stable budgets, and clear vision.
In September 2017, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer and U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson made a shocking public disclosure during a hearing before Senate Armed Services Committee that the service was only able to meet 40 percent of the total demand for surface warships at any one time. The next month, details emerged about a worrying maintenance backlog that was keeping attack submarines pierside for months on end – more than two years in the case of the Los Angeles-class USS Boise – in some cases just waiting for routine work to begin.
The sorry state of the Navy's organic shipyards and subsequent increasing strain on private contractors only compounded these issues. In April 2016, the service had to inject $450 million into the Zumwalt program itself because of concerns about BIW's performance and capacity.
Even if the Navy does deploy the Zumwalts primily in the surface strike capacity, it might not be for long as costs mount to operate the specialized stealth ships in this fairly limited role. It is still entirely possible that the Navy will see these challenges and ultimately decide to turn the Zumwalt’s into special projects and research and development vessels, just as it has done with its three Seawolf-class submarines. Or even worse they will turn into testing ships, with the small and highly unique fleet slowly cannibalizing itself to keep one hull operational. In the meantime this mission shift seems like an attempt to forestall this from happening, at least for the time being. Without the will to invest in the ships to make them what they were once intended to be, this at least gives them a notional purpose for the time being.
What's most frustrating it that it's impossible that the Navy wasn't aware of these issues and this type of potential outcome as it rabidly stripped missions and capabilities from the the class during its development cycle, keeping the program roughly on track, but making it increasingly less relevant in the process. It was a conscious and avoidable decision as we have highlighted in great detail before, and now we will have to wait and see if these ships can win what will be a bloody fiscal battle to keep them in play.
I love your photoshop work and think that it is a big improvement.
If I would have read more of the article before commenting... I would have seen that every objection that I had was already included in the article in greater detail. Your points in previous posts are very valid as well. Occasionally something that looks like a duck and quacks like a duck or looks like a huge waste of taxpayer money actually ends up having redeeming qualities at some point.
Let's look at a quote from the military.com article...
"There are 419 things that we have yet to decide with the war fighters how we're going to fix them, whether we're going to fix them and when we're going to fix them," he said. The figure was three times higher a few years ago and "we think the technical debt that we have -- the deficiencies that we have -- are things that we can handle … within the next two years," he said.My emphasis. And BTW, it's been almost two years since the article was written. Note that the total was "three times higher a few years ago".
Time to read some current articles if you're going to opine.
Time to swallow some more Pentagon propaganda
LOL, I admit to being somewhat skeptical about the utility of the Zumwalt class (I didn’t have much respect for Zumwalt, and the ship is a real challenge for me) but I do know that a lot of money is expended on ship designs to include things like chaff dispensers, radar countermeasures, etc. which all serve to obscure or diminish the target cross section, and all of which may or may not work given the deployment circumstances or changes in technology.
If it is true that they can reduce the RCS small enough that a missile with terminal radar-based homing may have difficulty locking on...maybe it is worth a shot to see at a large scale.
Maybe...
According to the Pentagon, nearly 200 F-35’s will never be combat coded because the software can not be updated.
I will grant him his credit. My error.
Granted, I couldn’t read one link because it requires membership, and I cannot ever regard anything Popular Mechanics prints as fact worthy any more, but the gist I got is that we are building planes to one specification, the build is changing as the time line moves forward, and everyone involved accepts that with the understanding that at some point in the future, the earlier models will be upgraded to meet the specs of the later models?
And the main concern is that the money is never going to be available?
I ask that, because in reading the article, it did not say they COULD NOT be brought up to spec at some point to the current specs as they are being built now because it was a physical impossibility, but because additional funds would need to be spent to make it possible.
Did I read that correctly?
If so, it is interesting, because this is exactly what we did with the B-29’s in WWII. With the B-29, they recognized immediately that with all the changes taking place constantly on the assembly line because the design was so incredibly advanced for the time, that if they waited until everything was set, they would never get the plane in the air dropping bombs over Japan.
So they essentially made the same compromise, and figured out ways to retrofit them, at intermediate way stations as they they were being delivered, or ultimately, even on the runways in the Pacific. So many of them were flown that were inferior (often in dangerous ways) to those coming off the assembly line at a later time (think measures to prevent the engine fires).
If the fear is that no money will EVER be made available, I wouldn’t hang my hat on that.
Really? The article you linked says:
Hundreds of F-35s may now never be made combat-ready due to budget constraints
It's worth discussing whether limited rate production during development is a good idea, but those 200 F-35s could give upgraded given enough money. The question is, is it worth it?
They can still be used for training and spare parts...the total buy here in the US is supposed to be over 2400 F-35s.
I assure you that I am not offended by your comment because I think I understand where you are coming from. But we personally do know a member of the Zumwalt family. We care about her and respect her greatly. We last saw her a month ago at a Veterans Day event put on by one of our local VFWs. The Zumwalts are unquestionably a great and patriotic family. I will not go into detail, but ironically the ship seems to have some parallels with some of the family members which probably only those who are acquainted with them would recognize.
Recently in the news; The five-day drills that began Monday involve more than 200 aircraft, including six U.S. F-22 and 18 F-35 stealth fighters. I guess they are ready for combat now.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-flies-1b-south-show-force-korea-51606409
I don’t have any knowledge what the Admiral was like personally at the time he was making all his changes (acknowledged it was a difficult time) since I was a young teenager, but my dad and his associates were career military and I read the magazines avidly (Proceedings, etc) and they did not (overall) appreciate the direction he took the Navy in or how he did it. (I note that my father was very close-mouthed about these things, or just about anything, but the conversations that took place in his presence were NOT...)
I definitely took my cues from my dad and his associates, and later when I joined, from the lifers there before me.
I should reexamine my stance on him. It is like an opinion made under glass, when one is a child without any context or real world experience.
Those few years he was CNO were among the most difficult faced by our Navy, and I do have to respect a man who rose to that position at such a young age (he didn’t appear to be a total political animal). In thinking of it now, I wonder how much the resistance to his policies were based on that alone.
Those are handsome vessels.
THAT is a Greyhound.
My dad was XO on the USS Bristol (DD 857) during the Cuban Missile Crisis...I have always loved that class of destroyer. They seemed very well designed.
Sigh. That segment of US history and warfighting is virtually unknown to 99.9% of Americans today.
It was brilliant and heroic warfighting in the face of hopeless odds, in a situation on a grand scale, rife with human error, emotion, anger, fear, and joy.
I often wished, with the CGI available today, that they could make a great movie about the Battle of Leyte Gulf in its entirety.
I guess they are too busy making movies about fake superheroes to recognize the real ones that have walked the earth.
Build subs with lots of cruise missiles.
We have no personal knowledge of what the Admiral was like either other than what he wrote and what others have written about him. We have never discussed this with the family member we know. We do know that the Zumwalt family has had members serve in every American War since the Revolutionary War.
The Admiral's surviving son, Lt. Col. (Ret.) James G. Zumwalt has written several good books and many articles on foreign affairs. My favorite quote from him is, “Iranian Nuke Site Like Barack Obama’s Original Birth Certificate – All Inspection Efforts Rejected”.
It is always a good idea to reexamine their long held opinions every once in a while. We were blindsided by the actions of the Bush's and others over the past couple of years. We thought we knew something about their beliefs and character. But then there are other historical figures who we have had low opinions of who turn out to be much better than we originally gave them credit for. It might be the same with the Zumwalt class “destroyers”.
I do apologize for taking the conversation off track.
It’s ALL on track here on FR! And...valuable to me...so thank you.
the Israeli assessment at IOC:
“”It’s all concentrated on one table for us. As we all know, the F-35 can reach places in a way that others can’t. But in addition, it integrates high-level operational capabilities as well as the ability to read and analyze a battle map. The earlier, fourth-generation jets are excellent at maneuvering and activating sophisticated weapons systems, but they are not able to collect intelligence and independently analyze battle movement. The F-35 can do all this by itself in real time, with only one pilot sitting in the cockpit. We have never had such an operational capability until today. Until now, attack aircraft were operated independently of air support aircraft. The former waited to receive analysis of the battle picture that came from the latter. But in the F-35, everything is on the same platform, and this is no less than amazing. When you connect that to several aircraft, you receive strategic capability for the State of Israel.”
This platform was designed as a strike aircraft. And it is superior to any in its class.
Its sensors and fusion technology exceeds that of the F-22, and when flying together the F-22 will leverage the F-35’s view of the battle space.
When flying alone as a fighter it will detect hostile aircraft and launch against them before the bad guy even knows he is there.
But its forte is deep interdiction and strike.
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